The Australian certification body NCS International (NCSI) has found that companies are struggling with efficient levels of disclosure of their carbon footprints. The organisation found recent results of reviews and regular audits to be very inconsistent.
Nav Brah, the environment and sustainability manager at NCSI, said that many businesses find the challenge of preparing a greenhouse gas (GHG) and energy inventory may be overwhelming. ISO 14064 is the internationally accepted GHG protocol for preparing greenhouse inventories.
According to Mr Brah, every disclosure in carbon footprint accounting must meet five key areas to create credible reports:
1. Relevance. The GHG inventory must be reflective of the GHG emissions of the company.
2. Completeness. GHG emission sources and activities must be accounted for. All exclusions need to be disclosed.
3. Consistency. Consistent methodologies must be used to allow meaningful comparisons of emissions over time.
4. Transparency. All relevant decisions, issues, and data must be addressed in a factual and coherent manner.
5. Accuracy. There must be sufficient accuracy to enable users to make decisions about the integrity of the reported information with reasonable assurance.
?Carbon and energy accounting requires a systematic, methodical approach to acquiring relevant energy data, processing and manipulating this data, quantifying greenhouse emissions, and reporting emissions,? Mr Brah said.
He added that a company?s awareness of its own carbon footprint is vital in improving efficiency, reducing energy wastage and saving money. ?Information is knowledge,? he said. ?Implementing a robust greenhouse and energy inventory system allows companies to identify energy wastage and realise opportunities to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.?
Source: NCS International