Romanian Carbon Database - DATA 4 CLIMATE

Why?

Carbon footprint assessments are becoming mandatory with the implementation of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) from the 1st of January 2023 as well as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) from the 1st of January 2024 in the 27 EU member states.

This means that a large amount of companies will require location-specific data related to carbon for their carbon footprint analysis. This data comes under the form of conversion factors also called emission factors, which allow the conversion between a certain professional activity and a CO2 equivalent.

DATA 4 CLIMATE -

An ECONOS Initiative

Currently, many of the 27 EU member countries lack this type of data. Certain countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom already have developed carbon databases with data specific to their activities. Unfortunately, the rest of the member countries who don't have their own data, use these already existing databases for their own assessments. This causes a great granularity problem for the results obtained. When using an emission factor which represents the conversion of telecommunication services in France, this number will be completely different in another country such as Romania. This happens because the french telecommunication industry will emit a different amount of CO2 then the romanian one.

This is why many countries started developing their own database in order to battle this data precision problem. In 2014, the Clim'foot project had the goal of creating carbon databases in other EU member countries such as Italy, Greece, Hungary and Croatia using the guidance of the French actors who had previously created the first carbon database in Europe.

A few years later, we decided it was time to revive the Clim'foot initiative and follow their steps in order to solve the data problem in Romania and its neighbouring countries. This initiative gave birth to the DATA 4 CLIMATE Project.

A project aiming to unite and convince eastern European countries that creating a carbon database is essential for the analysis of their GHG emissions and for their reduction.

The project has been an ECONOS initiative, but has received great support from the Romanian and French authorities who have recognized the necessity of this project.

The official launch of the project took place on the 4th of July 2022, and will witness a constant evolution over the upcoming years, as we will keep working on adding more data to the database.

Database Design

Based on the Clim'Foot database model – which has brought together Italy, Croatia, Greece and Hungary to create a European carbon base led by France, we aim to create carbon databases for Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland and Bulgaria.

Our carbon database will prioritize the main sectors responsible for CO2 equivalent emissions in the EU:

• Energy (fuel combustion and fugitive emissions from fuels);

• Transport;

• Industrial processes and product use;

• Agriculture;

• Financial / Services;

• Waste management.

The data for the database mainly comes from:

• National Statistics Agencies;

• Sectorial experts, stakeholder organisations;

• Reference libraries (National Libraries);

• Scientific Academic research and articles from Universities.
  

DATA 4 CLIMATE - Event

The Launch Event for the DATA 4 CLIMATE Project took place at the Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences of Bucharest on the 4th of July 2022. The Event was organized with the help of the Romanian Environmental Ministry and the French Embassy. The event gathered participants from the private, public and academic sector, all showing interest in the project and its potential results.

You can watch the video of this event here -->