Energy use is among the most critical focuses in sustainability reporting, with energy-related impacts affecting climate change, resource scarcity, and more. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides practical guidelines for energy-related impact disclosure in its GRI 302: Energy standard.
What Is the GRI 302 Standard?
GRI 302: Energy 2016 covers sustainability reporting guidelines for an organization’s energy use. That includes many different types of energy consumption, such as fuel, electricity, heating, cooling, and steam.
Sustainability reporting under this GRI standard must account for both self-generated energy and that purchased from external sources. The source of any energy used is of prime importance in sustainability reporting, especially when considering renewable vs. non-renewable sources. Organizations must consider both upstream and downstream energy use, not just energy used at their facilities.
What Are the GRI Guidelines for GRI 302?
GRI 302 provides five disclosures covering various topics related to an organization’s energy use and reduction efforts.
Disclosure 302-1 Energy Consumption Within the Organization
This disclosure covers energy use within the organization, including self-generated and purchased energy. This section only covers energy consumed by entities owned or controlled by the organization, not upstream or downstream activities.
Organizations must report total fuel consumption from non-renewable and renewable sources separately, along with the fuel types used. These values should be reported in joules or multiples. Organizations must also report total amounts for electricity, heating, cooling, and steam consumed and sold in joules, watt-hours, or multiples. They must also provide the total energy consumption within the organization, in joules or multiples.
Alongside these values, facilities must provide the standards, methodologies, assumptions, and calculation tools used to attain them, and the source of conversion factors used. Tracking the required data over time and implementing the proper calculations can be challenging and time-consuming, with serious implications for sustainability reporting and other compliance areas.
Implementing an energy management system can significantly streamline this process and improve accuracy. You can better measure, aggregate, compare, and reduce energy use to facilitate this and the remaining disclosures of GRI 302.
Disclosure 302-2 Energy Consumption Outside the Organization
This disclosure addresses energy consumption outside the organization, including upstream and downstream sources. Any energy consumption already reported in Disclosure 302-1 should be excluded.
The organization must report the total energy consumption outside the organization in joules or multiples. Like in Disclosure 302-1, they must include standards, methodologies, assumptions, calculation tools, and the source of conversion factors used. Energy consumption should be broken down into upstream and downstream categories or activities.
Determining the extent of outside energy consumption can be difficult. Organizations have some discretion to determine which outside activities contribute significantly to the total anticipated outside energy consumption and their relevance when deciding which to include.
The GRI 302 standard uses the established GHG Protocol Scope 3 categories when evaluating energy consumption outside the organization.
Upstream
- Purchased goods and services
- Capital goods
- Fuel and energy-related activities
- Upstream transportation and distribution
- Waste generated in operations
- Business travel
- Employee commuting
- Upstream leased assets
- Downstream transportation and distribution
- Processing of sold products
- Use of sold products
- End-of-life treatment of sold products
- Downstream leased assets
- Franchises
- Investments
Disclosure 302-3 Energy Intensity
An energy intensity ratio is a metric that contextualizes an organization’s efficiency concerning its specific energy-related activities, providing a means of comparison with similar organizations. Calculating energy intensity ratios requires dividing the total energy consumption of the organization by some organization-specific metric. An organization can report multiple energy intensity ratios related to different metrics to provide greater insight into their sustainability.
Common examples of organization-specific metrics include production volume, facility size, employee count, and revenue. In many cases, organization-specific metrics are highly unique to the industry or activity at hand.
For example, consider a pulp and paper company that produces 80,000 tons of pulp annually with a total energy consumption of 6,000,000 GJ. The calculation would be as follows.
Alongside energy intensity ratios, organizations must also report the types of energy use included in the calculation (fuel, electricity, heating, cooling, steam) and whether the calculation deals with energy consumption within the organization, outside of it, or both.
Disclosure 302-4 Reduction of Energy Consumption
GRI 302 also focuses on energy use reduction initiatives and achievements. Organizations must report the total amount of reductions in energy consumption achieved due to their conservation and efficiency initiatives, in joules or multiples.
They must also include the types of energy included in reductions (fuel, electricity, heating, cooling, steam). The base year or baseline used is to be included, along with the organization’s rationale for choosing it and the various standards, methodologies, and calculation tools used to evaluate energy use reduction.
It is important to note that organizations cannot include reductions resulting from reduced production capacity or outsourcing. Some examples of reduction initiatives that can be included are process redesign, equipment conversion or retrofitting, behavioral changes, and operational changes.
Disclosure 302-5 Reductions in Energy Requirements of Products and Services
Organizations with products or services that consume energy must report reductions in energy requirements for those products achieved during the reporting period, in joules or multiples. That includes information on the base year or baseline, and the various standards, methodologies, and calculation tools used to evaluate energy use reduction.
An example of this category is an improvement in the fuel economy of vehicles produced by an automotive manufacturer or an increase in efficiency for any produced equipment that consumes electricity or fuel. Organizations should refer to industry standards to obtain this information when available.
How Does Your Team Handle GRI 302 Disclosure?
GRI 302 covers many activities and requires accurate records and precise calculations. Manual data management and calculation for GRI 302 disclosure is resource-intensive, taking up significant time from your team and potentially external consultants.
Instead, your organization can save time and money by handling GRI 302 disclosure and other sustainability reporting requirements with ERA’s Corporate Sustainability Software. Custom metrics, KPIs, and reports tailor the experience to your organization’s unique scope and scale, perfectly meeting your sustainability reporting needs. Book a discovery call today to learn more about ERA’s sustainability reporting solution.
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