10. Measure and publish the impact of your service
We need to measure the environmental footprint of our services in order to understand their impacts and to be confident our choices are serving to reduce rather than increase these. Publishing our results and approaches to measurement is also a key step in developing a culture of transparency and learning from one another's methods.
There is also specific guidance on measurement in many of the other 9 Greener Service Principles themselves.
10a. Measure the environmental impacts of your service
'To measure is to know'. If we don't measure then we are, to a greater or lesser extent, guessing.
Lifecycle phases
Actions
(i) Measure the 'as-is' to form a 'baseline'
Judging the effectiveness of a service in delivering on environmental goals requires that we have something to measure against, a so-called 'baseline'. In most cases, a service will be a ‘brownfield’ one and will replace an existing one in some form or other, and this exisitng service can form the baseline against which we measure.
We might be able to make existing processes more efficient, or there may be substitution involved. For example the service being replaced might rely on paper forms or users travelling for face-top-face interactions, and the new service might digitise these interactions, thereby ‘substituting’ them, saving energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the process.
Note: What we measure will depend on the environmental goals set for the service. See Principle 1.
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What is a Baseline?, The GHG Institute
Current challenges around service measurement
Whole service environmental impact measurement is a field that is in its infancy, and there are a number of issues that we currently face.
1. Setting the boundaries for measurement
Agreeing the boundary for service environmental impact measurement is a challenge. Ideally, all aspects pointed to in these principles, ranging from front and back-end technology to user actions and broader behaviours online and off would be measured.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides some guidance on setting boundaries in the Product Standard.
2. Lack of availability of quality data
Much data remains or is treated as proprietary and it can be difficult in some circumstances to get quality data from suppliers. See Principle 3.
3. Debates over the best methodologies
There are still debates between academics and scientists on best approaches and methods for calculating the environmentak impacts of services, particularly when it comes to the technology aspect.
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The climate impact of ICT: A review of estimates, trends and regulations, Charlotte Freitag et al.
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Hybrid life-cycle assessment for robust, best-practice carbon accounting, C Kennelly et al.
4. Lack of tooling
There are currently few tools to help teams make service impact calculations. Assessments that are made often depend on subject-matter experts making bespoke calculations.
(ii) Model the environmental impacts of different solutions under consideration
If we are 'trying out different solutions' at Alpha, then modelling their environmental impacts would enable these to be factored into decision making about which options to take forward to Beta and beyond.
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How the Alpha phase works, Service Manual, UK Gov
(iii) Include environmental impact as a KPI of service performance
UK Government services are obliged to collect 4 key metrics (KPIs) reflecting service performance: cost per transaction, user satisfaction, completion rate and digital take up. Services could add another KPI around environmental impact, which could focus on carbon. Or several could be added, looking beyond carbon to include a range of other environmental impacts.
For example: Carbon footprint per average user interaction with a service.
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Using Data to Improve Your Service, Service Manual, UK Gov
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How Service Performance Indicators Can Improve a Service, Services in Government Blog
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Determine the Functional Unit, W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and standards for carbon footprint
A carbon footprint measures the total greenhouse gas emissions from human activities across the entire lifecycle of a product, service, or organisation.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides a comprehensive framework for measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions, with approaches being divided into a number of standards. These standards provide an internationally accepted framework for businesses, governments, and other entities to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions.
The Product Standard
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Product Standard covers the entire lifecycle of companies’ goods and services, from manufacture and distribution through to end of life.
Software emissions
The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) specification, developed by the Green Software Foundation, complements the GHG protocol standards for specifically measuring the rate of software's carbon emissions. See Principle 6.
Looking beyond carbon
[More detail to be added here]
Lifecycle assessments can be used to look beyond carbon and assess the whole lifecyle impacts of products or services. https://ecochain.com/blog/life-cycle-assessment-lca-guide/
10b. Publish service environmental impact measurements
Transparency with measurement approaches and methods is important in fostering a culture of openness and transparency around progress against environmental goals. It also allows us to learn from one another's efforts.
Lifecycle phases
Actions
(i) Publish a service sustainability statement
A sustainability statement can cover the methods and boundaries a service has adopted to measure environmental impacts.
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Publish Performance Data, Department for Education