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Carbon Accounting in Creative Sectors

Carbon footprint calculation is an important way to assess climate emissions and monitor the effectiveness of reduction measures. It’s advisable to make use of sector-specific knowledge, ready-made calculators, and emissions databases—the most important thing is simply to get started.

Sofia Koistinen

In the creative sectors, carbon footprint calculation is a well-established part of environmental sustainability work. Many organisations have calculated the carbon footprint of their operations, a specific area of operations, product, or service—either independently, through a dedicated project, or by commissioning external experts. Common challenges include defining the boundaries of emission sources included to the calculation, and allocating sufficient time for the task.

In recent years, many creative sectors have produced calculation reports that help identify the main emission sources specific to their field. By building on this knowledge, it is possible to start sustainability work immediately and focus on the most effective measures. While carbon footprint calculation provides an estimate of emissions, it does not reduce them on its own. To truly embrace environmental sustainability and respond to the ecological crisis, it’s advisable to begin implementing reduction measures already during the calculation process.

Carbon Footprint Calculation Enables You To:

• Understand the main emission sources of operations: Calculation helps identify where the largest emissions from your activities originate.
• Set a baseline and targets: Calculation creates a foundation for environmental work and provides metrics to track progress in emission reductions.
• Target measures effectively: Once the largest emission sources are known, reduction measures can be targeted more effectively.
• Meet stakeholder expectations: Audiences, funders, partners, and legislation (such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, CSRD) increasingly require information and action regarding organizational environmental responsibility.

Striving for Consistency

There are several ways to calculate a carbon footprint. The biggest challenges in ensuring comparability between results lies in the boundaries set during the calculation, differences in data sources, and incomplete or conflicting baseline data. Different organisations may also approach the calculation slightly differently, using input data and emission factors in varying ways. This makes comparisons difficult and introduces uncertainty into the results. It’s important to remember that carbon footprint calculations are always indicative estimates and should be updated as more accurate data becomes available.

There are various standards and protocols related to carbon footprinting that help improve comparability and consistency. The most important of these is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG), established in 1998.

The GHG Protocol provides a standardised framework for measuring and tracking greenhouse gas emissions. Most carbon footprint calculations follow the categorisation and boundaries defined by this protocol. It divides emissions into three categories:

• Scope 1 – Direct emissions from operations (e.g. emissions from owned vehicles)
• Scope 2 – Indirect emissions from purchased energy
• Scope 3 – All other indirect emissions across the value chain (e.g. procurement, transport, product or service use)

If any area is excluded from the calculation, it’s important to communicate it transparently. Omitting major emission sources can distort the results. When reviewing carbon footprint reports, it’s essential to pay attention to these boundaries—Scope 3 emissions, for example, are sometimes excluded entirely from the analysis.

Scope 3 emissions often make up the largest share of a creative sector organisation’s carbon footprint. This category includes significant sources such as audience travel to events, procurement of materials for productions, and the use of digital infrastructure and services.

Transparency in setting boundaries, choosing methods, and communicating results is increasingly important due to new regulations and binding legislation. These include the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Green Claims Directive (GCD), and the Directive on Empowering Consumers for the green transition (EmpCo).

Calculation in Practice is Based on Emission Factors

The calculation itself is not difficult. The most time-consuming part of the process is collecting and validating the data—how accurate and reliable the available information is. Gathering calculation data of services or products often becomes more challenging as value chains and levels of processing become more complex, which almost inevitably leads to simplification of intricate processes.

The best results are achieved when the manufacturer has provided the carbon footprint of a product or service, which can then be used directly in the calculation. However, for most products and services, this information is not yet available. In such cases, the footprint must be estimated based on factors such as the product’s energy consumption, weight, or price.

The calculation itself is not difficult. When performing the calculation, the largest workload clearly relates to data collection and validation, i.e., how accurate and reliable the available information is. Collecting calculation data for services or products often becomes more difficult with the growth of value chains and the degree of processing, leading to the almost inevitable simplification of complex processes.

The best result is achieved if the manufacturer has declared the carbon footprint of the product or service, which is then used in the calculation. For most products or services, such information is not yet available; instead, the carbon footprint must be estimated based on the product’s energy consumption, weight, or price.

In practice, the calculation is done by multiplying the quantity or purchase price of the material or service by its emission factor. Price-based emission factors for product categories are defined using environmentally extended input–output models (EEIO), such as ENVIMAT in Finland and EXIOBASE internationally. While price-based EEIO data is useful for preliminary estimates or filling data gaps, using physical units—such as weight or energy consumption—combined with more precise emission factors generally yields more accurate results. This approach should be preferred whenever more detailed primary data is available.

