Our Client
The Duchy of Cornwall
Using deep expertise to support The Duchy of Cornwall on its complex decarbonization journey
We developed a framework capable of calculating all emissions across the Duchy’s vast and varied estate.
SUMMARY
The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate totalling 135,000 acres across 23 of England’s counties. It has ambitious sustainability targets, and they needed our expertise to help to achieve these.
The Duchy initially contracted Eunomia to review its sustainability report on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as it wanted an external review of the numbers before presenting the figures publicly.
Eunomia reviewed the Duchy’s analysis of part of the Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the estate, whilst developing recommendations for the calculation of additional Scope 3 emissions.
Industry guidance on assessing GHG emissions is not easily applied to an organisation as large and unusual as the Duchy, with such a complex geography and diverse mix of tenants and land owners. The challenge for Eunomia was to provide recommendations that would enable the Duchy to provide a robust footprint working with the realities of data available.
Eunomia’s team of GHG accountancy experts used its extensive expertise to develop a framework capable of calculating all emissions across the Duchy’s estate. Emissions from agricultural activities such as converting food and agricultural wate into compost and biogas, other land uses across the estate, and tenants’ operations.
Given the success of this work, Eunomia was asked to perform enhancements to the Scope 3 analysis as an additional project, to support the Duchy’s growing net zero strategy. The GHG accountancy team also provided guidance on how to improve the emissions measurement process in the future, as part of a standardised methodology.
Eunomia’s work contributed to the Duchy publishing a GHG emissions footprint of its entire estate, which forms a vital component of the Duchy’s sustainability strategy. The reporting method is a key milestone of the Duchy’s Net Zero Carbon Programme – which can now be replicated for organisations with complex estates looking to measure their GHG emissions footprint.
The Duchy approached Eunomia for support on their ambitious sustainability journey. The Duchy was aware of Eunomia’s previous work with the Environment Agency around calculating emissions from a diversity of land uses and its proven experience in this field.
The Duchy initially contracted Eunomia to review its sustainability report on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as it wanted an external review of the numbers before presenting the figures publicly.
Eunomia had to carefully review the Duchy’s emerging analysis of some Scope 3 GHG emissions. Alongside this review, Eunomia was also asked to develop recommendations for calculation of additional Scope 3 emissions across the estate. Based on the success of this project, Eunomia was asked to conduct the full Scope 3 analysis.
Industry guidance on assessing GHG emissions is not easily applied to an organisation as large and unusual as the Duchy, with such a complex geography and diverse mix of tenants and land owners. The challenge for Eunomia was to provide recommendations that would enable the Duchy to provide a robust footprint working with the realities of data available. By drawing on Eunomia’s previous research and work using standards such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol it was possible to develop recommendations that would be appropriate for the more challenging aspects of the estate such as indirect GHG emissions from agricultural activities, other land uses across the estate, and tenants’ operations.
The most complex part of this process involved accounting for anaerobic digesters, which convert food and agricultural waste into compost and biogas. Eunomia used first principles to account for the emissions that would result from the use of biogas, and also the avoided emissions from the counterfactual use of natural gas.
Eunomia had already conducted in-depth research for the Environment Agency, analysing the evidence base around emissions from different land use scenarios that include the reduction of GHG emissions, or sequestering of carbon.
Eunomia’s team of experts in GHG accountancy also had previous experience of working with local authorities to calculate the emissions from cities. The team reviewed the calculations of the Duchy’s sustainability reporting over two months and provided recommendations for enhancements and allocations of emissions within the categories of the GHG Protocol.
Eunomia then assessed the specifics of the Duchy’s estate and operations to develop bespoke recommendations for the calculation of indirect (Scope 3) emissions across the Duchy’s complex and constantly changing estate. The team also provided guidance on how to enhance measurement of direct and indirect emissions in the future, to enable the Duchy to continue to progress their work in this space.
Eunomia’s work supporting this reporting enabled the Duchy to deliver its first full scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG report, a vital step on its ambitious journey to net zero.
The core framework of recommendations that Eunomia developed for the Duchy has since been augmented so it can be easily implemented by any large organisation that needs to measure and understand its true GHG emissions footprint. These recommendations and methods have since been used with entities such as The University of Cambridge and Englefield Estate.