D-Carbonize complies with the Bilan Carbone® Methodology

The 6 Key Steps of the Bilan Carbone® Method

Awareness

The first step of the Bilan Carbone® method is to raise awareness of energy and climate issues, a fundamental phase for anchoring the approach in a sustainable commitment. Even before starting calculations or data collection, it is essential that all stakeholders within the organization—employees, management teams, partners, and sometimes even clients—understand the underlying reasons for assessing the carbon footprint. This awareness helps create a common language around key concepts: greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, direct and indirect emissions, carbon neutrality, etc.

Internally, this can take the form of training sessions, participatory workshops, educational communication materials, or dedicated events. The goal is to generate buy-in and develop a collective awareness of the environmental impacts associated with the company’s activities. An organization that takes the time to train its employees is better able to establish a low-carbon culture and encourage everyone’s active involvement in the process.

Outside the company, awareness-raising can also involve suppliers, subcontractors, or local stakeholders, particularly when the value chain plays a significant role in the company’s emissions. Involving these stakeholders early on helps anticipate bottlenecks, better structure information gathering, and strengthen the credibility of the process.

Awareness-raising is therefore not limited to a simple introductory step: it constitutes a strategic foundation for ensuring the success of the Bilan Carbone® and initiating a sustainable organizational transformation.

Mobilization

Mobilizing internal staff is a decisive step in implementing the Bilan Carbone® method. It occurs from the very beginning of the process and determines the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the entire process. Indeed, calculating a carbon footprint relies on rigorous data collection relating to the organization’s activities (purchasing, travel, energy consumption, waste, etc.), and this collection cannot be achieved without the involvement of various teams.

It is therefore important to identify key contacts within the relevant departments (accounting, logistics, human resources, production, etc.) and actively engage them in the process. This engagement can take the form of framework meetings, collaborative workshops, or the designation of carbon focal points in each department. These internal contacts play a fundamental role in centralizing data, explaining the issues to their colleagues, and ensuring regular contact with the team responsible for the carbon footprint.

Beyond the technical aspect, staff engagement also helps strengthen cohesion around a project with high environmental value. It gives meaning to everyone’s work by concretely demonstrating how each action, each consumption or production item, can contribute to the ecological transition. Successful mobilization thus creates a climate of cooperation, conducive to the transformation and sustainable adoption of low-carbon practices at all levels of the company.

Calculating Emissions

Calculating greenhouse gas emissions is the technical core of the Bilan Carbone® method. This step involves quantifying, in a structured and standardized manner, all emissions generated directly or indirectly by the organization’s activities. It is based on data collected during the mobilization phase and allows for the identification of the highest-emitting areas within the company.

The calculation covers three defined scopes:

• Scope 1: Direct emissions, for example, from fuel combustion or internal industrial processes.
• Scope 2: Indirect emissions related to energy consumption, particularly purchased electricity or heat.
• Scope 3: Other indirect emissions throughout the value chain (purchasing, upstream/downstream transportation, business travel, use of products sold, waste management, etc.).

This comprehensive approach accurately reflects the reality of an organization’s carbon impacts. The goal is not only to produce an overall figure, but also to obtain a detailed snapshot of emissions in order to identify the main levers for action. The use of official and up-to-date emission factors, such as those proposed by ADEME, is essential to ensure the reliability of the results.

Finally, this phase often includes a climate vulnerability analysis: it allows us to understand how the company’s activities could be affected by future climate changes and to anticipate the risks associated with high carbon dependence.

Development of action plans

Once emissions have been identified and quantified, the next step in the Bilan Carbone® method is to develop concrete and targeted action plans to reduce the organization’s carbon footprint. This phase is essential because it transforms the quantified findings into operational decisions. It allows us to move from a simple assessment to an active transformation.

Action plans must be tailored to the organization, its activities, its resources, and its level of maturity regarding environmental issues. They can include various measures, such as improving energy efficiency, reducing business travel, relocating suppliers, switching to renewable energy, or even eco-designing products. Each action is prioritized based on its emission reduction potential, its technical feasibility, and its implementation cost.

This step also involves internal consultation to ensure team buy-in for the planned changes. The involvement of business lines is essential to ensure the alignment of actions with the company’s strategic objectives. At the same time, it is necessary to define specific monitoring indicators to measure progress.

Finally, action plans must remain scalable: they are part of a continuous improvement approach, where actions are regularly reassessed and enhanced. This flexibility allows the organization to adapt to technological, regulatory or climatic developments, while maintaining the course towards carbon neutrality.

Defining Reduction Targets

Defining reduction targets is a key step in the Bilan Carbone® method, as it formalizes the organization’s long-term commitment. Once emissions have been analyzed and action plans identified, the next step is to set clear, measurable objectives aligned with global climate trajectories.

These objectives must be long-term, consistent with the commitments of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to +1.5°C. To this end, companies are encouraged to adopt trajectories compatible with carbon neutrality by 2050, or even more ambitious ones depending on their sector of activity. Many stakeholders rely on recognized benchmarks, such as Science Based Targets (SBTi), to set credible and scientifically validated reduction targets.

Objectives can be defined in absolute terms (overall reduction in tons of CO₂ equivalent) or in intensity (per unit of revenue, production, etc.). They must also be broken down by emissions scope (Scope 1, 2, and 3) to ensure complete coverage of the carbon footprint.

Finally, it is crucial that these objectives be integrated into the organization’s overall strategy. They must serve as a guide for driving the transformation, mobilizing teams, engaging with stakeholders, and reporting on progress. By setting ambitious objectives, the company gives itself the means to act effectively toward a low-carbon future.

Implementing an improvement approach

Implementing a continuous improvement approach is the phase that sustainably anchors the organization’s climate transition. It consolidates the previous steps by establishing a regular process for evaluating, adjusting, and progressing the actions undertaken. This dynamic is essential to avoid remaining stuck in a one-off or symbolic approach, but rather to integrate carbon management into the company’s daily operations.

In concrete terms, this approach relies on monitoring performance indicators, analyzing deviations from set objectives, and adapting action plans based on observed results. It also involves strengthening data collection tools, automating certain tasks using specialized software such as D-Carbonize, and structuring carbon governance with clearly defined responsibilities.

Continuous improvement also relies on a culture of feedback: it is important to identify what works, what is blocking, and to learn lessons from them to move forward. This can involve regular reviews, internal audits, or feedback from stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees).