Research Carbon Footprint

Research carbon footprint

The total greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in CO2-equivalent) attributable to research activity, encompassing direct laboratory energy use, computing, procurement, travel, and end-of-life of research equipment.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 5 Sept 2026

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A research carbon footprint totals the greenhouse-gas emissions (in CO2-equivalent) attributable to a defined unit of research activity — a single project, a lab group, a department, or an institution — across its main contributing categories: laboratory and facility energy use, computing (on-premises or cloud), procurement of consumables and equipment, travel (fieldwork and conferences), and, increasingly, end-of-life disposal of equipment. It is generally structured using the GHG Protocol’s scope 1 (direct, e.g. on-site fuel combustion), scope 2 (purchased electricity and heat), and scope 3 (everything else in the value chain — procurement, travel, waste) framework, and in research-intensive settings scope 3 typically dominates the total, driven mainly by procurement and travel rather than direct energy use.

How it’s measured

Purpose-built calculators exist because generic corporate carbon-accounting tools do not map well onto research-specific categories like reagent procurement or compute allocation. GES 1point5, developed by the French CNRS-affiliated Labos 1point5 collective, is a widely used self-assessment tool that lets a research group tabulate its footprint by category and publish or benchmark the result; other institutional tools plug into procurement and travel-booking systems to estimate spend-based emissions. Estimates are necessarily approximate — spend-based procurement factors in particular carry wide uncertainty bands — so results are best used to identify the largest contributing category and track relative change over time, rather than treated as an audited figure.

Where it shows up in research administration

A project-level estimate increasingly appears as a required climate impact statement at proposal stage under climate-aware funding policies, and an institution-level figure feeds statutory reporting regimes such as the UK’s Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) for universities within scope. See carbon accounting (research) for the underlying accounting mechanics and compute carbon footprint for the computing-specific subset.

What’s out of scope

A single whole-campus energy-bill total is not a research-specific footprint unless it has been apportioned to research activity; a travel-only tally that omits procurement is a partial, not complete, estimate.

References

GHG Protocol Corporate Standard; GES 1point5 project (CNRS / Labos 1point5).

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