2050Today Members

CERN – European Organization for Nuclear Research

Footprint and emissions by scope

To be in line with the 2050Today initiative, and provide a meaningful comparator to the institutions of International Geneva, the carbon footprint reported here takes into account the emissions generated by the CERN’s campus activities over one year. It was established according to various international standards, detailed below. The Organization’s campus data takes into account small experiments, laboratories, workshops, hostels and offices, and the computing centre, all of which are situated on the Meyrin and Prévessin sites. It does not include the emissions generated by CERN’s unique particle accelerator complex. The total reported carbon footprint of all CERN activities is published in the CERN environment report 2019-2020, accessible here: https://hse.web.cern.ch/environment-report-2019-2020. Mobility takes into consideration business travel and commuting (on a survey basis), Its CO2 impact was established by the Sofies consultancy using the SimaPro tool. The CO2 impact of food includes Novae catering for all the customers of the campus sites. The collected data of the 2050Today members resulting in each carbon footprint are not yet fully standardized nor entirely complete. The process of data collection is being progressively harmonized and improved. Therefore, direct comparisons between tCO2/employee among institutions – be it in general or per sector – are not yet possible nor relevant.

According to ISO 14064, the distribution of emissions is organised by scopes.

Scope 1 represents direct emissions linked to the consumption of fossil fuels.

Scope 2 represents indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by the reporting company.

Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain (i.e. purchased goods and services, business travel, employee commuting).

CERN specifics

Food: The CERN restaurants serve food to all customers on CERN premises. The CO2 emissions reported here refer to all customers and not only CERN personnel. They were established with the SimaPro tool based on the ecoinvent database by the Sofies consultancy.

Waste: The CO2 impact of waste takes into account all CERN waste, including that arising from the accelerator complex and civil engineering. The CO2 emissions reported here were established with the SimaPro tool based on ecoinvent database by the Sofies consultancy.

Energy: The CO2 impact of electricity was based on conversion factors provided by the electricity supplier, EDF, and that of fossil fuels by the Bilan Carbon® method.

Member of personnel: Only categories of personnel remunerated or receiving subsistence from CERN budgets were included. Users of the Organization’s facilities were not counted.

The weight of this CO2 footprint

If we were to give a concrete weight to this carbon footprint, it would represent the weight of the following number of elephants  :

(average weight per elephant : 5’000 kilos) 

4 089 Elephants

The rate at which nature can absorb this amount of CO2

This amount of CO2 was emitted in one year. How many century-old cedars does it take to absorb this carbon footprint in the same amount of time ?

(a 100 year old cedar absorbs on average 25 kg of CO2 per year)

817 760 cedars are required

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.