Development of a mobile application to evaluate carbon footprints in industries

Abstract

Carbon footprint is nowadays one of the most widely used environmental indicators for calculation and evaluation of emissions. Calculations of carbon footprint have been in very high demand. Many approaches, methodologies and tools, from simplified online calculators to other more scientific and complex life-cycle based methods have been developed and are available for estimations. However, there are few mobile applications to evaluate carbon footprints for industries especially in the developing nations. This study was set to expand upon the limited literature on carbon footprint evaluation mobile application in industries, conducting a thorough examination of the available application, developing a mobile application to evaluate carbon footprint in industries, contributing to the limited literature, improve industrial processes and ultimately contribute meaningfully to the battle against climate change. Attention was focused on key industrial processes (production capacity, work force, transportation and raw materials) in a typical transformer manufacturing company. The design was specified based on user requirements and later a mobile application to evaluate carbon footprints in industries was developed. The study used agile methodology (extreme programming) following System Development Life Cycle Framework to develop a mobile application to evaluate carbon footprints in industries. It incorporated carbon footprint prototype by integrating data with mobile application technologies. A mobile application to evaluate carbon footprints in industries was developed and showed that Aluminium (97%) had the largest percentage of carbon emission followed by steel (2.5%) and copper with smallest value. It was also found carbon emissions increase with an increase in workforce. More carbon was emitted with an increase in transformer transportation distance from one city to another. Not only that but also the more transformers were produced the higher the carbon was emitted. To reduce carbon footprints, industries, amongst other things, industries need to be informed, engaged and embrace mobile technologies in carbon footprint evaluation processes. It is important to evaluate carbon footprints as it enables industries, governments and agencies to take action to tackle these emissions and ultimately achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. The developed application is scalable and can be used by environmental bodies and companies to draw strategies on lowering carbon emissions and adopt greener technologies that are of benefit to the environment as well as for sustainable ecosystem.