Appendix 4 - Help for boundary determination

What practical advice for delimiting the study boundary?

Assistance in determining the boundary

⏳[WIP] A scoping annex and aid for delimiting boundaries is being drafted. It will be made available in 2024.

The organisation may refer to sectoral work, such as those carried out by ADEME, French professional federations, which provide guidance on determining the boundary.

The General Carbon Plan is also an exploitable resource, which aims to address these practical questions by sharing best practices from the carbon accounting community.

⏳[WIP] A forthcoming resource will be produced and made available in early 2025 to provide a reusable flow-mapping template. Variants of this template for certain major sectors of activity will be proposed as sources of inspiration. These variants present sectoral trends and do not guarantee the exhaustiveness of identified flows, which will remain to be analysed on a case-by-case basis.

Assistance in determining significance

It is accepted that certain sources of indirect GHG emissions, within the operational boundary of an organisation, do not contribute significantly to total indirect emissions. The notion of significance can be useful for setting priorities during accounting, when choosing actions, or for monitoring results.

⏳[WIP] A scoping annex and aid for determining significance thresholds is being drafted. It will be made available in 2024.

🔎 The notion of significance derives from theISO 14064-1 and is taken up within the BEGES-R. It proposes a step-by-step procedure for identifying significant indirect emissions.

For an emission to be considered significant emission, it must meet at least one of the significance criteria :

• Magnitude criterion : Indirect emission categories estimated to be substantial from a quantitative point of view are to be retained. A minimal magnitude threshold to consider is expressed as a percentage. It establishes the minimum proportion of indirect emissions of the operational boundary to be included in the reporting boundary. The magnitude threshold shall not be lower than 80%. Note that the ISO 14064-1 standard designates by materiality criterion the same notion.

• Level of influence and levers for action : the extent to which the organisation can monitor and reduce emissions and removals (for example, energy efficiency, eco-design, customer engagement, terms of reference).

• Strategic importance and vulnerability according to a risk or opportunity approach: concerns indirect emissions or removals that contribute to the organisation's exposure to risks (for example, risks associated with climate change such as financial risks, regulatory risks, supply chain risks, product and customer risks, litigation risks, reputational damage risks) or to its commercial opportunities (new market or new business model, for example).

• Sector-specific guidance : GHG emissions deemed significant for the relevant sector of activity, according to sector-specific guidance.

• Outsourcing : Indirect emissions and removals resulting from outsourced activities that are generally core activities.

• Staff engagement : Indirect emissions likely to motivate employees to reduce their emissions or that foster team spirit around climate change.

In summary, emissions are considered significant if they represent more than 80% of the assessment's emissions (magnitude or importance criterion), if they are directly influenced by the organisation (influence and leverage criterion), if they contribute to exposure to risks and opportunities (strategic importance and vulnerability criterion), if they are deemed significant for the organisation's sector of activity (sectoral guidance criterion), if they result from core activities outsourced by the organisation (subcontracting criterion), and if they are likely to engage employees (staff engagement criterion).

The organisation can rely on several resources to identify its significant indirect emissions:

• Having carried out an initial Bilan Carbone®, or relying on the Bilan Carbone® of a similar organisation (OCCF)

• Refer to sectoral work, such as those carried out by ADEME, French professional federations, or by think tanks like the Shift Project, which provide guidance on determining the boundary. Video example.

• The General Carbon Plan is also an exploitable resource, which aims to address these practical questions in a consensual manner. Sectoral approaches are useful for knowing common emission sources for a given sector.

• The step-by-step procedure for identifying significant indirect emissions of the method of If the Bilan Carbone® is to be used for reporting of the.