Knowing the carbon footprint  of companies and their products is essential for informed decision making.
This information arms individuals, organizations and governments with the information they need to take action to reduce emissions and combat climate change.

Carbon footprint: models or hard data?

Carbon footprint information is especially valuable in critical value chains for the green energy transition, where such data are requested for raw materials as well as the downstream production processes.

Carbon footprint data play a critical role when assessing a specific product throughout its life cycle. While industry average data are found in databases, company specific carbon footprint data for nickel products are generally not publicly available. Therefore, data consultancies are extending the scope of their existing economic models and are now including carbon footprint data.

The Nickel Institute has assessed some of these tools in depth. In general, we believe that such models provide value as they demonstrate the wide carbon footprint range of nickel products. But the data they contain does need to be assessed carefully.

Here are our top tips on what you should consider when assessing carbon footprint information.

Life cycle data will soon decide on market access for certain regions, markets or value chains. It is therefore critical that such data pass a rigorous procedure and use globally agreed protocols. ISO Standards are the internationally accepted scientific tools to measure the carbon footprint of products such as nickel, and rules have been defined for certain products like EV batteries. Other approaches, such as using modelled data, deviates from this rigorous process and are not accepted.

Models tend to be based on various data sources. Besides publicly available data from  company reports, estimates and models are used to fill data gaps. This is especially true in sensitive areas, such as the consumption of fuel or emissions. The data quality of models based on estimates differs significantly from the compilation of carbon footprint data as part of the ISO protocol data collection where companies provide hard data as basis for the calculations.

The carbon footprint models show carbon dioxide as the most relevant greenhouse gas. But according to the ISO protocol, there is a wide range of other climate-relevant gases that also need to be accounted for, such as methane. The data collection conducted by the Nickel Institute include all relevant greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming potential. Therefore, the carbon footprint in our case is expressed as “CO₂ equivalents”.

ISO 14040 series standards define in detail the methods to be applied. Metals and mining-specific methods were published in 2015 aligning the approaches applied in carbon footprint calculations. The methods applied in carbon models do not follow the same rigorous scientific process and are simplified calculations that would not pass a critical review according to the ISO standard.

Allocation of impacts to by-products is a critical aspect where specific rules have been defined. In many of the  carbon models we assessed, economic allocation is done for the occurring metallic by-products. This deviates from agreed principles in the metals and mining industry. Moreover, non-metallic by-products (e.g., ammonium sulphate, sulfuric acid or steam) are often not included.

For an ISO-compliant calculation of the carbon footprint of nickel, companies need to provide relevant input and output data for all processes for a specific reference year. Companies report the exact consumption of fuels in their production processes (e.g., diesel, gas or oil), the use of coal as well as process chemicals that lead to GHG emissions. The data are focused on the specific production process only. Such data are confidential in nature as they allow production costs to be calculated. Therefore, they are usually not made publicly available.

Carbon models use similar data if and where publicly available, e.g., in certain jurisdictions or through regulatory reporting obligations. Given the confidential nature and limited availability of such data, the models rely on assumptions and estimates of direct emissions onsite (scope 1 emissions).

Electricity is a common energy source notably in ore beneficiation and refining, but also in primary extraction. Depending on the specific situation of a company, electricity might be produced onsite, provided from a power plant nearby, supplied through a power purchase agreement from a producer in the same grid or simply come from the national / regional electricity grid. Specific rules are applied to include the carbon footprint of power generation. Carbon footprint models often use the national grid mix, as the information on the specific company situation and its electricity supply is often not known or is confidential.

Many substances or articles used and consumed during the process come with a carbon footprint. Examples are tyres for mining trucks; steel balls used in ore beneficiation; or sulfur used as leaching agent in primary extraction, as well as any other process chemical used in the production process. The relevant ISO protocol requires the inclusion of carbon footprint of those substances, articles and process chemicals. According to the Nickel Institute’s  life cycle data, these can account for 25% of the total carbon footprint of nickel production. However, the carbon footprint models we investigated miss those scope 3 upstream emissions, either partly or completely.

The Nickel Institute supports nickel producers in collecting carbon footprint data

The Nickel Institute coordinates the collection and update of ISO compliant carbon footprint data for its member companies,  as requested by customers and regulators - on a regular basis. Membership of the Nickel Institute is open to companies that mine, concentrate, smelt, or refine nickel; and, who place nickel product on the market.

For more information contact communications@nickelinstitute.org