EAST Ventures and The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin Indonesia), launched ECOVISEA, which stands for ‘Emission Calculator & Visualization South-East Asia’ earlier this month on Feb 6. Collaborating with WRI Indonesia as a knowledge partner, ECOVISEA acts as a free web-based global greenhouse gas (GHG) calculator that helps companies calculate and measure their environmental impact.
This initiative is one of the outputs from the Memorandum of Understanding between East Ventures, Kadin Indonesia, through its programme, Kadin Net Zero Hub, and WRI Indonesia in advancing commitment towards net-zero targets. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on November 11, 2022 at the East Ventures’ breakout session of the Indonesia Net Zero Summit 2022, a sideline event of B20 Indonesia.
With the fact that Indonesia is one of the top 10 emitter countries by contributing approximately 1.48 GtCO2e to GHG emissions yearly, it requires extra efforts to ensure progressive progress in achieving the Paris Agreement target, which is to limit 1.5°C of global temperature increase by 2050.
The fundamental step is to have the companies calculate their emissions to measure their environmental impact; therefore, they will be able to reduce environmental impact or make informed decisions towards their sustainability targets.
Despite the importance of calculating GHG emissions, many companies in Indonesia, from large, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to startups, have not yet calculated their carbon footprints. This is primarily due to a lack of access to GHG accounting skills and knowledge.
Recognising this gap, East Ventures and Kadin Indonesia, with guidance from WRI Indonesia, launched this innovative tool and invited businesses in any industry nationwide to accurately measure, manage, and reduce their emissions, facilitating the transition to a low-carbon economy.
“Kadin Indonesia, in collaboration with East Ventures and WRI Indonesia, announces the launch of ECOVISEA, a free web-based greenhouse gas calculator. This initiative reflects our commitment through Kadin Net Zero Hub to assist national companies in transitioning towards becoming Net Zero Companies,” said Kadin Indonesia coordinating vice chairwoman for Maritime, Investment and Foreign Affairs Shinta W. Kamdani.
“ECOVISEA provides an essential tool for Indonesian companies to track and reduce their GHG emissions. We are confident that ECOVISEA will play a pivotal role in enabling national companies to collectively achieve the government’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reaching nett zero emission by 2060,” added Shinta.
East Ventures partner Avina Sugiarto also said: “Sustainability has been part of East Ventures’ DNA since its inception. We are delighted to introduce ECOVISEA, a free web-based GHG measurement tool designed for businesses and MSMEs across Indonesia and South-East Asia. Launched in partnership with Kadin Indonesia and WRI Indonesia, ECOVISEA stands as a testament to collaborative efforts in harnessing digital technology, industry-specific expertise, and on-the-ground insights.
“This innovative tool streamlines the previously manual carbon calculation process and empowers businesses to visualise sources of GHG emissions to better identify emission reduction strategies. Together, we’re excited to pave the way for a sustainable future, leveraging the power of technology and actively contributing to the government’s net zero vision,” Avina added.
ECOVISEA is currently designed to calculate the emissions produced by companies based on three scopes, including:
> Scope 1: Direct emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by the company, such as stationary combustion, fugitive emission, mobile combustion and process emissions among others.
> Scope 2: Indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy, such as purchased electricity, heat or steam and others.
> Scope 3: All other indirect emissions from a company’s value chain, from both upstream and downstream value chains.
The emission factor data used in ECOVISEA is provided by Climatiq, a carbon calculation engine. This data upholds the global standard and is compliant with the GHG Protocol and ISO 14067. Companies can go to ecovisea.com to register their accounts. Once the company is verified and registered, they will be directed to step-by-step instructions for uploading their data to the company’s dashboard. Once the data is filled, the company will gain real-time access to the result, which is presented in the format of a set of data and visualisations. It highlights some important information, including the amount of emissions with detailed breakdowns as well as time-trend analysis.
Furthermore, the company can conveniently save drafts and update data at each stage of the process, offering the flexibility to make necessary edits as needed.
For the current version, ECOVISEA can support the companies in calculating Scope 1, Scope 2 and some parts of Scope 3. The full version is expected to be fully launched in the first half of 2024.
WRI Indonesia country director Nirarta Samadhi stated, “We believe that democratising knowledge about accurate emissions tracking can make a substantial contribution to the industrial decarbonisation efforts in Indonesia. Therefore, it is critical to streamline the data input process to help companies overcome challenges in precisely
estimating their emissions, which often arise from complex data presentation and complicated data entry procedures. Given WRI Indonesia’s focus on science-based industrial decarbonisation, we are pleased to have contributed to the development of ECOVISEA by providing guidance on methodology and ensuring adherence to the GHG protocol.”
ECOVISEA upholds the privacy policy for the company’s data inputted into the tool, which will be exclusively used for calculating the company’s GHG emissions.
The tool will temporarily retain the data inputs for the purpose of generating the dashboard as a result of calculating the company’s GHG emissions. ECOVISEA also integrates with the data privacy system, which limits the authority to access, enter and modify the company data to only the accounts registered using the company’s email domain.