Monitoring and reducing carbon footprint of Russian water and wastewater companies
Methodology for assessing carbon footprint of wastewater treatment plants
The Methodology for the assessment of carbon footprint of wastewater treatment plants was developed within the course of implementation of “Monitoring and reducing carbon footprint of Russian Vodocanals (Water and Wastewater Treatment Companies)” project. This project had been implemented in 2012-2013 by NGO Ecoline and Saint-Petersburg research Centre for Environmental Safety of Russian Academy of Sciences with the support of Foreign and Commonwealth Office within the framework of the Prosperity Fund programme.
Saint-Petersburg Vodocanal (Water and Wastewater Treatment Company) and the Russian Association for Water and Wastewater Treatment acted as key project partners.
Carbon footprint is a measure of the total amount of greenhouse gases emissions of a defined person, population, organization, or a region associated with certain activities, services, production processes and life cycle of a product as a whole. To assess carbon footprint it is necessary to calculate emissions of greenhouse gases and first of all, emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, dinitrogen monoxide and a number of fluorine containing compounds.
Wastewater treatment plants are in fact nature protection enterprises. Their main objective is “wiping off footprints” of their clients, reducing thereby negative environmental impacts. But efficiency of wastewater treatment itself should be studies with regards to energy consumption for sewage treatment, sludge transportation, and other processes. As the result, carbon footprint of wastewater treatment plant can be assessed as an integral measure of sewage treatment as a whole.
The methodology developed complies with actual recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and contains also significant elaborations concerning assessment of methane and dinitrogen monoxide emissions specific for wastewater treatment processes and sludge disposal sites.
The methodology was developed in the collaboration with project partners and presented to colleagues working at specialized higher school establishments and research institutions. A number of specialists took active part in discussing the methodology, including:
- Olga Rublevskaya, Vice-Director of Development Department, SUE “Vodokanal of Saint- Petersburg”;
- Tatiana Perednya, Director of the Environmental Department, SUE “Vodokanal of Saint- Petersburg”
- Dr. Dmitry Danilovich , Deputy of the Russian Association for Water and Wastewater Treatment, Chief Technologist, JSC “Institute MosVodocanalNIIProject”;
- Prof. Victor Panfilov, Head of Industrial Biotechnology Department , D. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia;
- Professor Irina Pavlinova, Head of Municipal and Industrial Water Supply, Moscow State Academy of Municipal Economy and Construction;
- Dr. Victor Bazhenov, Professor of Municipal and Industrial Water Supply Department, Moscow State Academy of Municipal Economy and Construction;
- Prof. Eugene Alexeyev, Head of Department “Wastewater Treatment and Environment Department, Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (MGSU);
- Professor Arcady Denisov, Head of Division of Sanitary and Environmental Conservation, All-Russia Research and Technological Institute of Biotechnological Industry, Russian Academy for Agricultural Sciences;
- Professor Eugene Venitsianov, Head of Water Quality Laboratory, Institute for Water Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Project implementers are grateful to specialists of the Department of State Policy and Regulation in the Field of minimization of Negative Environmental Impacts and Environmental Monitoring (the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the RF), as well as specialists of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Moscow and JSC “ Mosvodocanal”.
Project implementers would like to thank everybody who supported development of the methodology, took part in workshops, field studies, information collection and analysis.
In 2012-2013 the methodology was tested within the course of carbon footprint assessment of wastewater treatment plants of SUE “Vodokanal of Saint- Petersburg”. Materials presented in this brochure can applied for calculating greenhouse gases emissions of wastewater treatment plants and can also be used for training purposes.
ISBN 978-5-7237-1085-6