Abstract
Greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the industrial sector focusses on energy-intensive industries (EIIs) since they comprise a significant proportion of industrial sector emissions. However, collective emissions from non-EII industries is substantial and organisations require guidance to reach carbon neutrality. This study addresses the research question ‘What methodologies and modelling tools do industrial organisations use to plan and subsequently achieve carbon emissions neutrality?’ There is a research gap between general, independent, emissions abatement measures and organisation-specific plans developed using in-house or commercial software and/or energy management consultants. This study proposes a detailed, open access, cross-sectoral and strategic methodology aimed at the organisational level. A Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer (SIPOC) methodology is used in an adapted Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control (DMAIC) framework to provide a high-level, visual pathway to carbon neutrality, clearly indicating the supplier, input, process, output, and customer for each carbon mitigation step. The Analyse step involves an energy audit, and heat and renewable energy studies to generate modelling tool input. The Improve step models the potential emissions abatement measures in priority order of efficiency, new technology, heat recovery, and renewables, with the budget or timeline as the dominant parameter. The model outputs are a carbon neutrality waterfall as the pathway, and a sensitivity graph to highlight influential modelling inputs. Future work includes modelling tool development, and validation with a case study of a medical device manufacturing facility.
