Conceptual Framework for System-Specific Carbon Cost and Benefit Optimisation from Supply Network Perspective

The natural carbon cycle has been disrupted significantly after the industrialisation mainly due to fossil fuel emissions and land use changes. The concentration of CO2 increased from around 280 ppm in preindustrial times to more than 400 pm today, an increase of 2.56∙1011 t CO2 (CDIAC, 2012). Increased concentration of CO2 is related to climate change and its mitigation is in general considered as a main target and also main challenge (Knutti et al., 2016). In order to reduce carbon emissions, several carbon taxation/trading systems have been adopted by various countries, states and companies (Huisingh et al., 2015). Furthermore much of the research have been conducted on carbon capture, storage and utilisation technologies (Cuéllar-Franca and Azapagic, 2015) and also on the development of suitable metrics which are in general based on emissions, prices and costs (Aldy and Pizer, 2015). Several carbon emission reduction opportunities exist, such as increased energy efficiency, use of renewable energy, afforestation and reforestation, carbon utilisation for algae growth, carbon storage and conversion of CO2 to fuels and chemicals. Among the metrics that have been developed are also eco-costs (Hendriks et al., 2012) that stand for the amount of money that would need to be invested in specific technology or environmental strategy to mitigate CO2 emissions, or eco-benefits that represent the amount of money that would be gained from specific technology or environmental strategy due to unburdening the environment (Čuček et al., 2012). This contribution deals with the development of the conceptual framework for obtaining the