Overview

Calculating a carbon footprint is an essential starting point to understand the impact of your business. Footprinting, also known as ‘carbon accounting’, provides the baseline you need to implement an effective sustainability and carbon reduction strategy. It allows you to identify where there are real opportunities to reduce emissions, and take steps to reach your climate ambition. 

There are different types of carbon footprints that relate to businesses, institutions, public sector bodies, and cities. These include organisational, value chain, and product carbon footprints.

The benefits

Companies around the world calculate and report their footprint to:

• Reduce costs (energy savings, material savings) and reduce waste which improves a business's bottom line
• Manage future supply chain risks by identifying and prioritizing hotspots for action
• Comply with existing legislation, local and national schemes
• Influence stakeholders in recognising their efforts in sustainability and help customers feel positive about their business
• Avoid greenwashing by clearly communicating their carbon impacts

How we can help

Our experts are on hand at every stage of your footprinting journey to help engage your stakeholders, collect and analyse the data you need, calculate your footprint and report the findings. We take a pragmatic approach and help you define which categories are relevant for your business. We then help you use your calculated footprint as the baseline to launch your decarbonisation journey.

Areas where we can share real expertise include:

Corporates

The Carbon Trust provides independent verification, recognising real achievements in sustainability.

Organisational footprinting 

Our organisational footprinting analysis can be tailored to support the needs of your specific organisation, or align with the ISO or GHG Protocol Organisational Footprint Standard.  

Value chain footprinting

We also help you develop value chain Scope 3 carbon footprints constructed in line with the GHG Protocol Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard. In particular, we support companies progress from high-level spend-based footprinting, to developing more reliable and informative Scope 3 footprints based on supplier-specific or activity-based data. This enables companies to make effective strategy and decarbonisation planning decisions, as well as more robust external reporting for communication and assurance. 

Product footprinting

We develop footprinting models and product footprints that can be aligned to internationally recognised standards. We also offer carbon footprint labelling services, so that your customers can clearly identify that your products have had their carbon footprints verified by the Carbon Trust. Robust product footprinting also enables better decision-making for sustainable product design, and meeting your customers' growing requirements for impact disclosure.

Financial institutions

Impact reporting and assessment

We develop tailored approaches to impact assessment and reporting for financial institutions and financial products, including thematic bonds and loans. We work with clients to produce high quality, easy-to-understand impact assessments for relevant stakeholders that communicate genuinely green and sustainable outcomes.

Portfolio footprints

We work across financial institutions to help them understand the carbon footprints of their portfolios. We apply our leading understanding of international standards and methodologies to create tailored approaches and solutions for financial institutions looking to deepen their climate understanding and accelerate their transitions. We also work with financial institutions to communicate the results to stakeholders in a credible way.

Alignment with sustainability taxonomies

Sustainable taxonomies are classification systems for economic activities considered as sustainable, based on specific criteria and performance thresholds. Their aim is to increase transparency and comparability of investments. To date, disclosures are only mandatory in respect to the European Union Taxonomy. However, other green taxonomies are being developed in other parts of the world, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Colombia, South Africa and the UK. With access to green finance experts and climate experts in the relevant sectors of the economy, we can provide advice to financial institutions and companies on sustainable taxonomies.

Why the Carbon Trust

The Carbon Trust has calculated the footprint of more than 27.000 products and organisations worldwide giving us unrivalled expertise in the field.Our experts co-authored the PAS 2050 Standard for product footprinting and were part of the committee that developed the ISO14067 and GHG Protocol Product Standard. This means we have been involved in the creation of all three international product footprint standards that are used worldwide today. Additionally, we have a detailed understanding of best practice reporting and value chain footprint accuracy given our advisory role in drafting the GHG Protocol's Scope 3 measurement guidance.We bring dedicated teams with sector-specific expertise who have supported over 3,000 organisations across 70 countries in their climate action, so we know how to turn your climate ambitions into a reality.