environmental impact of gifts in kind
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Environmental impact ofGifts In Kind
Tom Keffer, PhdSenior Advisor, Mercy Corps
This presentation available at http://www.threefools.org/projects/gik
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 2
Approach
• Bounding the problem
• Assumptions
• Six different case studies– Two in detail
• Conclusions
• Lessons Learned
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 3
Bounding the problem
• Impacts we could consider– Energy impact
– CO2 emissions
– End-of-life issues– Packaging
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 4
Operation Boundaries
• Direct emissions– Emissions from sources that are owned or
controlled by the agency / company
• Electricity indirect– Emissions from the generation of electricity
consumed by the agency / company
• Other indirect– Emissions done on behalf of the agency /
company
Guidelines from The Greenhouse Gas Protocol by the World Resources Institute
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 5
Assumptions
CO2 emissions
g CO2-e/(tonne – km)
Equiv Efficiency
(tonne – km) / L
Ship (1) 14 192.9
Rail (1) 26 102.3
Truck (long-haul) (*) 63 42.9
Truck (short-haul) (2) 70 38.3
Truck (India) (3) 148 18.2
Pickup 635 4.3
Air (long-haul)(1) 570 4.4
(1) DEFRA Guidelines for reporting GHG emissions
(2) Faiz, et al.: Mercedes 1217 (7 tonne)
(3) Faiz, et al.: Tata 1201 (5 tonne) (*) See appendix
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 6
Case study #1
• One 40’ container, 16,898 kg (~37,000 lbs)
• Hygiene & School kits• Baltimore, MD to
Cobán, Guatemala, where it was then distributed by Mercy Corps
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 7
Case #1: Route
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 8
Case #1, cont’d
• Leg 1: Baltimore to Port Everglades (~1,600 km)– Truck
• Freight class 60• Cost: ~$1,700• CO2: 1.8 tonnes (6 mpg, 16 T load)
– Rail• <5600 ft³ capacity (very small for rail)• Cost ~$3,300• CO2: 0.7 tonnes
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 9
Case #1, cont’d
• Leg 2: Port Everglades to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala (1,600 km)– Ship
• CO2 0.4 tonnes
• Leg 3: Puerto Barrios to Cobán (320 km)– Truck
• CO2: 0.8 tonnes
• Leg 4: Cobán to local schools– Pickup Truck
• Alta Verapaz Department is 8686 km2
• Assume average trucking distance 50 km one way• CO2: 1.1 tonnes
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 10
Case #1: summary
0
0.2
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Leg
Tonnes CO2
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
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Leg
g CO2 / (km - tonne)
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 11
But,…
• The materials were purchased from retail stores throughout the USA, then shipped to the warehouse in MD!
• Assumptions– Each kit weighs about 1kg– One trip to the store per 25 kits– 680 trips
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 12
But, … cont’d
• Collection– 680 trips @ 25 mpg each– 20 km RT each– 326 gallons of gas
– 2.8 tonnes of CO2
• Shipment– 680 packages 1,000 km each
– ~1.4 tonnes of CO2
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 13
Now look at our graph…
0
0.5
1
1.5
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2.5
3
Leg
Tonnes CO2
SUV
UPS
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
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Leg
g CO2 / (km-tonne)
SUV
UPS
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 14
Case #1: summary
• Dominated by aggregation and delivery to Maryland
Leg SUV 2.8 T 34%
Leg UPS 1.4 T 17%
Leg 1 1.7 T 21%
Leg 2 0.4 T 5%
Leg 3 0.8 T 10%
Leg 4 1.1 T 13%
Total 8.2 T 100%
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 15
Case study #2
• 95 boxes of condoms• 1,002 kg• Donation of surplus
product– Would have been
destroyed
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 16
Case #2: route
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 17
Case #2: route• Leg 1
– Trucked from Eufaula, Alabama to Toronto, Canada– 1,800 km– 0.11 T CO2
• Leg 2– Air shipped Toronto to London– 5,800 km– 3.3 T CO2
• Leg 3– London to Nairobi– 6,800 km– 3.9 T CO2
• Leg 4– Trucked from Nairobi to IDP camp in Nakuru– 160 km– 0.02 T CO2
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 18
Case 2: summary
0
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Leg
Tonnes CO2
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
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Leg
g CO2 / (km - tonne)
Leg 1
Leg 2
Leg 3
Leg 4
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 19
