CUCC Expedition Handbook

Expo Carbon Accounting Policy

Introduction

Climate change is a big deal, and caving expeditions can have significant emissions. These were just ignored for a very long time, but following a report to the GPF in 2020 (by Wookey and Mike Butcher) expo decided (starting in 2022) to calculate emissions for the expedition and implement compulsory offsetting for attendees, as a first step to taking emissions seriously.

Offsetting does not reduce emissions but is arguably better than nothing. The Loser expo is intrinsically relatively low-carbon (for Europeans), because caving expedition emissions are dominated by travel, and we encourage members to travel by low carbon means as much as possible. By accounting for (CO2e) emissions and charging a suitable carbon price to members it helps people to consider the full cost of their travel.

There are a lot of wrinkles to the application of this policy, and how it is done is likely to evolve. This page describes current policy and procedure so that whoever is responsible this year can implement it.

Expo 2022 carbon offsetting methods

Car calculations

Data needed from drivers:

• Who was in their car for the outward and return journey
• Fuel usage (in litres) for the outward and return journey (could easily be calculated by drivers by keeping their fuel receipts)
• Whether their car is petrol or diesel
• Channel crossing route/method

Per person and per journey CO2 (kg) =

Fuel usage (l) * fuel CO2 emissions factor (kg/l) / no. of people in car

(CO2 emissions per litre of EU fuel: diesel = 2.617 kg/l, petrol = 2.329 kg/l, taken from https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/biomass-energy-resources/reference-biomass/facts-figures/carbon-emissions-of-different-fuels/ )

Ferries/chunnel not accounted initially due to lack of data. See if that has changed. DFDS now (2024) have their own carbon insetting program - ask if ticket-buyers used that, to avoid double-counting.

Additional points from 2022 experience:

• Some people did not tell me whether their cars were petrol or diesel. In these cases, I defaulted to diesel (as the fuel with the higher CO2 emissions per litre)
• Some people did not send me their fuel usage despite prodding, in these cases I estimated their mileage for each journey by inputting their journeys into Google Maps. I applied (upper-end) estimates on their fuel efficiencies (km per l) to estimate their fuel usage
• I didn’t include ferry CO2 emissions in my estimates, to keep things simple
• In the cases when people were already in Europe beforehand, or immediately after, I took the European location as their start and/or end location (combining trips is greener and should be reflected in our calculations). Ask drivers for their fuel usage for the European location to expo (and/or vice versa) rather than all the way home.
• Remind drivers in advance to top off on leaving/returning and arriving/leaving Austria, to get reasonably accurate usage figures and separate in-Austria usage from travel to/from expo

Train calculations

Data needed:

• Start and end destinations
• Transfers are optional, except in the case of changing means of transport (i.e. if people are using a mix of coach and train

Methodology:

1. Input journey into http://ecopassenger.org/bin/query.exe/en?L=vs_uic
2. Take the CO2 emissions, assuming an average load factor (normally crowded)

Plane calculations

Data needed:

• Start and end destinations (including any via destinations)

Methodology:

1. Input journey into: https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/flight/

Bus calculations

Data needed:

• Start and end destinations (including any via destinations)

Methodology:

1. Input journey into: https://scif.org.uk/web/carbon-calculator/, selecting 'bus' as travel mode

Ferry calculations (not from UK)

Data needed:

• Start and end destinations (including any via destinations which are necessary for the trip)
• Whether the ferry is high speed (planing) or displacement (most car ferries). High-speed ferries have emissions similar to that of aircraft [citation needed]

Methodology:

1. Input journey into: https://scif.org.uk/web/carbon-calculator' using 'plane' for fast ferries as travel mode and 'bus' for slow car-ferries (Temporary hack, but better than ignoring ferries completely)

Gear calulations

These have not been done so far, and are hard to calculate as most manufacturers do not yet provied LCAs for their stuff, and we don't track purchase weights, but an estimate could be made from the gear/shopping lists and existing materials sources given sufficient enthusiasm.

Sources:

• Eurospeleo caving footprints talk
• Bath ICE Material footprints database
• Joseph Poore food footprints paper

Carbon offsetting

Sum everyone’s CO2 emissions. Input expedition’s total kg CO2 and pay at https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/

For Bank of Expo

Calculate every individual’s contribution to the overall expedition CO2 emissions: Individual’s CO2 (kg)/ expo’s total CO2 (kg)

Multiply their proportion by the total sum amount paid for offsetting. Add individual costs to BoE.