Implementing city-level carbon accounting: A comparison between Madrid and London

Abstract

A change of focus from the current production-based Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions inventory to an integrated production-consumption carbon accounting system would improve the quality of city-level inventories. London is one of the few cities in the world which has reported its GHG emission inventory using Consumption-Based (CB) methodologies. Although Madrid has adopted the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) to report their GHG emissions, the city has never officially reported its GHG inventory using CB methodologies. Thus, the goal of this study is to analyze the challenges that must be faced by the production-based GHG emission inventory of Madrid in order to estimate GHG emissions from their supply chains and final consumers using the London's GHG emissions inventory experience. From the comparison between the 2010 GHG emission inventories of Madrid and London some challenges could emerge that Madrid's decision-makers might need to face regarding urban carbon accounting practices. As results, this paper shows that if GHG emissions from urban supply chains and final consumers are considered, the total GHG emissions reported by the Madrid inventory could double. This increase is similar to what London experienced when comparing production-based and integrated production-consumption GHG inventories. Besides, some difficulties related to lack of information were found when estimating GHG emissions associated with those goods and services consumed in Madrid. It would be useful to develop a full CB inventory using environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) matrices, more city-level primary data, and local cradleto-grave factors, following the methodology applied by the London inventory. These actions would allow a more accurate calculation of urban supply chains and final consumer GHG emissions in Madrid. Finally, further research is recommended in order to improve the current knowledge about the contributions of the energy, transport and waste sectors to GHG emissions in both, Madrid and London.

Integrating lifecycle assessment and urban metabolism at city level: Comparison between Spanish cities

“…Thus, the environmental impacts associated with flows to household‐related activities are identified as to whether they originate inside or outside the city. This perspective has also been adopted in previous studies (Andrade et al., ; Clift, Druckman, Christie, Kennedy, & Keirstead, ; Dias et al., ). According to Dias et al.…”

“…Thus, the environmental impacts associated with flows to household-related activities are identified as to whether they originate inside or outside the city. This perspective has also been adopted in previous studies (Andrade et al, 2018;Clift, Druckman, Christie, Kennedy, & Keirstead, 2015;Dias et al, 2018). According to Dias et al (2018), this approach is used by urban sustainability practitioners to evaluate decision-making strategies and to educate a city's residents about sustainable lifestyles.…”

“…In addition, the results of a previous abbreviated study of 26 Spanish cities (González-García et al, 2018a) were taken into consideration, since Bilbao and Seville were also evaluated in this work. Average values for Spanish and European metropolitan areas have also been identified in the literature (Andrade et al, 2018;González-García et al, 2018a;Rosado et al, 2014). To complete our comparative analysis, published results for the carbon footprint of other cities all over the world, such as Toronto (Codoban & Kennedy, 2008;Goldstein et al, 2013), Beijing, Cape Town, and…”

“…The assessment performed at the city scale uses a community-based approach, that is, the estimated impacts are associated with the goods (resources, energy) consumed and the waste produced by the entire communities of both cities (Andrade, Dameno, Pérez, Almeida, & Lumbreras, 2018;Ramaswami et al, 2012). An approach based on consumption by citizens is used in the case of food and beverage requirements (Ramaswami et al, 2017).…”

Review on City-Level Carbon Accounting

“…Many studies have compared TE, CBF and CIF using pure-geographic PB, CB and CIF as well as standards from different perspectives. Andrade, et al (25) discussed the city GHG inventory from a production and consumption perspective under the frameworks of GPC and PAS 2070. However, several issues have not been discussed.…”