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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze the changes in climate, the carbon footprint and existing assessment methodologies, and based on an author's research to develop a methodology for carbon footprint calculation of small organizations. The major problem of small organizations calculation tools are complexity, time consuming and requires significant resources to implement. The research revealed that the key factors for calculating the carbon footprint for small organizations are misunderstanding of general organization operation from the perspective of environmental, employee engagement, leadership of managers, and public sector key factors (such as education and advertising, lack of information, ecoculture education, green procurement, tax exemption). Based on the results of the research, the authors developed a methodology for calculating the carbon footprint and prepared an algorithm for its application, adapted to small organizations. It can be established that the successful carbon footprint implementation and operating outweighs formed issues in the long term.
Keywords: carbon footprint, sustainable development, small organization, methodology, E. Deming's continuous improvement cycle.
1. Introduction
Growing global demand for environmental protection - air, water, human life, animal and plant life, natural resources and ecosystems - will be determined by fundamental changes organizations engaged in areas of activity such as manufacturing, services, marketing, consumption, state governance, management of international economic and political organizations. Solving environmental problems cannot be limited to the management of their environment by only a few countries - combined and coordinated efforts of all countries and international organizations are needed (Ruževičius, 2010, 2012; Šimanskienė & Petrulis, 2014; The Council..., 2016). Currently, carbon footprint is one of the most used environmental and sustainable development indicators (Čiegis & Vijūnas, 2014; Tjandra et al., 2014; Ruževičius, 2012). Various initiatives, calculation methods, international standards provide only guidelines for assessing the carbon footprint of organizations. Most of them are based on the philosophy and classification of the greenhouse gas protocol (GHG) and ISO 14064 standard. However, due to the lack of a clear format and procedure for these standards, it is difficult to apply them to small organizations. In addition, organizations that are just starting to assess their carbon footprint may not have the resources or trained staff to carry out a comprehensive assessment. In order to fill this gap, simple methodology is truly needed...