What is carbon reporting? 

Carbon reporting is the process of measuring, collating, and publishing the carbon footprint of your organisation and/or supply chain.

Organisations of different sizes and sectors take different approaches to carbon reporting in terms of how they collate data and what data they actually collect. However, due to the complexity and scale of their supply chains, carbon reporting is of particular interest to the built environment, due to legislation and tender requirements.

For example, large built environment organisations that have over 250 employees and likely have a large supply chain, should report differently to an SME.

Organisations that are advanced in their carbon reduction maturity will likely have all the carbon data across the 3 scopes of emissions; scope 1, 2, and 3.

Scope 1 and 2 are your direct emissions; these are produced directly by your organisation, whether that’s through vehicle or factory pollution, or the electricity used to power your manufacturing lines or even the computers in your office.

Scope 3 data is a lot more complicated, as these are your indirect emissions. These range from the carbon embodied in purchased materials through to the emissions produced with the external processing of waste you have produced.

Organisations that are committed to their net zero or carbon reduction strategies need to be measuring and reporting on their scope 3 emissions. For most organisations, these emissions will make up the majority of their carbon footprint, and unless they’re accurately measured and then managed, it’ll be impossible to effectively reduce your carbon emissions and meet your reduction targets.

How can you begin carbon reporting?

Due to the complexity of reporting, most organisations will use a form of carbon reporting software to measure their emissions. As part of measuring their scope 3 emissions, this will often require suppliers to report their own emissions into the software, so the leading organisation can get an accurate picture of emissions and carbon output.

Our Scope 3 Carbon Calculator is designed to simplify supply chain data collection of your scope 3 emissions – discover more here.