Carbon Accounting Glossary

The GHG Protocol and the scope boundaries every corporate inventory rests on — Scopes 1, 2 and 3, the fifteen value-chain categories, and the accounting and control approaches that define them.

The value-chain side of an inventory — the Scope 3 calculation methods (spend-based, supplier-specific, average-data and hybrid) and the upstream and downstream categories they populate.

The atmospheric science underneath carbon accounting — the greenhouse gases, global warming potential, radiative forcing, GWP time horizons and the IPCC tiers that turn physics into emission factors.

Where a carbon number came from and which edition of the data produced it — provenance records, factor vintages, version pinning and the evidence an assurance sample actually tests.

The fuels and energy carriers behind Scope 1 and 2 emissions — calorific values, emission factors, grid intensity, well-to-tank losses and the renewable-energy instruments that shift them.

The carbon locked into products and buildings — embodied vs operational carbon, EN 15978 life-cycle modules, EPDs, cradle-to-gate boundaries and the material terms behind whole-life assessment.

The terms that move freight and passengers into an inventory — tonne- and passenger-kilometres, load factor, well-to-wheel boundaries, intermodal shift and the levers that scale transport emissions.

The emissions of computing and the internet — data-centre PUE, software carbon intensity, energy per data transfer, embodied vs operational device carbon and the allocation methods behind digital footprints.

Emissions from chemistry and leaks rather than combustion — process CO₂ from calcination, the anode effect, and fugitive and F-gas releases, and how each is counted in Scope 1.

The end-of-life side of the value chain — how waste treatment and disposal routes generate emissions, and the circular-economy terms that aim to design them out.

The goal-setting language of decarbonisation — net zero, science-based targets, carbon neutrality, the mitigation hierarchy and the abatement and pathway terms that define a credible plan.

The market for carbon outside a company’s own footprint — offsets vs removals, carbon credits, additionality, permanence, baselines and removals from afforestation to direct air capture.

The integrity layer of the voluntary carbon market — credit vintages, retirement, buffer pools, corresponding adjustments and the Core Carbon Principles that separate high- from low-quality credits.

The frameworks that govern climate reporting — CSRD/ESRS, IFRS S2, TCFD, the SEC rule and CDP, plus the materiality and assurance concepts that underpin credible disclosure.

How financial institutions account for the emissions they finance — the PCAF standard, attribution factors, financed and facilitated emissions, and the asset-class methods behind portfolio carbon.