The 21st-century industrial challenge: how to achieve carbon neutrality?

Industry accounts for approximately 18% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, just behind electricity and heat generation, transport, and agriculture. The European Union has set a target of carbon neutrality by 2050. France, meanwhile, has launched the National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) to combat climate change.

Certain industries are particularly energy-intensive, notably the processes of metallurgy, chemicals, and the manufacture of non-metallic minerals (cement, lime, glass…), which together account for 69% of industry's CO2 emissions. The scale of the challenge is therefore clear, particularly within the manufacturing industry, which must embark on a massive decarbonisation drive to achieve carbon neutrality.

What is carbon neutrality?

According to the European Parliament's definition, carbon neutrality is the balance between carbon emissions and the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere by carbon sinks.

Carbon neutrality does not therefore necessarily mean eliminating greenhouse gas emissions altogether, but does entail an obligation to offset one's own carbon emissions.

Achieving carbon neutrality requires acting on two fronts simultaneously:

• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions,

• Developing carbon sinks.

These are reservoirs that store atmospheric carbon through artificial or natural mechanisms. The most significant carbon sinks are the oceans and forests.

The challenge of achieving neutrality lies precisely in this balance between CO2 released by industry on one side and absorption by reservoirs on the other.

The carbon footprint assessment: an essential diagnostic

To achieve carbon neutrality, industries must first carry out a carbon footprint assessment. This quantifies a company's carbon footprint, expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalent. This unit requires other greenhouse gases to be converted into CO2 for simplicity. The diagnostic identifies which industrial activities are particularly high CO2 emitters, and provides the opportunity to modify them in order to reduce emissions.

There is no single method for carrying out a carbon assessment. Indeed, it is essential to take into account the full extent of emission sources caused by the industry in question. To categorise these emission sources, ADEME (the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management) has defined three categories of greenhouse gas emission factors, known as Scopes 1, 2 and 3. These are:

• Scope 1: direct emissions,

• Scope 2: indirect emissions related to energy,

• Scope 3: other indirect emissions.

More detailed instructions for carrying out the carbon assessment are available directly on the ADEME website.

Lean Green: reconciling ecology and profitability

The Lean philosophy, which emerged in the 1950s at Toyota and has since been adopted across most industries, has been applied over recent decades in a context of infinite growth and the consumption of planetary resources.

Since the 1970s, when the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) began warning about the finite nature of resources and ongoing climate disruption, Lean has continued to evolve to incorporate this drive to eliminate new CO2 waste.

Even though improving performance remains central, the urgency is such that this “drive to eliminate CO2” must now take precedence over all other Lean principles. It is in this context that Lean Green has emerged and developed over recent years. In the same spirit, other concepts are also appearing, such as industrial ecology.

Eco-production or industrial ecology

Eco-production aims to champion a frugal economy built on the concepts of flow optimisation and recovery, life cycle, and sustainable governance. It is based on three concepts:

These concepts have become central to the fight against climate disruption, and are highly valuable for industries seeking carbon neutrality. To achieve it, these industries are now compelled to change their practices and behaviours, and to adopt genuinely green factories.