Supporting SMEs in their low-carbon transition with the European Innovation Council (EIC)

In 2019, the EIC launched its Greenhouse Gas Programme to raise awareness of the European Green Deal and ensure small and medium size enterprises could more easily take action towards carbon neutrality.

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Together with partners CO2 Logic and Eura AG, Ramboll worked with the EIC to help small and medium sized innovative European companies align with the European Green Deal targets. To ensure success of the programme we developed the “core carbon tool”, working with users to accommodate specific needs within an intuitive tool, which has subsequently supported over 160 organisations across Europe develop and manage their sustainable transition plans.

How it works

To support SMEs in their transition to carbon neutrality, we developed a four-stage process:

assessing their carbon footprint
tracking results annually per site
reduction through mitigation
offsetting

The user-friendly online “core carbon tool”, which is based on the GHG Protocol methodology, includes the calculation of a companies’ carbon footprint, and follows the global Greenhouse Gas Protocol computation rules, allowing for different units.

During the second stage, users can simulate a reduction plan aligned with neutrality targets i.e. 25% reduction in five years for scopes 1 and 2. A list of 40+ mitigation measures covering a wide range of fields including “Promote public transport and car-pooling”, “Subscribe to green electricity procurement”, “Improve supply chain”, or “Support staff good practices” address daily routines of beneficiaries from all sectors. Finally, the tool demonstrates outcomes of the SME’s decarbonisation efforts and offers information to reach carbon neutrality through offsetting the remaining emissions following existing standards.

Support and challenge

To support and challenge the SMEs during the process, an individual support programme was launched by attributing a carbon expert to each beneficiary requesting one. Ramboll was also responsible for leading the consortium selected for the programme.

The support programme places emphasis on results communication, to encourage the most active companies. For each step of the program, a certification in the form of a label is issued if all conditions are complied with. For example, it is necessary to have completed at least all the categories of scopes 1 and 2 as well as a list of specific categories of scope 3 depending on the sector of the company, to receive the carbon footprint badge. Mitigation badges are provided for the companies which commit to a yearly decarbonisation rate aligned with the EU Green Deal.

Over 160 beneficiaries

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Two years following launch of the EIC’s Greenhouse Gas Programme, it has supported over 160 beneficiaries who are using the online tool in Europe and enabled the completion of more than 30 simulated reduction plans.

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The programme attracted the interest of many companies willing to engage themselves and communicate internally and to their customers about their efforts to reach neutrality.
EIC Project

The EU Commission wants make its own operations climate neutral. We undertook a feasibility and scoping study on how a greenhouse-gas neutral Commission could be achieved as early as possible and prior to 2040.

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Frédéric Pradelle
Principal
+33 6 46 14 00 64