Living Our Values
A closer look at EDF’s own sustainability efforts
Scroll down to see how we’re doing
A closer look at EDF’s own sustainability efforts
Scroll down to see how we’re doing
EDF is committed to building a vital Earth, for everyone. Some of our accomplishments in 2021 included helping to achieve climate action at the local, state, corporate, and international levels. EDF identified the “methane moment,” catalyzed by EDF scientist findings that it is possible to cut global methane pollution in half and slow the rate of global warming by 30%, using existing technologies. We continued partnerships to change the way natural resources are managed, strengthening the ability of forests, coastal wetlands and other ecosystems to reduce climate impacts. EDF helped farmers and fishing communities thrive even in the face of climate change, supported clean air efforts led by frontline communities facing effects of pollution from industry, and is speeding the transition to electric cars and trucks and toward a global clean energy economy with no net climate pollution.
Since 2007, we have reported on our own efforts to improve organizational sustainability and continually refine those evaluation methods. This report uses emissions factors and methodologies that are most appropriate for EDF’s organizational context, and therefore, it should not be viewed as a recommendation of best or only practice.
You can learn more about the GHG protocol in the Methods & Appendix section.
Scope 1 emissions
Scope 2 emissions
Scope 3 emissions
Throughout this report, we use two significant figures for all calculated values. Reported totals may differ from the sum of their terms due to rounding. For questions, comments, and feedback on this dashboard, please contact sustainability@edf.org.
FY2021
FY2021 GWP-100
Total - tCO2e
FY2021
FY2021 GWP-100
Total - tCO2e
INTENSITY PER FTE -
All emissions factors included carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and most included methane (CH4) and nitrous
oxide (N2O), both of which are powerful GHGs.
We calculated emissions using a Global Warming Potential (GWP) with a 20-year time horizon (GWP-20) and a GWP with a 100-year time horizon (GWP-100).
Read more about GWP below.
In 2020, we began reporting fiscal year (FY) emissions rather than calendar year (CY) emissions to align sustainability planning and reporting with other internal cycles. Paper calculations have been updated using the most up-to-date emissions factors. Emissions for Travel and Office Energy represent methodologies used for each respective year.
tCO2e (GWP-100)
Full-Time Employees
tCO2e Total
The COVID-19 pandemic continued to affect EDF’s operations in fiscal year (FY) 2021. Most of our offices remained partially closed and sparsely staffed, and staff travel continued to decrease to comprise only 13.5 % of pre-pandemic levels. Our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reflected these changes: compared to FY 2020, office energy emissions fell by about 4% and travel emissions decreased by 73% in FY 2021. While office energy and travel-related emissions decreased, emissions related to mailings to current and prospective members increased significantly by about 38%. In FY 2021, EDF’s total GHG emissions were 7% higher than FY 2020 on a 100-year time horizon, and 12% higher on a 20-year time horizon.
details
EDF operated 11 offices in five countries in FY 2021. In that timeframe, energy use in our leased office spaces generated 540 (GWP-20) / 440 (GWP-100) tCO2e. Scope 1 (natural gas), Scope 2 (electricity) and Scope 3 (steam) emissions were responsible for 48%, 48% and 3% (GWP-20) / 43%, 52%, 4% (GWP-100) of total office energy emissions, respectively.
tCO2e (GWP-100)
Full-Time Employees
tCO2e Total
Hover over the circles to see more detailed information.
Total Emissions tCO2e
Emissions by Employee tCO2e/FTE
Emissions by Office Space tCO2e/Sq Ft
details
According to the emissions factors used in this report, air and ground travel produced minimal emissions of non-CO2 pollutants. As a result, GWP-20 emissions were nearly identical to GWP-100 emissions for these sources. For ease of reading, we report these emissions as tCO2e. EDF staff and trustees flew nearly 450 thousand miles in FY 2021, generating 310 tCO2e.
tCO2e (GWP-100)
Full-Time Employees
tCO2e Total
Highest Emitting
10 Employees
Lowest Emitting
10 Employees
details
EDF mailed 1,100 metric tons of paper (36% more than in FY 2020) to existing, former, and prospective members, generating nearly all paper-related emissions. The remaining emissions came from office paper use. Nearly half of the paper used by Membership, and therefore almost half of the department’s paper-related emissions, was for acquisitions. The remaining emissions came from paper used for EDF’s Solutions newsletter and mailings for reinstatements, appeals, conversions, renewals and cultivation.
tCO2e (GWP-100)
Full-Time Employees
tCO2e Total
Number of Households Mailed
Emissions per Household (lb CO2e)
Number of households only available from FY 2017.
We strive for our sustainability efforts to reflect our goals and values of Results, Respect, Innovation, Optimism and Integrity. EDF will continue to produce annual, publicly available sustainability reports and GHG emissions inventories. Each year we will strive to improve the quality of our data, identify and adopt the best available methodologies and work with other organizations to share best practices in calculating environmental impacts.
In an effort to mitigate our environmental impact, EDF supports greenhouse gas reduction projects around the world. To offset our 2021 footprint, we supported the Capricorn Ridge Wind project in Texas and the Bondhu Chula Cook Stove Project in Bangladesh. Soon, we will announce the projects we will support to offset our 2022 footprint.
We collected activity data for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from property managers and energy providers. For Scope 3 emissions, we gathered activity data from EDF’s corporate travel provider, surveys of staff and trustees, mileage reimbursement records, print management software and internal purchase records. We used methodologies and emissions factors (i.e., the coefficients that convert activity data into GHG emissions) from the GHG Protocol, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Environmental Paper Network, Enerdata,Mexico’s Registro Nacional de Emisiones and the Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Index.
“Throughout this report, we use two significant figures for all calculated values. Reported totals may differ from the sum of their terms due to rounding.”
We calculate emissions using the standard metric in climate research and policy — global warming potential, or GWP, which measures climate impacts in both the near and long term. We use GWP with two time scales as opposed to the common approach of using just one.
Using two allows us to understand the effects of our emissions both in the near term (more than 20 years) and the long term (more than 100 years).
For more information on this, check out the study, Unmask temporal trade-offs in climate policy debates.{.link-image target=“_blank”}
By calculating the carbon dioxide equivalence, or CO2e, of EDF’s greenhouse gas emissions using two different GWP values — GWP 20 and GWP 100 — we have estimated the climate impact that EDF’s emissions will have during our lifetime and during the lifetimes of future generations.