Corporate Climate Protection Measures to Improve the Carbon Footprint in Production: A Systematic Development of a Toolbox with Climate Protection Actions for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Individual climate protection measures are already being successfully implemented by many companies. But often, there is a lack of comprehensive information for selecting and implementing the right measures that fit the individual company’s emissions profile. This paper presents the systematic development of a toolbox of climate protection actions for small and medium-sized enterprises in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The development process followed a four-step methodological approach: conducting intensive research on climate protection measures in applied and practical literature, reducing and grouping the measures into their corresponding emission categories, structuring and categorizing the measures into specific types of areas, and providing detailed profiles and descriptions of each measure. The resulting list of climate protection actions follows underlying basic principles (i.e. improvement of the emission factor, reduction of emission-generating activities and behavioral changes) which allow an individual derivation of measures. In its final version, the toolbox provides small and medium-sized enterprises with a comprehensive and accessible resource for identifying and implementing effective climate protection actions according to their emissions profile.