“Are required to establish a balance sheet of their greenhouse gas emissions [Beges] legal persons governed by private law employing more than 500 people “, but also those exceeding 250 people overseas, public services beyond 250 employees, and communities of more than 50,000 inhabitants. The so-called “Grenelle 2” law, promulgated on July 13, 2010, requires these reports, known as “Beges”, to be submitted every three or four years to the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe). This puts online a free public database of emission factors, called “Carbon base”. Unlike the new digital law passed in December 2021, this carbon accounting does not distinguish specifically digital activities and is not annual.
To date, 3,876 Beges are available on the site Bilans-ges.ademe.fr. They relate to the three “scopes” that are the greenhouse gas emissions perimeters of a company or an organization: direct emissions of the entity (scope 1), indirect emissions downstream of the entity (scope 2) and indirect emissions upstream of the entity (scope 3). “Emissions linked to the energy consumption of servers, for example, are found in scopes 1 and 2. The acquisition of computers or the subscription to Internet subscriptions are in scope 3”, explains Renaud Bettin, director of climate action at Sweep. This start-up helps large companies, such as Orange, to reduce their footprint thanks to a database of 15,000 carbon emission factors, accessible from 850 euros per month. The young growth Greenly, which works with companies like Blablacar, offers the same type of services from 500 euros per year. These catalogs of “impact factors” have often been compiled from public and free databases (such as the Ademe carbon database in France, that of the Department for the Environment in the United Kingdom. or Ecoinvent in Switzerland).
A base accessible to the general public
The latest of these carbon benchmarks: NegaOctet, a consortium this time intended to quantify the environmental impact of 15,000 digital products and services (from smartphones to boxes, including streaming, and even software ecodesign ) through ten indicators, such as the use of rare metals in manufacturing. Mandated and funded by Ademe, NegaOctet charges for access to its data: “The annual license starts at 5,000 euros for very small businesses. The cost is then differentiated according to whether it is for internal use, for own needs, or for customers, for digital advice. For a large company, the license is 50,000 euros ”, details Julie Delmas-Orgelet, founder of the environmental consulting firm DDemain, one of the four companies (with Bureau Veritas, APL and GreenIT) selected to create NegaOctet.
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