Environmental impact of Gifts In Kind Tom Keffer, Phd Senior Advisor, Mercy Corps This presentation available at

Environmental impact ofGifts In Kind

Tom Keffer, PhdSenior Advisor, Mercy Corps

This presentation available at http://www.threefools.org/projects/gik

http://www.threefools.org/projects/gik

http://www.threefools.org/projects/gik

Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 2

Approach

• Bounding the problem

• Assumptions

• Six different case studies– Two in detail

• Conclusions

• Lessons Learned


Bounding the problem

• Impacts we could consider– Energy impact

– CO2 emissions

– End-of-life issues– Packaging


Operation Boundaries

• Direct emissions– Emissions from sources that are owned or

controlled by the agency / company

• Electricity indirect– Emissions from the generation of electricity

consumed by the agency / company

• Other indirect– Emissions done on behalf of the agency /

company

Guidelines from The Greenhouse Gas Protocol by the World Resources Institute

http://www.ghgprotocol.org/



Assumptions

CO2 emissions

g CO2-e/(tonne – km)

Equiv Efficiency

(tonne – km) / L

Ship (1) 14 192.9

Rail (1) 26 102.3

Truck (long-haul) (*) 63 42.9

Truck (short-haul) (2) 70 38.3

Truck (India) (3) 148 18.2

Pickup 635 4.3

Air (long-haul)(1) 570 4.4

(1) DEFRA Guidelines for reporting GHG emissions

(2) Faiz, et al.: Mercedes 1217 (7 tonne)

(3) Faiz, et al.: Tata 1201 (5 tonne) (*) See appendix


Case study #1

• One 40’ container, 16,898 kg (~37,000 lbs)

• Hygiene & School kits• Baltimore, MD to

Cobán, Guatemala, where it was then distributed by Mercy Corps


Case #1: Route

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4


Case #1, cont’d

• Leg 1: Baltimore to Port Everglades (~1,600 km)– Truck

• Freight class 60• Cost: ~$1,700• CO2: 1.8 tonnes (6 mpg, 16 T load)

– Rail• <5600 ft³ capacity (very small for rail)• Cost ~$3,300• CO2: 0.7 tonnes


Case #1, cont’d

• Leg 2: Port Everglades to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala (1,600 km)– Ship

• CO2 0.4 tonnes

• Leg 3: Puerto Barrios to Cobán (320 km)– Truck

• CO2: 0.8 tonnes

• Leg 4: Cobán to local schools– Pickup Truck

• Alta Verapaz Department is 8686 km2

• Assume average trucking distance 50 km one way• CO2: 1.1 tonnes


Case #1: summary

0

0.2

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0.8

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1.4

1.6

1.8

Leg

Tonnes CO2

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4

0

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200

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700

Leg

g CO2 / (km - tonne)

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4


But,…

• The materials were purchased from retail stores throughout the USA, then shipped to the warehouse in MD!

• Assumptions– Each kit weighs about 1kg– One trip to the store per 25 kits– 680 trips


But, … cont’d

• Collection– 680 trips @ 25 mpg each– 20 km RT each– 326 gallons of gas

– 2.8 tonnes of CO2

• Shipment– 680 packages 1,000 km each

– ~1.4 tonnes of CO2


Now look at our graph…

0

0.5

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3

Leg

Tonnes CO2

SUV

UPS

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4

0

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g CO2 / (km-tonne)

SUV

UPS

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Case #1: summary

• Dominated by aggregation and delivery to Maryland

Leg SUV 2.8 T 34%

Leg UPS 1.4 T 17%

Leg 1 1.7 T 21%

Leg 2 0.4 T 5%

Leg 3 0.8 T 10%

Leg 4 1.1 T 13%

Total 8.2 T 100%


Case study #2

• 95 boxes of condoms• 1,002 kg• Donation of surplus

product– Would have been

destroyed


Case #2: route

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4


Case #2: route• Leg 1

– Trucked from Eufaula, Alabama to Toronto, Canada– 1,800 km– 0.11 T CO2

• Leg 2– Air shipped Toronto to London– 5,800 km– 3.3 T CO2

• Leg 3– London to Nairobi– 6,800 km– 3.9 T CO2

• Leg 4– Trucked from Nairobi to IDP camp in Nakuru– 160 km– 0.02 T CO2


Case 2: summary

0

0.5

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1.5

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4

Leg

Tonnes CO2

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4

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Leg

g CO2 / (km - tonne)

