Carbon footprinting
Carbon Accounting
We provide carbon accounting and management services to all sizes and types of organisations. We help you identify your hotspots and set bold science-aligned targets throughout your supply chain. We have leading expertise in supply chain emissions assessment (upstream scope 3). These are often the hardest emissions to quantify and usually make up the largest portion of a company's emissions.
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Measuring your Scope 3 emissions is where you can start influencing others through your supply chain, amplifying your positive climate impact.
Find out how we use our spend-based input-output model to give you the most robust and complete emission factors, how life cycle analysis gives you more specific factors, and how we hybridise both to give you the most reliable carbon accounting.
What to look for in a carbon accountant
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​Your carbon accountant should use your spend data with emissions factors to reliably measure the emissions from the different things your company spends money on. They should break this down into your direct fuel use, the fuels for your electricity and then everything else from your full supply chain - these are called Scopes 1, 2 and 3. They should be able to show you where they got their data from to calculate their emissions factors, which years they have data for and how they've inflation-adjusted for years that aren't available yet. Each year in their model should have different emissions factors. They should be able to show their methodology and be able to explain any improvements they've made to the data. And they should be able to explain all of this in a way that anyone can understand.
We've come across some bad practices, with data sets not meant for carbon accounting being used, identical data for different years, and hidden methodologies.
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We are on a mission to push the standards of carbon accounting across the industry and make it fit for purpose. If you want to check that your carbon accountant is giving you a reliable, robust carbon footprint, we've listed 4 simple questions you can ask them, along with the kind of answers they should be able to give you.
Our data model
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Our dataset is a multi-regional input-output model, the SWC MRIO. We use it with our clients to obtain the most realistic carbon footprint from their spend data. We also licence it for use in-house by organisations wanting to calculate their own carbon emissions, and by other consultancies who use it with clients.
We publish our methodology, the improvements we make to the data, and how we adjust for inflation. We also publish guidelines on how to assess and report on emissions that can be used with any model.
Carbon Reduction
There is no substitute for cutting carbon in line with the science. However, having put in place targets, plans and actions to cut emissions in line with keeping temperature change to within 1.5 degrees, some of our clients also want to fund projects that remove carbon outside of their company and supply chain. We help them to select high-quality nature-based projects that we scrutinise for wider environmental and social responsibility.
Our client work is increasingly focused on the whole sustainability journey. Carbon accounting is simply part of the groundwork. We assist companies with taking a whole system approach and then help them to embed this into the current global context and bigger picture. This work ties in to our Big Picture Thinking and Land, Food and Carbon work.
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Carbon Measuring Tools
We have market-leading supply chain carbon tools. We enable organisations such as BT, Dishoom, AMRC, all the UK's National Parks, and many more to monitor and manage their carbon. We enable city and county councils and national parks to develop consumption-based carbon budgets. We’ve developed calculators for individuals, communities and SMEs.
Contact us if you are interested in starting your carbon management journey.