TÜV NORD Indonesia calculating the country’s overall CO2 emissions

TÜV NORD Indonesia has concluded its largest development project to date. In just ten months, a team of 15 experts has managed to calculate the country’s ecological footprint. It was commissioned with this task by the development assistance programme of the United Nations (UNDP), which was in turn acting on behalf of the Indonesian coordinating Ministry of Economic affairs. Eva Pitterling’s team was given the nod because of its successful track record in the completion of a number of development contracts for the government. These included particularly projects for the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

There wasn’t much time to prepare: The bidding process began in June 2017; the contract was awarded in October. Eva Pitterling and Ellys Simamora from TÜV NORD Indonesia were quickly able to call on their large network of expert consultants and build an effective project team. A wide range of skills was important here: Including, for instance, specialists in the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions, experts in power plants and industry in general, an economy expert, but also experts in specific industries such as textiles, paper, chemistry, cement, fertilisers, steal, ceramics and food.

For some of these areas, there was already a national plan for the reduction of greenhouse gases available whose data needed to be reviewed. From this, measures were derived to develop a so-called Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC), on which the economic costs of the measures can be clearly identified.

In other industries, such as food and textiles, calculating the emissions was difficult because these sectors are dominated by small companies which were difficult to reach and for which realistic forecasts could be made only with a great deal of effort.

Indonesia is five times as big as Germany and is spread over more than 17,000 islands. For this reason, the team often resorted to statistical material and interviewed companies, visiting just a few of them for sampling purposes. However, much of the data provided also had to be verified on the premises of local businesses. This happened on the islands of Java, Bali, Sulawesi and Sumatra. The findings were then extrapolated to other regions of the country.

"We also initiated workshops for the companies involved to offer our help in the calculation of the emissions, and these proved very popular," ecological expert Eva Pitterling relates. "Most of the attending companies were very interested, because many of the larger companies are already aware of their country’s CO₂ emissions and the measures they are expected to adopt to combat them. The country’s reduction targets are ambitious: The intention is to cut CO₂ emissions by 29 percent by 2030; given international support even over 41 percent. The basis for this reduction is the so-called Business as Usual Scenario, which was projected for the year 2030 as part of the project. As a result, the Indonesian climate targets could now also be quantified more clearly. It was taken into account that the country's economy is expected to grow by an average of six percent each year.

Eva Pitterling sums up: “I was positively surprised by the cooperation and the strength of commitment of everyone involved. And we got enormous support from the UNDP team.”