Carbon accounting is like financial accounting - precision is a prerequisite.

Carbon accounting quantifies an organization's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with the primary objective of complying with ESG regulations and reducing their Carbon footprint. In an era marked by climate change concerns and sustainability goals, it has emerged as a critical tool for businesses and organizations to track, manage, and reduce Carbon emissions.

By understanding their Carbon emissions, companies can make informed decisions, reduce their environmental impact, and advance sustainability initiatives. The amount of Carbon-related regulation is increasing and, with it, a growing demand for reporting on emissions. Carbon accounting data is essential for all the areas companies are expected to report on under these regulations.

The Pivotal Role of Data

Data plays an influential role in sustainability and is the foundational building block of Carbon accounting. Accurate and comprehensive data is vital for understanding the sources of emissions and mitigating the environmental impact.

By leveraging data and using it for extracting insightful analytics, companies can gain visibility across all their organizational and supply chain operations. Regardless of the industry, these data points help assess an organization's environmental impact and enable informed decisions and realistic goal setting.

The Data at Hand

The regulations and reporting frameworks require companies to disclose vast amounts of data regarding their activities and resources. This data encompasses various aspects, such as energy consumption, resource usage within the company facility, sourcing of raw materials, and production-related emissions. The data can be divided into scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3.

• Scope 1 Emissions: These include direct emissions from an organization's in-house activities or operations - like emissions from sources owned or controlled by the organization.

• Scope 2 Emissions: These are indirect emissions associated with consuming purchased or outsourced energy. Scope 2 emissions result from the power purchased (electricity, heat, steam, etc.) and used by an organization that was generated elsewhere.

• Scope 3 Emissions: These include the remaining indirect emissions in an organization's value chain not classified under Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Scope 3 emissions are typically the most extensive and challenging to account for because they involve activities and processes outside the direct control of the reporting organization.

The Rocky Mountain Institute reports that a company’s supply-chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are 5.5 times higher than the direct emissions from its assets and operations. Scope 3 emissions often pose the biggest challenge for enterprises in their path toward complete compliance. Know more about Scope 3 Emissions here.

Given the complexity and significance of data in Carbon accounting, precision becomes vital in data management and reporting.

Automation for Precision

The role of automation in Carbon accounting is very vital. Automation tools and technologies are revolutionizing Carbon accounting by streamlining data collection, processing, and reporting. They contribute to increased accuracy and efficiency, making the process more effective and manageable.

Here's how Treeni’s resustain™ automation can transform Carbon accounting for your company.

• Data Collection: Automation can enable organizations to collect data in real-time. It ensures data is up-to-date and significantly reduces the risk of errors associated with manual data entry.

• GHG Calculations: Our SaaS-based platform can help companies process the data from emissions in real-time. However, automated collection is not a requisite for calculations. Hence, even companies that struggle with automated collection can experience the benefits of automated calculations. With automated GHG calculations, organizations can monitor emissions more effectively and take prompt corrective actions when necessary.

• Platform-Level Processing for Analytics: The analytics platform can process large volumes of data quickly and efficiently. It can handle complex analytics that are often beyond the capabilities of manual data processing. This results in better insights into an organization's emissions and environmental impact, enabling better decision-making.

• Automated Reporting: The platform allows organizations to generate reports aligned with global reporting frameworks such as CDP and GRI, as well as client-specific requests such as Ecovadis with the least effort. These reports are more accurate and provide granular insights into an organization's Carbon emissions. It is customizable to suit the specific requirements of the organization and its stakeholders, making it easier to communicate progress and areas for improvement.

Data quality and automation are essential in Carbon accounting. Accurate and reliable data forms the foundation of effective Carbon emissions management. In the absence of precise data, organizations run the risk of making uninformed decisions that could have a detrimental impact on their Carbon footprint. Automation tools are changing the game in Carbon accounting by simplifying data collection, processing, and reporting, leading to heightened precision and efficiency.

Treeni’s 360° Solution

A data-driven approach is essential to empower decision-makers to accelerate sustainability transformation efforts. At Treeni, we understand the critical role that data quality and automation play in Carbon accounting. We assist organizations in integrating with tools and software to enable automated data collection, processing, and reporting.

Treeni’s resustain™ is a SaaS platform that can help enterprises streamline their end-to-end sustainability and ESG compliance with its out-of-the-box reporting templates and functionality. The resustain™ Enterprise platform provides tailor-made solutions for large global enterprises and handles the heavy data demands of large companies. resustain™ SMB is a SaaS platform designed for small and medium-sized suppliers to large global enterprises and can address CDP and Ecovadis reporting requirements of the box.

Learn more about the resustain™ platform here.

Along with the two SaaS platforms, Treeni also offers Managed Services as an important wrapper around the platforms to enable key outcomes. It includes a dedicated team of experts that handhold suppliers at every stage - improving data visibility and traceability across the entire value chain.

Are you interested in leveraging data automation to streamline your company’s Carbon accounting and reporting? Fill out the form below so that we can get in touch.

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