#228 From Platform To Proof – How Carbon Accounting Software and Verification Combine for Carbon Compliance

As the sustainability crisis grows more pressing each passing year, companies are increasingly being required to comply with various sustainability regulations and legislation, most of which include the need to monitor and verify your carbon emissions.

Calculating these carbon emissions can be tricky, especially if you have a lot of sites or international locations that require conversions. This is where dedicated carbon accounting software can save you a lot of headache!

In the second episode of the Platform to Proof mini-series, we invite Jay Ruckelshaus, Co-Founder and Head of Policy and Partnerships at Gravity, back onto the podcast to discuss how carbon accounting software can be utilised on your carbon verification journey, and explore the additional benefits provided by this technology.

You’ll learn

·      What is the role of carbon accounting platforms and how does carbon accounting software help to overcome the challenges that organisations are facing today?

·      How does carbon accounting software work?

·      What additional benefits are there from using carbon accounting software?

·      Why is carbon verification becoming increasingly important?

·      How can carbon accounting software encourage a culture shift?

 

 

Resources

·      Gravity

·      Carbonology

 

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Jay Ruckelshaus, Co-Founder and Head of Policy and Partnerships at Gravity, who will accompany Mel on a 3-part mini-series diving into carbon accounting software and the value it can bring.

In this second episode Mel and Jay explore how carbon accounting software and verification work together for carbon compliance, in addition to the other benefits companies can gain from utilising carbon software.  

[02:30] Catch-up on the first part – If you missed our first episode in the series, go back and listen to that before continuing. It gives a more in-depth introduction to Jay, Gravity and carbon accounting software in general.

[04:05] What is the role of carbon accounting platforms and how does carbon accounting software help to overcome the challenges that organisations are facing today?: Jay has had many conversations with those that have had challenges historically with gathering the data needed for carbon calculation and verification. As we see more regulations and legislation, this challenge is passed down to those just starting on their journey.

Carbon accounting software can help ease the burden involved with these tasks. This can come in the form of making it easy to aggregate the data and doing the necessary calculations while maintaining a trail of where all that information comes from.  

There’s also an audit trail available for the calculations done, which can be monitored and dug down further into. There’s scope in many dedicated carbon accounting platforms for you to be able to dig deeper into your data if needed.

Lastly, this level of transparency in the data is often a requirement of going through full carbon verification in alignment with best practice standards (such as ISO 14064).

Ultimately, carbon accounting software can make the verification process go a lot more smoothly.

[09:05] How does carbon accounting software work? Jay breaks this down to help define the purpose of carbon accounting software, and the additional benefits it can bring, including:

A centralised place for carbon data: Often times, businesses need to pull data from a wide variety of places, and collating that data is always a challenge. Dedicated software allows for easier collection and storage of data from all of the necessary sources, such as utilities, logistics and finance.

Carbon accounting software will often allow for integrations that allow for existing systems to feed data into the software without any extra burden. With the addition of AI tools, they can even allow for automatic document processing that can interpret the meaning of utility bills, fuel invoices, waste receipts ect to save on manual data entry.

Carbon calculation: Another headache associated with carbon reporting is the calculation utilising all that data you’ve painstakingly collected. There’re often additional layers such as conversion or emission factors that need to be considered when making these calculations. Carbon Accounting Software can do all of this for you, saving you the trouble and potential of making mistakes. This in addition to the transparency offered as the software will provide an audit trail to show how it arrived at the final numbers.

Carbon Reporting: This isn’t a feature in all carbon related software, but it can be another time saver if you find one that does. The raw calculations data will only get you so far, and that alone may not be enough to meet the requirements of whichever framework you need to comply with.

Carbon software can assist with putting those calculations into a usable reporting format. This report and data can then be analysed and used for meaningful action, in addition to complying with a number of different frameworks.

Carbon reduction: Some carbon accounting software will also have the additional bonus of being able to help you source potential solutions and vendors to help reduce your carbon emissions. This more proactive stance on taking your findings and making improvements is voluntary in a lot of schemes currently, but we are seeing a rise in a mandatory requirements to show evidence of carbon reduction, so it’s better to get your head around this sooner rather than later.

[15:20] Why is carbon verification becoming increasingly important? Sustainability is no longer isolated to one person or department in an organisation, there’s an increasing overlap of sustainability with other functions such as financial reporting. It also coincides with those working towards ESG compliance, as the data collection, calculations and reporting infrastructure for sustainability information can have a very big practical effect.

The need for transparency regarding sustainability is also becoming a bigger concern for customers and stakeholders, so naturally, companies are taking it more seriously as more questions are being asked of them in that regard. Having the data and paper trails (or software trails if you prefer) to back up their claims is vital.  

[19:20] How can carbon accounting software encourage a culture shift? Carbon accounting software is the glue that pulls all the elements of carbon compliance together. It’s often the case that the person responsible for the software in a company is crucial for the full verifications process as well.

Though the gathering of data is a team process, and if embedded correctly, then it can act as a catalyst for a cultural shift towards sustainability.

Not everyone has to have knowledge of all the inner workings of carbon collection, calculation and reporting, but by being involved in the process they can feel a sense of accomplishment when milestones are reached.

By spreading the burden companies can also afford to spend a lot more time working on this than they would have otherwise. Carbon accounting software can help this along by ensuring the data gets where it needs to go, and to make the process simpler for all those involved.

The use of both a team-based approach in tandem with dedicated software can also help in regard to risk mitigation by removing single points of failure. Carbon reporting and verification is an annual task, so when people come and go from the business, it’s key that you have the necessary skills, people and tools to help facilitate that process through those organisational changes.

If you’d like to learn more about Gravity and how their energy and carbon accounting software can help you, check out their website. If you’d like to ask Jay any questions directly, feel free to send him an email.

If you’d like any assistance with Carbon Verification, get in touch with the Carbonology team, they’d be happy to help!

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