Carbon reporting is becoming an increasingly essential element of business activity. Whilst larger UK businesses need to do it to comply with SECR legislation, many smaller companies are realising the advantages mapping out your emissions brings.
Reporting across scope 1-3 emissions can be quite overwhelming, which is why more complex and bigger footprints will usually require a powerful tool like our very own Pulse Net Zero. You can make a start though by taking a higher-level look at your emissions, something for which several free resources are available. Here's our pick of five of the best your business can capitalise on to kickstart your carbon reporting journey (click on each heading to take you to the respective tool).
The GHG protocol provides a corporate standard for businesses to track emissions and offers tools to provide businesses with a great starting point for carbon reporting. This enables you to create a corporate-level greenhouse gas emissions inventory; in layman's terms, your organisation’s carbon footprint.
Also from the GHG protocol is the Scope 3 guidance tool. This focuses solely on scope 3 and this document runs through each of the 15 scope 3 categories and provides guidance on the types of data required for each category, the different calculation methodologies and worked examples. You can also check our recent breakdown of the scope 3 categories.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero also produces greenhouse gas conversion factors. These can be used to calculate the kg of CO2e produced by various activities. This includes emissions factors for scope 1, 2 and a small proportion of scope 3. These emission factors are also updated annually around June.
Like the GHG protocol, the Carbon Trust also provides several free resources that are worth utilising. Smaller businesses can use this calculator to input raw data for scope 1 and 2 and the tool will calculate your overall footprint in kgCO2e.
It also splits it between scope 1 and 2, making it a great way of calculating your emissions at a high level. You will need to know your businesses’ fuel consumption, energy used on your sites and top-ups made to air conditioning units.
Finally, the carbon trust also offers organisations the opportunity to understand their current status in energy management in two alternative levels of detail. The Energy Management Matrix offer a high-level ‘assessment of strengths and weaknesses’ you can gain by inputting details across six areas of energy management. The Energy Management Assessment goes into more detail, doubling the areas of energy management assessed to twelve.