Environmental impact of Gifts In Kind

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

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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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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

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Leg

Tonnes CO2

SUV

UPS

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4

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g CO2 / (km-tonne)

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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

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0.5

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Leg

Tonnes CO2

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Leg 2

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Leg 4

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Leg

g CO2 / (km - tonne)

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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

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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

Environmental impact of Gifts In Kind

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