GHG accounting is the measurement of an organisation's greenhouse-gas emissions across Scope 1 (direct operations), Scope 2 (purchased energy) and Scope 3 (the value chain), built to the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064. It is the data foundation every disclosure, rating, target and reduction plan stands on — and the first thing an auditor, customer or regulator will test.
Why GHG Accounting matters now.
Customers, investors and regulators now ask for your emissions number before they ask almost anything else — and most companies are answering from fragile spreadsheets that cannot survive an audit, a customer scorecard or a restatement question.
What it changes commercially.
An unreliable footprint silently corrupts everything downstream: targets set on the wrong baseline, disclosures that risk restatement, CBAM and customer submissions on punitive default values, and procurement screens you cannot pass. A defensible inventory is the cheapest insurance in sustainability.
The standards we build to.
How the engagement runs.
- 01 — Boundary & screeningSet organisational and operational boundaries, screen all 15 Scope 3 categories for materiality.
- 02 — Data & factorsCollect activity data, apply documented emission factors, build the calculation engine.
- 03 — Scope 3 buildConstruct material value-chain categories with the best available data, improving quality where it matters.
- 04 — Assure & hand overDocument everything to assurance standard and hand over a system your team runs next year.
What you take away.
- Corporate GHG inventoryScope 1, 2 and 3 footprint built to GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1, audit-ready from day one.
- Scope 3 screening & deep-diveAll 15 categories screened; material categories built on activity data.
- Emission-factor libraryDocumented, versioned factors with full calculation transparency.
- Hotspot analysisWhere emissions and cost concentrate — the basis for every reduction decision.
- Inventory management planThe documented system that makes every future cycle cheaper and assurable.
What success looks like.
- A complete, audit-ready Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory
- Clarity on where emissions and cost concentrate
- A defensible baseline for SBTi targets and every disclosure
- Falling cost-per-cycle as the system matures
Industries that use this most.
typical time to a first audit-ready corporate carbon footprint for a single-entity company.
GHG Accounting: the questions buyers ask first.
Scope 1 covers direct emissions from operations you own or control (fuel, processes, vehicles). Scope 2 covers purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling. Scope 3 covers everything else in your value chain — purchased goods, logistics, product use, end-of-life — and is typically 70–90% of the total.
A first audit-ready inventory for a single-entity company typically takes 8–12 weeks. Multi-entity groups take longer, driven mostly by data collection. Repeat cycles are substantially faster once the system is in place.
Not on day one. A credible first inventory uses spend- and average-based methods for most of Scope 3, then improves data quality on the categories that dominate the total. Assurance and customer scorecards progressively demand activity-level data on material categories.
The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard is the global default and underpins CDP, SBTi, CSRD/ESRS, IFRS S2 and BRSR. ISO 14064-1 matters where formal verification is planned. We build to both so nothing needs re-doing.
Yes — if boundaries, factors, calculations and evidence are documented as they are built. Retrofitting documentation after the fact is the most common and most expensive assurance failure.
Let's talk about your business — before we talk about sustainability.
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