Concrete reduction targets and effective measures can be derived from the systematically determined emission sources and continuously improved: you receive reliable data for your communication – with your stakeholders and the public.
Standards define principles and requirements for quantifying and reporting GHG emissions and sinks. This includes the development, reporting and verification of an organisation's GHG inventory.
To account for your company's greenhouse gases, you can choose between two established standards:
ISO 14064-1: Greenhouse gases – Part 1: Specification with guidance for the quantitative determination and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals at the organisational level.
External verification ensures that your corporate carbon footprint is accurately calculated – your data is reliable at all times.
Credibility
Your verified greenhouse gas balance sheet clearly shows that transparent communication is important to you and that you take climate protection seriously.
Potential for Improvement
A detailed review of the completeness and methodology of data collection provides you with a sound basis for reducing your emissions in the long term.
Competitive Advantage
Your verified CCF is a competitive advantage for contracts that require emissions reporting.
What does the Corporate Carbon Footprint include?
The Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) comprises the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of the entire organisation.
Direct emitters include the company's own power plant or vehicle fleet, but also industrial processes such as cement or lime production.
Indirect emissions outside the company's boundaries include employee or customer travel, as well as transport and other activities.
The 3 scopes of the CCF
Scope 1: Emissions generated directly within the company, at a single location or part of the company (e.g. from the use of the company's own power plant or vehicle fleet)
Scope 2: Indirect emissions resulting from a company's energy consumption (e.g. electricity and heat consumption)
Scope 3: Indirect emissions along the value chain (business travel, manufacture of supplier products, transport, etc.)
Facts and information
When creating a CCF, systems that already collect environmental and energy data (e.g. ISO 14001 or ISO 50001, Emissions Trading or GRI standard) are helpful. The necessary structures for collecting climate-related data are therefore often already in place. For more information on the interrelationships, please take a look at our guide ‘From Energy to Climate Management’.
We are happy to combine our verification of your GHG balance with existing management systems or legal reporting requirements. Please feel free to ask us about this and take advantage of synergies.
In addition to specific greenhouse gas inventories, accounting tools and methodologies can also be tested and certified in accordance with the above-mentioned standards.
Any software solution that centralises and automates the collection and categorisation of greenhouse gas-related information and the calculation and accounting of greenhouse gases for reference values is a carbon footprint tool.
This includes, for example, Excel-based tools, browser-based applications or other individual software solutions.
Why have the CCF tool validated?
Normative requirements, internal organisational ideals and increasing customer demands are causing interest in greenhouse gas accounting to rise sharply – the market for carbon footprint tools is growing.
An external, independent review of your tool not only sets you apart from your competitors, but also strengthens its resilience and protects you against potential risks. Especially with newly developed methodologies, it is helpful to have their plausibility and functionality verified by an external review.
How does the validation of a CCF tool work?
An independent body compares calculation methods and (emission) data sources with the requirements of the relevant standard. For organisation-independent tools, the review can be carried out entirely through remote sessions and a desk review. Once any identified deficiencies have been demonstrably remedied, you will receive a confirmation of conformity for your tool.
In the subsidised transformation plans, companies should present and analyse their methodology for recording current greenhouse gas emissions (actual status) and a longer-term, concrete greenhouse gas target derived from this.
In order to embark on the path to climate neutrality, the short-term and long-term decarbonisation strategies in the transformation plans should also be backed up with concrete measures and savings concepts.
What is eligible for government funding?
Funding is available to cover the costs incurred by any consulting organisations commissioned to prepare the balances and transformation plans and by auditing firms to verify the greenhouse gas balances.
Important: Scope 1 and 2 must be accounted for in order to receive government funding for your transformation plan. Accounting for Scope 3 is optional. However, for systematic climate protection management and to hedge your climate protection risks, a valid greenhouse gas balance sheet should always include indirect emissions from Scope 3.
