Huron’s GHG emissions calculations were completed by AccountAbility, a global consulting and standards firm that works with organizations on ESG matters. The structure of Huron’s emissions calculations was based off the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol’s Corporate Standard Revised Edition. While Huron continues to improve data collection processes, several types of activity data were not readily available. As such, Huron’s GHG calculations were limited to minimum recommended inclusions for professional services office-based environments.
Stationary Combustion: Stationary combustion refers to the combustion of fuels that are purchased by Huron and/or consumed at Huron’s office locations, including for activities such as office heating or on-site electricity generation or in equipment such as generators, boilers, furnaces, and other types of stationary fuel combustion technologies owned, leased, or controlled by Huron.
Stationary combustion activity data has been estimated based on Huron's total office location square footage (excluding subleased buildings, floors, and portions of floors) and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) average energy consumption data (regional for U.S. offices and U.S. average for overseas offices in the absence of international averages).
Mobile Combustion: Mobile combustion refers to all vehicles owned or leased by Huron, and their related exhaust emissions. The sources of Huron’s mobile combustion emissions (i.e., the private jet) have been liquidated from the company’s holdings. Huron did not have any mobile combustion emissions in 2022. Prior to 2022, Huron’s emissions calculations included fuel usage by fuel type for two company-owned aircraft. In the absence of 2019 mobile combustion activity data, Huron’s 2020 mobile combustion activity has been applied as a proxy for 2019 activity. 2020 and 2021 mobile combustion activity has been calculated by using Huron’s actual 2020 and 2021 mobile combustion activity data.
Emissions factors for stationary and mobile combustion were applied using the Emission factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (last modified: April 2022; previously modified 2018).
Purchased Electricity: Purchased electricity refers to electricity supplied to Huron’s office locations by local utility providers or other off-site sources. Due to the limited availability of actual purchased electricity data, purchased electricity activity for domestic and overseas offices has been estimated based on an extrapolation of the actual electricity consumption of Huron’s Chicago office (the company’s headquarters) being proportionally applied by square footage for Huron’s total office footprint (excluding subleased buildings, floors, and portions of floors except where Huron continues to pay the electricity bill) for locations without actual energy usage.
Domestic: Emission factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (last modified: April 2022)
Overseas: Country-specific electricity grid greenhouse gas emission factors provided by www.carbonfootprint.com (last updated: January 2022)
Air Business Travel: Air business travel refers to the use of aircraft not owned or leased by Huron (i.e., commercial airplanes) for Huron business travel. Due to the limited availability of complete actual air business travel activity data, the complete actual air business travel activity data available (representing 49% of total air travel activity in 2019, 62% of total air travel activity in 2020, 66% of total air travel activity in 2021, and 70% of total air travel activity in 2022) has been extrapolated and applied to the remaining total of air business travel activity.
Non-Air Business Travel: Non-air business travel refers to the use of vehicles not owned or leased by Huron (i.e., rental cars, train travel, bus travel, ferry travel, etc.) for Huron business travel.
Non-air business travel activity data has been estimated based on rental car and gas expense data, Huron’s assumption about certain expenses for gasoline charges, and the EIA monthly retail gasoline price data.
Emissions factors for air and non-air business travel were applied using the Greenhouse Gas Inventories, provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (last modified: April 2022).
Disclaimer: These GHG emissions calculations cover only the emissions-producing activities listed; are estimated using the methods, emissions factors, and assumptions detailed above; and are not exhaustive of all of Huron’s GHG emissions-producing activities.