An emission factor—or Global Warming Potential (GWP)—can often be found in a product’s Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), and hopefully in the near future, also in the EU’s Digital Product Passport. In addition, many Finnish companies calculate the emission factors of their products and services. The factors can be requested during procurement or carbon footprint assessments. There are also dedicated online emissions databases that compile this information.

Sources for Finnish emission factors include the Finnish Environment Institute’s emissions database and tools and guidelines provided by organisations such as Motiva. Common international sources include databases like Ecoinvent and DEFRA.

Emission factors are a relatively simple way to convert all greenhouse gas emissions into carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e). Most current calculators operate on this principle. The emission factor accounts for other greenhouse gases and converts them into a common unit—CO₂—to simplify calculation and comparison.

Finding the correct emission factor can be challenging, and they should always be reviewed critically and updated when necessary. It’s advisable to use locally relevant and up-to-date emission factors whenever possible. Additionally, the source and publication year of the emission factors used should be clearly documented to ensure transparency and continuity.

Make Use of Existing Calculators

It’s rarely necessary to build a new calculator from scratch, as there are many publicly available and user-friendly tools online—designed for both the creative sectors and other industries. There are also open-access emissions databases that can be used to support your own carbon footprint calculations.

Almost all calculators include an internal emissions database that they rely on. By reviewing the background data of existing calculators, you can gather relevant emission factors for your own operations. A selection of calculators and data sources is listed in the luoto.art Resources. Even a general-level carbon footprint calculation often reveals the main emission sources in your operations—an ideal starting point for reduction efforts. If resources allow, you can move on to more detailed calculations and identify more specific actions.

Rather than developing new tools, the priority should be to find the most suitable existing calculator for your organisation. Open and free tools—such as the Public Artwork Environmental Calculator, the Event Carbon Footprint Calculator, and the Green Art Calculator —can also be adapted for other types of calculations by experienced users.

Carbon footprint calculations are often based on data from previous projects or operational years. To accelerate environmental action, it’s advisable to critically assess your current practices alongside the calculation process.

When starting environmental work, carbon footprinting provides a clear picture of your baseline and offers metrics to track progress. It helps you understand where your emissions come from and enables you to plan and implement targeted reduction measures based on the results.

Procurement Has a Significant Carbon Footprint

A substantial share of emissions in the creative sectors comes from various types of procurement. Reviewing procurement practices is a key part of promoting ecological sustainability, and careful planning can influence both emissions and the use of natural resources. While it can be challenging to determine the carbon footprint of purchases, In Finland, for instance, national strategies for public procurement already require consideration of climate impact, circular economy, and biodiversity.

In addition, the Medium-term Climate Policy Plan, based on the Finnish Climate Act, sets emission reduction targets for public procurement. Strategies for reducing procurement-related emissions can be found, for example, in the Finnish Environment Institute’s report on Vähähiiliset julkiset hankinnat (Low-Carbon Public Procurement).

Transparency in procurement is a broad challenge, closely tied to the issue of defining the boundaries of carbon footprint calculations: how far into the value chain should the analysis extend, and if emissions data comes from subcontractors, how was their calculation carried out?

Uncertainties in the Calculation

Carbon footprint calculations are almost always based, at least in part, on estimated input data. As such, the results are indicative rather than absolutely precise. Nevertheless, they provide a valuable tool for understanding the climate impact of one’s activities, supporting structured efforts to reduce emissions, and offering data to track progress.

The wide variety of carbon footprint calculators introduces uncertainty into the results. Different tools use different input data and boundaries, which can lead to significantly different outcomes. For example, results from organisations in the same sector using different calculators are not directly comparable. This is why developing a shared, sector-specific calculator is recommended. It’s also important to note that excluding any of the three emission scopes (Scope 1–3) from the calculation distorts the results.

One challenge in sustainability work is the varying capacity of organisations to carry out calculations. Smaller organisations often have fewer resources to adopt tools. In the creative sectors, carbon footprinting is sometimes perceived as a labour-intensive project or, when outsourced, too costly relative to available resources. Even outsourced calculations require internal resources for data collection.

Carbon footprinting is only one part of environmental work and does not account for impacts on biodiversity, for example. Measuring nature impacts is becoming more common and has already been included in some sustainability projects within the creative sectors. It’s important to consider environmental impacts holistically, rather than focusing solely on carbon footprinting.

Carbon footprinting is a way to examine emissions and identify the most effective ways to reduce them. It helps prioritise actions by highlighting the most significant emission sources. Efforts should primarily target the areas with the greatest reduction potential.

Carbon footprinting and sustainability actions also have communicative value, which should be leveraged in both internal and external communications. It’s important to influence all stakeholders to accelerate the sustainability transition. The expressiveness of the creative sectors can also help deliver impactful messages to other industries, decision-makers, and influencers.