CO₂ Calculator Tool for Cultural Institutions (German)
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) is an internationally recognized standard for the greenhouse gas accounting of companies and organizations, which cultural institutions can also use. The GHG Protocol defines key principles for calculating and reporting the greenhouse gas balance of various organizations. It thus provides a reliable framework, but leaves wide scope for the specific greenhouse gas balance of individual organizations.
Cultural institutions face the practical challenge of having to define accounting approaches and system boundaries for their organization on a case-by-case basis. They therefore want clear rules that enable them to balance their institution’s emissions with a manageable use of resources. Up to now, however, individually prepared carbon footprints in the cultural sector have often been very time-consuming and neither uniform nor comparable overall.
Against this background, a group of experts was commissioned by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts to develop a carbon accounting standard based on the GHG Protocol in close cooperation with the relevant bodies of the Conference of Ministers of Culture.
The process was moderated by Jacob Bilabel (THEMA1 GmbH and Aktionsnetzwerk Nachhaltigkeit) and Stephan Schunkert (KlimAktiv gGmbH). With this set of rules, small and large cultural institutions from all sectors throughout Germany can draw up their carbon footprints according to standardized guidelines.
To make it easier to use, an Excel tool was developed on the basis of the CO₂ culture standard, which can be used to calculate the CO₂ footprint for cultural institutions directly in accordance with the standard – the CO₂ culture calculator. The German (!) emission factors to be updated annually, which are to be used for the standard-compliant calculation, are also recorded in this tool and can be viewed via it. The tool offers small and large cultural institutions throughout Germany in all sectors a quick introduction to CO₂ accounting and can also be used without extensive knowledge of greenhouse gas accounting. It forms the basis for reducing and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions in the institutions.