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Climate and Carbon Footprint

Following the Paris Agreement, the commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C was renewed at the subsequent world climate conferences in Glasgow (COP26) and Dubai (COP28). Climate protection as a strategic challenge is increasingly becoming the focus of political action.

Why Carbon Footprints

The consequences of climate change are already devastating, as the current 6th Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) shows. Consequently, a rapid transformation of industry is necessary in order to reduce global warming to a tolerable level.

What are Carbon Footprints?

Carbon footprints are CO₂ footprints or greenhouse gas (GHG) / CO₂e balances, either of a company (corporate carbon footprint) or a product (product carbon footprint). They are an important and accepted approach for making the actual state of a company's environmental commitment and climate targets transparent for customers and employees.

Why should you have CO2e or GHG balances verified?

External verification of the GHG balance safeguards your reporting, improves your reputation and serves as proof of the credibility of your climate management.

In addition, a detailed check of the completeness and methodology used to determine the data provides you with a reliable basis for identifying your actual greenhouse gas sources (GHG sources).

Balancing and verifying the carbon footprint

Several internationally recognised standards provide a basis for calculating and balancing greenhouse gases. With these uniform standards, emissions calculations can be compared and, above all, verified.

One path leads to different goals: You decide in which framework you want to balance and then be verified! In addition to the verification of your carbon footprint according to ISO 14064-1 or the GHG Protocol (Corporate Standard) or your product carbon footprint prepared in accordance with ISO 14067 or GHG Protocol (Product Standard), we also offer the verification of calculation and accounting tools for both systems. We are happy to subject the calculation methodology used and the emission factors to a stress test for conformity with the various requirements of the norms and standards.

In 2013, GUTcert was one of the first test centres to be accredited by the German Accreditation Body (DAkkS) for the verification of the corporate carbon footprint in accordance with ISO 14064-3. Since 2024, we have also been accredited by the DAkkS for the verification of the product carbon footprint.

Carbon Neutrality

Are you working on becoming carbon neutral? We also offer a verification service for this. With the publication of ISO 14068-1 in November 2023 (Carbon Neutrality), we offer verification in accordance with the new standard. Have we piqued your interest? Please feel free to contact us!

Our DAkkS-accredited verification system incorporates all globally applicable accreditation rules. This guarantees the international recognition of your verification. You also benefit from the following advantages:

In a GUTcert audit, you receive valuable input beyond the mere confirmation of conformity, because our auditors have great expertise in their field and comprehensive industry knowledge.
The solid audit quality of GUTcert ensures that you receive meaningful and comparable footprints that are "resilient" at all times.
We uncover your savings potential and help you to reduce your footprint and costs.
Do you operate globally? So do we: Together with our parent company, the AFNOR Group, we can carry out major international projects in a centralised manner with over 1,800 auditors worldwide.
Non-accredited certificates should be scrutinised very critically!

You can count on the experience of GUTcert!

GUTcert is one of the pioneers in the carbon footprint market and has many years of experience in the verification of greenhouse gas and life cycle assessments (LCA). Internationally recognised standards such as ISO 14064-1, ISO 14040, ISO 14044, Greenhouse Gas Protocol or the guidelines of emissions trading serve as the basis for this.

Customised offer

First of all, an exchange takes place between GUTcert and your company, in which information on the number of sites, the activities carried out there, the GHG sources to be considered and a rough overview of the emissions from the scopes are exchanged in order to prepare a customised offer for your company.

Audit preparation

In preparation for the actual audit, the audit procedure, any additional dates and the required documents are agreed. GUTcert prepares the documents for the strategy and risk analysis in advance. An audit plan is sent to you at the end of this phase.

On-site audit

During the on-site audit, your calculation methodology, the greenhouse gas report, uncertainties and emission factors are checked for plausibility and a technical site inspection is carried out.

Report and certificate

In the final step, you will receive an audit report summarising the findings and recommendations from the on-site audit. A certificate is issued and, if necessary, further test marks for public communication are issued for your company.

We calculate the cost of verifying your carbon footprint individually depending on the size and complexity of the company, the number of production sites and the complexity of the product, the data procurement effort and the product portfolio.

Check which requirements already exist for integrating your climate reporting into an existing system, e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001 or EMAS: Much of the required data may already have been collected as part of an energy management system. We have created a guide to integrating your energy management system, for example, which you can download here.