GHG Emissions Data
Why are you being asked for emissions data by investors?
What is ‘GHG Emissions Data’?
GHG Emissions Data is a measurement of an organisation’s environmental impact, specifically its carbon footprint, resulting from its activities and operations. Under the GHG Protocol, the global standards for measuring emissions, this data will be measuring your business’s emissions from 3 key categories:
- Scope 1 Emissions (think emissions from burning fuels in cars 🚗)
- Scope 2 Emissions (emissions from electricity ⚡)
- Scope 3 Emissions (emissions from everything else in your value chain!)
Why is this important for banks and investors?
By providing a comprehensive assessment of your business’s GHG emissions data, you enable investors to evaluate their portfolio’s overall environmental impact, identify high-emission areas, and adjust their strategies to align with emission reduction goals. Frameworks like the PCAF Standard and GHG Protocol outline various methods for measuring emissions, with reported emissions being the highest quality data available (more on the PCAF Score below). Accurate GHG emissions reporting from your business provides banks and investors with a reliable foundation for sustainable decision-making, helping all parties make informed strategic choices and work collectively towards a net-zero economy. The higher the quality of your data, the more effectively you and your financial partners can drive meaningful environmental action.
What is a PCAF score?
A PCAF score is a data quality scoring system developed by the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) to assess the quality of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data reported by financial institutions for their investments.
How it works
Below is a visualisation of the scoring system as outlined in the standard. The scoring system ranges from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest level of data quality and 5 being the lowest. While PCAF does not specify a particular requirement for data quality, there is an expectation that data quality will improve over time and that data quality will be included as part of the reporting of financed emissions in accordance with PCAF.
Source: PCAF Financed Emissions Standard pg.42
The system evaluates data quality based on three main sources:
- Reported emissions (highest quality)
- Production or physical data proxies
- Economic activity estimates (lowest quality)
If you’re able to measure your business’ GHG emissions and provide this to your investor and banks, this will be considered as ‘Reported emissions’ and be the highest quality of emissions data for investors and banks to base their decision making off.
Calculating your GHG Emissions
Over the next few sections of the questionnaire you will be asked for your company’s greenhouse gas emissions data. Here’s a few handy guides on what to expect.
If you haven’t measure your GHG emissions, no worries, that’s what we’re here for! Over the next few sections you’ll be provided with the resources to perform your emissions assessment. If you have any questions just reach out to our Help Desk or support@sumday.io