June 28, 2023
Since 2014, Vestergaard Company A/S has reported on the company’s greenhouse gas emissions. We base our calculations on the methodology of ‘The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol – A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard,’ a widely recognized and used standard within carbon footprint reporting. The GHG protocol categorizes a company’s greenhouse gas emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 includes direct emissions from activities under our control, such as the consumption of natural gas, fuel oil and transport diesel. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the production of purchased electricity or other energy, e.g., district heating. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions in our value chain, upstream and downstream. Examples are extraction and production of purchased materials, transport of purchased and sold products and use of sold products.
In 2022, Vestergaard Company’s total scope 1 and 2 emissions amounted to 463 tonnes of CO2. This corresponds approximately to the annual CO2 footprint of 62 Danes[1].
With an ambitious goal of reducing our direct emissions (scope 1) by 70% in 2025 compared to the base year 2019, we are already in full swing with various initiatives, as shown in our sustainability report. The result so far is a reduction of our direct emissions of approx. 40% compared to the base year 2019. Part of this reduction is also due to a lower activity level during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company’s scope 2 emissions have also decreased since 2019. This is due to the installation of a 200 kWp solar cell plant in 2021 and a lower activity level during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our scope 2 emissions consist exclusively of the consumption of electricity and with an increased level of activity in the past year and the replacement of several natural gas plants, which have been replaced with, e.g., geothermal energy, our electricity consumption, and thus our scope 2 emissions, have increased from 2021 to 2022. We expect our scope 2 emissions to grow even more when we replace the last natural gas plant and the two oil boilers with other energy means and with an expected increased activity level in the coming years. Therefore, our ambition is that an even larger part of our electricity consumption must be covered by electricity from our solar cells (25-30%). In the coming years, scope 2 is also expected to be included in the company’s CO2 reduction target.
So far, we have reported on our scope 1 and 2 emissions, but in the last year, we have been working on calculating our scope 3 emissions. This is a large and complex task involving the gathering of much data over which we have no control. However, we expect to be able to report on our scope 3 emissions in our sustainability report for 2023/2024.
Our carbon footprint report is currently limited to include greenhouse gas emissions from our activities in Denmark. This is where most of our production takes place and, consequently, where most of our emissions originate. However, we shall include the rest of the company’s departments and subsidiaries in our carbon footprint report in 2024 at the latest.
