Creating a practical guide to quantify and reduce air pollution from businesses

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), and IKEA are creating a guide for businesses to develop air pollutant emission inventories for their value chains, intended for publication in 2022. The initiative addresses a gap in comprehensive guidance for the private sector, aiming to align air pollution reporting with existing greenhouse gas (GHG) standards to leverage existing corporate resources. The guide will cover pollutants including particulate matter, black carbon, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides, providing a framework to identify emission sources and quantify them using activity-based methods. The business case for this action includes meeting customer demands, reducing legal and financial risks—highlighted by multimillion-dollar fines for companies like Toyota and ExxonMobil—and improving operational efficiency.

• Businesses currently lack comprehensive guidance to create accurate air pollutant emission inventories for their value chains, which is a necessary step for reducing such emissions.
• The forthcoming guide, scheduled for 2022, will enable companies to identify emission sources across their full value chain, determine quantification methodologies, identify required data, and use the resulting inventory to reduce emissions.
• The guide is designed to align with existing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reporting standards and IPCC guidelines, allowing companies to integrate air pollution data into existing climate strategies with limited additional effort.
• The quantification framework will specifically address several air pollutants: particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), and carbon monoxide (CO).
• Failure to address air pollution exposes companies to significant financial and legal risks, as evidenced by a $180 million fine for Toyota in January 2021, a $14 million penalty for ExxonMobil in March 2021, and a $1 million settlement for Tesla in May 2021.
• The project was initiated following discussions between IKEA and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition at COP 25 in Madrid in 2019, with funding provided by IKEA and the CCAC.

APA

Michalopoulou, E., Kuylenstierna, J., Malley, C., Borgford-Parnell, N., Galef, A. A., & Holmberg, L. (2021). Creating a practical guide to quantify and reduce air pollution from businesses. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/creating-a-practical-guide-to-reduce-air-pollution-from-businesses.pdf

Chicago

Michalopoulou, Eleni, Johan Kuylenstierna, Chris Malley, Nathan Borgford-Parnell, Alexandra Audrey Galef, and Lotta Holmberg. Creating a practical guide to quantify and reduce air pollution from businesses. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/creating-a-practical-guide-to-reduce-air-pollution-from-businesses.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{michalopoulou2021creating, author = {Michalopoulou, Eleni and Kuylenstierna, Johan and Malley, Chris and Borgford-Parnell, Nathan and Galef, Alexandra Audrey and Holmberg, Lotta}, title = {{Creating a practical guide to quantify and reduce air pollution from businesses}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/creating-a-practical-guide-to-reduce-air-pollution-from-businesses.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }