Carbon footprint management: from collecting data to the report

On the first page of the sustainability report there is a single total emissions figure. Someone in the meeting asks: how much of this figure is electricity, how much is logistics, how much comes from suppliers? If the answer means opening and comparing several Excel files, the problem is not in the calculation but in traceability. Even if the figure is right, a report that cannot show its source struggles to turn into a management decision.

Carbon footprint management is running the greenhouse gas emissions arising from a business’s activities in a traceable way, from data to calculation, from calculation to report, and on to the reduction decision. YazSis’s Karbonİz work brings this chain together on a single data platform; in this article we go through the links of the chain in order.

A five-stage flow

1. ERP and procurement: records of the materials and services purchased. A large part of the carbon calculation is already fed by data stored here.
2. Energy and field data: consumption, meter and operations information. When measurement rather than invoices is the basis, the calculation is more detailed.
3. Calculation and evidence: converting activity data into emissions and documenting every step.
4. Review and approval: reviewing the results, completing what is missing and approving.
5. Report and reduction decision: turning the result into a management summary and a concrete action.

Where does carbon data come from?

The input to a carbon calculation is often not new data but the operational data the business already keeps. The point is to bring this data into a single flow rather than compiling it again every year. Karbonİz connects six classes of data sources to a common flow:

• ERP: purchasing records and material movements.
• Energy meters: consumption data such as electricity and gas, by period.
• E-invoice: quantity and amount information from energy, fuel and service invoices.
• Logistics: transport records and route information.
• Supplier PCF: suppliers’ product-level carbon footprint data.
• Emission factor sources: the coefficients that convert activity data into emissions, and their versions.

In the first step you do not need to connect all six sources. In most businesses, energy consumption and purchasing data are items that are both easy to reach and verifiable; starting with these two sources and seeing the first results also shows early where the missing fields are. More scattered sources such as supplier data and logistics can be left to a later stage. What matters is that every new source is added to the same chain of records.

The calculation ledger: every figure should leave a trace

An emissions calculation is, roughly, activity data multiplied by an emission factor. The difficulty is not in the multiplication but in being able to explain every result afterwards. Karbonİz’s calculation ledger keeps the activity, factor, method, evidence and approval in the same chain of records; so every result can be traced back to its source. For a metric, the following information is expected to be traceable:

• Source record: which invoice, meter or order did the figure come from?
• Unit and period: in which unit of measure and over which date range was it calculated?
• Factor version: which emission factor was used, in which version?
• Evidence: which document supports the result and where is it kept?
• Approval status: who reviewed and approved the result, and when?

Putting a figure in a report is easy; showing where the figure came from is the real job.

Data quality should be visible next to the result

A missing field, a wrongly mapped material or an unverified supplier declaration lowers the reliability of the calculation. It is more correct to show this information next to the result than to keep it in a separate checklist. The data quality score in Karbonİz presents missing fields, critical mappings and the need for verification together with the result. Next to the total emissions, the manager sees on the same screen how solid the figure is, and knows which field to fix first. In this way the data collection effort is directed to the areas that cost the most trust.

From calculation to decision: reduction scenarios

Measuring alone does not reduce emissions. A calculation makes sense when it shows in which area acting would have a big effect. Otherwise the report stays a document that tells the past; it does not become a tool that influences decisions. Karbonİz’s reduction screen is designed to compare the possible effect of the options below:

• Switching to renewable energy: the reduction potential of electricity-related emissions and the share of this switch in the total.
• Choosing low-carbon materials: the effect of a change in a purchased material item, together with supplier data.
• Route optimisation: the gain that can come from transport distance and load planning.
• Fleet conversion: the possible effect of vehicle renewal decisions on emissions, and their comparison.

Carrying the same activity data in a controlled way to different reporting boundaries and management summaries is also the platform’s job. That way the report is not prepared from scratch each time; the data is collected once, stored traceably and turned into the view that is needed.

You can read about our approach to taking carbon data out of the report and turning it into a management decision, with the control tower and reduction screens, on the Carbon Footprint page.