Carbon Footprint Analysis

Measurement

For the past three fiscal years, we have measured our carbon footprint and the energy used in all our operations globally. In fiscal 2008, we again worked with Clear Carbon Consulting (Clear Carbon) to collect this data from our businesses and calculate our total emissions. Clear Carbon is a full-service consulting firm that is respected for its expertise in carbon and energy analysis. Their clients include Wal-Mart and Simon Property Group.

A key element of our 2008 analysis was the re-baselining of our previous years’ numbers to account for any business dynamics such as acquisitions or divestitures (including the acquisition of Dow Jones & Company) as well as improvements in data availability that have occurred since we began collecting this data in fiscal 2006. We will repeat this process annually, including both measuring our current year’s footprint and measuring our progress by re-baselining previous years.

In fiscal 2008, News Corporation's carbon footprint was 642,237¹ metric tons of carbon dioxide (or carbon dioxide equivalents), compared with 673,743 metric tons in fiscal 2006², a decrease of 5%.

Methodology

We followed the Greenhouse Gas Protocol established by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the standard manual for measuring greenhouse gas emissions.

We used the “control method” of including 100% of the emissions associated with businesses we directly control. We included all Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and included the (optional) Scope 3 emissions associated with business air travel. We are delighted to provide a more detailed statement of methodology upon request.

We included in our carbon footprint:

• All fuels used directly by our companies
• All electricity used in our facilities
• The impacts of business air travel

We recognize that our businesses have other indirect impacts that also create greenhouse gas emissions. For example, there are emissions created by products that our businesses purchase. See “Working With Partners” for more information on how we have been working with our business partners to address these emissions.

We collected data directly from all our business units to calculate the emissions from our activities. In some cases, where data were not available, Clear Carbon made estimates using available data such as square footage of the location. These estimates accounted for only a small percentage of total emissions.

Verification

To confirm our carbon footprint for fiscal 2008, News Corporation worked with Cventure LLC (Cventure), an independent third-party company qualified to verify carbon footprint analyses, to conduct an evaluation of our carbon footprint. Cventure audited the methodology, data collection process, and accuracy of the data used in fiscal 2008 to establish our carbon footprint and conducted several site visits to directly verify data. Cventure’s statement on the verification of our fiscal 2008 carbon footprint analysis can be downloaded here. To see the verification statement for our fiscal 2007 footprint analysis, please visit this page.

External Reporting

As we have for the last two years, we again publicly disclosed our carbon footprint with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). This disclosure report for our 2008 footprint was submitted in June 2009. Please visit the CDP website for more information.

 

¹ 2008 carbon footprint includes purchases of energy generated from clean power sources.
² Due to the re-baselining process, our 2007 carbon footprint total has changed slightly from the previous year’s measurement. The revised figure is 675,573 metric tons.