Planning the Scope of your Carbon Footprint

Identifying the activities that contribute to your carbon footprint can be challenging, but this crucial process, known as scoping, helps you determine which emissions your organisation is responsible for. Scoping involves deciding which activities to include in your carbon footprint and where to draw the boundary between your organisation and external entities, such as suppliers.

For most organisations, following Steps 1 and 2 will provide a solid foundation. However, if you’re a smaller business just starting with carbon footprinting, you may find it more practical to begin with Step 3: Decision Tree—What Activities Should I Be Measuring?

Steps to Scope Your Carbon Footprint:

1. Choose your organisation’s boundary approach 
2. Define your reporting boundary 
3. Decision Tree: what activities should I be measuring? 

1. Choose Your Organisation’s Boundary Approach

The first step in scoping your carbon footprint is to define your organisational boundaries, which determine the emissions you are responsible for. The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol offers two primary approaches: the Control Approach (operational and financial) and the Equity Share Approach.

Operational Control Approach
 This approach focuses on your organisation’s ability to control operations, regardless of ownership share. You will account for emissions based on your influence over operational practices and decisions. 

The operational control approach is the most common and is recommended if you want to include all emissions from operations where you have control or leverage, such as within your supply chain. This approach ensures that your carbon footprint reflects your ability to manage and reduce emissions, not just your financial interests.

Source: Compare Your Footprint. 

Financial Control Approach
 Under the financial control approach, you will account for all emissions from operations where you can direct financial and operational policies, regardless of your equity share. This method aligns your carbon footprint with your financial influence over operations.

Equity Share Approach
 In this approach, emissions are allocated based on your ownership share in an operation. For example, if your company owns 40% of a joint venture, you will account for 40% of its emissions. 

The equity share approach is ideal for organisations with shared equity interests, such as financial companies or those involved in joint ventures and subsidiaries.

2. Define Your Operational Boundary

If you’ve opted for the widely used Operational Control approach, defining your operational boundary involves selecting the specific emission sources and activities to include in your Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions inventory.

Key Steps to Define Your Operational Boundary:

1. Identify Your Goals

Start by clarifying why you are calculating your carbon footprint. Your motivations will shape what you measure and how you report it. Common goals include regulatory compliance, achieving corporate sustainability objectives, and meeting stakeholder expectations.

2. Determine who needs this information

Many organisations aim to improve their scores on environmental assessments and benchmarks, which can influence investor decisions, brand reputation, and competitive positioning. Understanding these assessments will help you decide which emissions to include:

• CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project): Provides a platform for companies to disclose their environmental impacts.
• BIA (B Impact Assessment): Assesses a company’s overall social and environmental performance, a requirement for becoming B Corporation certified.
• EcoVadis: Offers sustainability ratings and assessments for supply chains.

For an extensive list of global environmental regulatory compliance, read our Regulatory Compliance article.

However, the scope of your reporting may not only depend on external demands like compliance or supplier requirements. You might also choose your reporting scope based on internal needs and goals:

• Internal Reporting Needs: If it’s your first time measuring your carbon footprint and your goal is internal use, such as understanding the environmental impact of your operations, you may focus only on the main activities within your operation. This allows for a simpler, less resource-intensive approach and serves as a starting point for more comprehensive future reporting.

• Rigorous External Standards: If your goal is to align with more demanding frameworks such as the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), your reporting will need to be far more comprehensive.

  • SBTi validation requires capturing 100% of your emissions across Scopes 1, 2, and 3, ensuring that no significant activities are omitted. This approach is far more rigorous and aligns with global best practices for setting and achieving science-based emissions reduction targets.
    
    

3. Understand How to Report

Determine the specific reporting requirements that apply to your organisation. These can vary widely based on your industry, location, and stakeholder demands. 

If you have set GHG reduction targets, you need to track and report on these regularly. This usually involves including emissions data in your company’s impact or sustainability report. For example, Compare Your Footprint client Abel & Cole's latest impact report clearly outlines their sustainability targets, progress, and ongoing efforts.

Source: Abel & Cole 2023 Impact Report 

We will go further into reporting and how to create your own carbon footprint report using Compare Your Footprint in our Create a Report article. 

Understand Your Reporting Standard

It is important to know which reporting standard you will be following, as each has its own reporting and classification requirements. For example, are you using the GHG Protocol standard or ISO 14064? The GHG Protocol focuses on categorising emissions into Scopes 1, 2, and 3, while ISO 14064 has slightly different reporting rules and emission classification. Understanding these requirements early on ensures that your reporting is accurate and compliant. 

3. Decision Tree: What activities should I be measuring?

If you are unsure about which activities to measure, use the following decision tree to guide you. For organisations new to carbon footprinting, this step offers a straightforward way to get started by focusing on the most impactful activities. 

For more established organisations, the Decision Tree helps refine and enhance your current emissions inventory by ensuring no significant activities are overlooked.

What activities should I be measuring? 

• Are you working in Professional Services?
• Are you working in Manufacturing?
• Are you working in Retail?
• A different industry? Other industries

Are you working in Professional Services?

1. Download our data helper tool to get started
2. Then review other activities you could measure using our list of all activities falling under Scope 3 (link to section below), for example:
   • Information Technology
   • Purchased goods and services not already included within the Data Helper Tool under ‘Procurement’
   • Events (include travel, food and drink, energy used, and waste generated at venue, purchased goods and services)
   • Food & Drink (e.g. for internal and external events / meetings)

Are you working in manufacturing?

1. Download our data helper tool to get started 
2. Then review other activities you could measure using our list of all activities falling under Scope 3, for example:
   • Chemicals
   • Computers
   • Construction materials
   • Construction waste
   • Electrical items
   • Freight Downstream
   • Freight Upstream: Third party
   • Information Technology
   • Machinery purchased
   • Manufacturing: Average
   • Materials 
   • Packaging
   • Plastic 
   • Purchased goods and services not already included within the Data Helper Tool under ‘Procurement’
   • Renting machinery and equipment
   • Repair of machinery and equipment
   • Security services
   • Textiles

Are you working in Retail?

1. Download our data helper tool to get started 
2. Then review other activities you could measure using our list of all activities falling under Scope 3 (link to section below), for example:
   • Freight Upstream Third Party
   • Packaging 
   • Products (raw materials and manufacturing)
   • Waste (broken down into different materials, such as plastic, paper, glass etc.)

I work in another industry

1. Download the data helper tool to get started
2. Then review other activities you could measure using our list of all activities falling under Scope 3.

Next up: now that you know how to define the scope of your carbon footprint, dive into our How to Collect Data for Your Carbon Footprint article for guidance on gathering your data.