Case #2: summary
• Nearly as much CO2 (7.3 Tonnes) as Case #1 (8.2 Tonnes) despite weighing 5% as much– (although the shipment did go 4 times farther)
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 20
All cases
Project Ref # Product Shipping Cost Volume & Weight CO2 emissions
08-001 (MC 364)Guatemala
Hygiene & School Kits
$3,280(Local collection, long-haul truck and ocean freight)
1 x 40’ container 16,898 KG
8.2 T
08-039 (MC 477)Kenya
Male latex condoms $4,560(Long-haul truck and air freight)
95 boxes:18 ¼” x 11 ¾” x 15”1,002 KG
7.3 T
08-021(MC 156)Nepal
Nike apparel, footwear & equipment
$4,719(Ocean freight)
1 x 20’ container10,206 KG 2.3 T
08-003(MC 316, 387)Mongolia
Refurbished computers
$3,901(Ocean freight, rail, “India” truck)
1 x 20’ container4,091 KG 2.3 T
08-043(MC 499)Iraq
Pharmaceuticals Freight donated – value unclear(air freight)
72 cartons950 KG 2.4 T
08-061(MC 454)Liberia
Recycled latex paint & new paint brushes
$7,460(Rail, ocean freight, “India” truck)
1 x 20’ container9,881 KG 5.6 T
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 21
Cost vs CO2 emissions
y = 0.6421x + 1.0697
R2 = 0.4786
0
1
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3
4
5
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8
9
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Cost (thousands of collars)
To
nn
es o
f C
O2
Assumes $3/gal gas + $10/UPS
shipment
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 22
Computers: recycle or destroy?
• Energy– One desktop computer requires 240 kg of fossil fuels
(about 0.74 T CO2, if it all went in the atmosphere)– Four times what it will use in its lifetime
• Lead - Older monitors can contain 4-8 lbs.• Mercury - Flat panel displays, wiring boards• PVCs – about 14 lbs in an average computer
– Dioxin formed if it is burned• Barium
– Used on the front panel of a CRT• Conclusion:
– Way better to recycle and ship to Mongolia than buy a new one!
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 23
Condoms: recycle or destroy?• Made from natural
latex– Nearly a sink of CO2
– Natural: 1.78 kg CO2-E / kg
• Perspective:– 2.5 T of fuel was used
to move 1 T of condoms to Kenya that took 1.8 T of CO2 to produce
Lessons learned
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 25
Lessons learned - 1
• Air shipment trumps everything• “Last mile” problem
– Energy and CO2 budget for shipping can be dominated by pickup and delivery logistics
• Long haul hardly matters if done by ship or rail
– Done by inefficient transport modes• Pickups and “India” trucks
– “Spoke” problem• Shipments broken up into smaller, less efficient, packaging
• Net energy savings only for energy-intensive products
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 26
Lessons learned - 2
• Price is a reasonable metric of the environmental cost of shipping– About 0.6 tonnes of CO2 / $1k
– But, gets distorted• Well intentioned donations• Pricing set at the margin• Media needs
• Early ownership of GIK helps– But, limits opportunity to mix and match
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 27
Organization boundaries redux
• Are we responsible for emissions done on our behalf by transportation sectors?– What about situations with “zero marginal CO2
cost?
• Case study: IKEA– 66% of emissions are from customer travel!– Influenced store location decisions, home
delivery options
• Double counting possible
Appendices
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 29
Resources• Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative http://www.ghgprotocol.org. In particular,
their Corporate Accounting And Reporting Standard: http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghg-protocol-revised.pdf.
• Red, White and “Green”: the Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP09.pdf
• DEFRA Guidelines for Company Reporting on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Annexes updated July 2005 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/pdf/envrpgas-annexes.pdf
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 30
Truck efficiency
• Long-haul semi in the US gets 6-8 mpg
• Carry 20-40 tonnes
• Works out to 20-53 gCO2/(km-tonne)
• I used 63 (light loads, dead heading)
Environmental Impact of Gifts In Kind 31
CO2 vs. Carbon
• Most emissions in the literature are quoted in metric tonnes of CO2-equiv (t CO2-eq)
– Other GHGs converted to equivalents of CO2
– Metric tonnes– This has been the trend
• A few quotes are in metric tonnes of carbon equivalents– Useful in calculations involving carbon cycles
– Multiply by 3.67 to convert to t CO2-eq
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