Emissions Data Separation for Carbon Footprint Accuracy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current technologies face challenges in confirming and handling unconfirmed greenhouse gas emissions, particularly Scope 3 emissions, which are difficult to allocate to individual products during manufacturing, leading to inaccuracies in carbon footprint calculations.
Innovation Solution
An information processing method that determines the existence of unconfirmed emissions and generates separate data for both confirmed and unconfirmed portions, allowing for accurate tracking and allocation of emissions by recording tracking information in a database and calculating emissions using confirmed information once unconfirmed portions are confirmed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If Scope 3 emissions are allocated to individual products during manufacturing, then carbon footprint calculations become more complete, but measurement precision deteriorates due to inability to confirm actual emissions at manufacturing stage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by recording tracking information for unconfirmed emissions at the manufacturing stage, and then confirming and allocating these emissions at a later stage when actual data becomes available. This allows the system to prepare for complete emissions accounting in advance without compromising measurement accuracy, as the confirmation step ensures precision is maintained until sufficient data exists.
2Ease of operation
If unconfirmed emissions are handled separately from confirmed emissions, then allocation fairness improves, but device complexity increases due to need for separate data management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing emissions data into confirmed emissions and unconfirmed emissions, with separate tracking and management processes for each. This segmentation enables fair allocation by clearly distinguishing between emissions that are verified and those that are not, while the modular structure of separate data streams actually simplifies management compared to attempting to handle all emissions uniformly.
3Productivity
If provisional values are used for unconfirmed emissions, then productivity improves by enabling early carbon footprint estimates, but measurement precision deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by providing carbon footprint calculations that include both confirmed emissions (accurate) and unconfirmed emissions (provisional). This allows the system to deliver partial results quickly for productivity purposes while clearly indicating which portions are unconfirmed, thus maintaining measurement precision for the confirmed portions while enabling early estimation overall.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing method includes: by at least one processor, determining whether there is an unconfirmed portion of the emissions associated with a target object; and generating, when there is the unconfirmed portion of the emissions, unconfirmed portion data indicating the unconfirmed portion of the emissions in addition to confirmed portion data indicating a confirmed portion of the emissions as the emissions information of the target object.