Leg 1

Leg 2

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Case #2: summary

• Nearly as much CO2 (7.3 Tonnes) as Case #1 (8.2 Tonnes) despite weighing 5% as much– (although the shipment did go 4 times farther)


All cases

Project Ref # Product Shipping Cost Volume & Weight CO2 emissions

08-001 (MC 364)Guatemala

Hygiene & School Kits

$3,280(Local collection, long-haul truck and ocean freight)

1 x 40’ container 16,898 KG

8.2 T

08-039 (MC 477)Kenya

Male latex condoms $4,560(Long-haul truck and air freight)

95 boxes:18 ¼” x 11 ¾” x 15”1,002 KG

7.3 T

08-021(MC 156)Nepal

Nike apparel, footwear & equipment

$4,719(Ocean freight)

1 x 20’ container10,206 KG 2.3 T

08-003(MC 316, 387)Mongolia

Refurbished computers

$3,901(Ocean freight, rail, “India” truck)


08-043(MC 499)Iraq

Pharmaceuticals Freight donated – value unclear(air freight)

72 cartons950 KG 2.4 T

08-061(MC 454)Liberia

Recycled latex paint & new paint brushes

$7,460(Rail, ocean freight, “India” truck)



Cost vs CO2 emissions

y = 0.6421x + 1.0697

R2 = 0.4786

0

1

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0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Cost (thousands of collars)

To

nn

es o

f C

O2

Assumes $3/gal gas + $10/UPS

shipment


Computers: recycle or destroy?

• Energy– One desktop computer requires 240 kg of fossil fuels

(about 0.74 T CO2, if it all went in the atmosphere)– Four times what it will use in its lifetime

• Lead - Older monitors can contain 4-8 lbs.• Mercury - Flat panel displays, wiring boards• PVCs – about 14 lbs in an average computer

– Dioxin formed if it is burned• Barium

– Used on the front panel of a CRT• Conclusion:

– Way better to recycle and ship to Mongolia than buy a new one!


Condoms: recycle or destroy?• Made from natural

latex– Nearly a sink of CO2

– Natural: 1.78 kg CO2-E / kg

• Perspective:– 2.5 T of fuel was used

to move 1 T of condoms to Kenya that took 1.8 T of CO2 to produce

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Latex_dripping.JPG

Lessons learned


Lessons learned - 1

• Air shipment trumps everything• “Last mile” problem

– Energy and CO2 budget for shipping can be dominated by pickup and delivery logistics

• Long haul hardly matters if done by ship or rail

– Done by inefficient transport modes• Pickups and “India” trucks

– “Spoke” problem• Shipments broken up into smaller, less efficient, packaging

• Net energy savings only for energy-intensive products


Lessons learned - 2

• Price is a reasonable metric of the environmental cost of shipping– About 0.6 tonnes of CO2 / $1k

– But, gets distorted• Well intentioned donations• Pricing set at the margin• Media needs

• Early ownership of GIK helps– But, limits opportunity to mix and match


Organization boundaries redux

• Are we responsible for emissions done on our behalf by transportation sectors?– What about situations with “zero marginal CO2

cost?

• Case study: IKEA– 66% of emissions are from customer travel!– Influenced store location decisions, home

delivery options

• Double counting possible

Appendices


Resources• Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative http://www.ghgprotocol.org. In particular,

their Corporate Accounting And Reporting Standard: http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghg-protocol-revised.pdf.

• Red, White and “Green”: the Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP09.pdf

• DEFRA Guidelines for Company Reporting on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Annexes updated July 2005 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/envrpgas-annexes.pdf



http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghg-protocol-revised.pdf

http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP09.pdf

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/envrpgas-annexes.pdf

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/envrpgas-annexes.pdf


Truck efficiency

• Long-haul semi in the US gets 6-8 mpg

• Carry 20-40 tonnes

• Works out to 20-53 gCO2/(km-tonne)

• I used 63 (light loads, dead heading)


CO2 vs. Carbon

• Most emissions in the literature are quoted in metric tonnes of CO2-equiv (t CO2-eq)

– Other GHGs converted to equivalents of CO2

– Metric tonnes– This has been the trend

• A few quotes are in metric tonnes of carbon equivalents– Useful in calculations involving carbon cycles

– Multiply by 3.67 to convert to t CO2-eq

Documents

Environmental impact of Gifts In Kind Tom Keffer, Phd Senior Advisor, Mercy Corps This presentation available at