It is no surprise that more fleets around the world are implementing new policies and initiatives targeted at increasing overall sustainability. Many of these strategies include introducing new technologies, vehicles and fuel types that align better with each fleet’s goals.

One of the most common goals across the board is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This can happen by way of idle reduction, switching to more eco-friendly fuels, replacing ICEVs or other sustainability strategies. Most fleets will find that some tactics work better for them than others, so there is truly no one-size-fits-all solution.

Regardless, a fleet manager will want an accurate understanding of their organization’s emissions profile to know where they stand.

What is an emissions profile?

An emissions profile details a fleet or organization’s total carbon emissions within a certain period of time. This profile includes emissions from activities ranging from energy generation, fuel consumption and other daily operations. It is broken down into three levels, or scopes.

Scope 1 measures emissions produced from direct activities, such as fuel consumption by an ICEV fleet. Next, scope 2 emissions result from secondary activities, such as facility climate control and electricity consumption (which will increase with fleet electrification). The third and final scope accounts for any other emissions produced from indirect sources. This can include supply chain, sourcing of raw materials, distribution of goods and much more.

As you can imagine, the process for measuring the emissions produced by primary, secondary and tertiary activities can be a bit tedious and unclear. Each individual activity can have its own distinct process for accounting for emissions. For fleet GHG reporting at scope 1, for example, you must take into consideration the types of fuels being consumed, the exact amount of consumed, types and amount of vehicles in operation and the conditions of these vehicles.

Dozens of other factors and considerations can affect emissions output for each fleet. For example, all-electric fleets might see drastic decreases in scope 1 emissions, but a major increase in scope 2. In this case, and others, understanding the profile as a whole is critical.

How are emissions profiles used?

Depending on the type and size of organization, reporting on fleet emissions could be legally mandated or voluntarily shared for transparency. For many government entities, such as municipal fleets, sharing quarterly or yearly fleet emissions is mandatory.

For other large corporations it could be externally mandated or a matter of personal ethics. The US Environmental Protection Agency requires nearly 8,000 of the country’s top GHG contributors to report annually on their emissions. These organizations make up nearly 90 percent of the greenhouse gases in the US, so closely monitoring change is very important.

Even if sharing your GHG contributions is not required, an accurate emissions profile is still necessary for any fleet committing to internal sustainability initiatives. They help organizations to understand and take accountability for their contributions, work as starting point for future improvement and function as a guide for vehicle replacement. The uses for an emissions profile can be multifaceted, as long as the report is backed by detailed, accurate data.

If you’re interested in learning how Business Intelligence can help with your fleet’s sustainability initiatives, schedule a demo with a member of our analytics team today.