Preparing your first carbon inventory in Nextera Track
Carbon accounting has a specific trap: it is easy to produce a number quickly, and very hard to produce a number you can defend two years later when the boundary has changed and someone asks how it compares. Almost all of the preventive work happens before the first measurement.
This page is written for a sustainability lead or ESG reporting owner.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”Decisions your organisation must make
Section titled “Decisions your organisation must make”- Organisational boundary. Equity share, financial control, or operational control. Operational control is the most commonly chosen because it aligns with what you can actually change. Whichever you choose, apply it consistently, disclose it, and be ready to explain any difference from your financial consolidation basis — your auditor will ask.
- Base year. Which year, and why. It needs reliable data, because every target and every reduction claim is measured against it.
- Recalculation policy — before you need it. What structural change triggers a base-year recalculation (acquisition, divestment, outsourcing, methodology change, error correction), and at what significance threshold. Without this, an organisation can “reduce” emissions by selling a factory, which changes nothing in the atmosphere and everything in the report.
- Scope 3 categories in scope, and the honest reason. Which of the fifteen you will measure now, which you will estimate, and which you will exclude with a stated justification. For a financial institution, category 15 (investments) is normally the dominant category and excluding it makes the inventory close to meaningless.
- Reporting framework(s). Which disclosures you must produce, because they determine the granularity you need to collect at.
- GWP set and emission factor sources. Which IPCC assessment report’s GWP values, and which factor libraries. Both are stated methodology choices, and changing either changes your history.
- Data quality ambition. Where you will accept spend-based data for now, and what your plan is for improving it. Spend-based data responds to inflation as though it were emissions, so an improvement plan is not optional if you intend to set targets.
Data you must gather
Section titled “Data you must gather”| Input | Typical owner | Why it is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Entity list with ownership and control status | Finance / legal | Organisational boundary |
| Site list with locations and grid regions | Facilities / operations | Location-based Scope 2 factors are grid-specific |
| Fuel consumption — stationary and mobile | Facilities, fleet | Scope 1 |
| Refrigerant inventory and top-up records | Facilities | Scope 1, and the most frequently forgotten source |
| Electricity, steam, heating and cooling purchased | Facilities / procurement | Scope 2, location-based |
| Renewable energy contracts and certificates | Procurement | Scope 2, market-based |
| Procurement spend by category | Procurement / finance | Scope 3 categories 1 and 2 |
| Business travel and employee commuting data | HR / travel | Scope 3 categories 6 and 7 |
| Waste and water data | Facilities | Scope 3 category 5 |
| Portfolio / investment data | Finance, investment teams | Scope 3 category 15 — dominant for financial institutions |
Refrigerants deserve their own note. Leakage from air conditioning is a Scope 1 source with GWPs in the thousands, and it is almost never in the first draft of an inventory.
People you need available
Section titled “People you need available”- A sustainability lead with authority to set boundary and methodology.
- A facilities or operations contact per site, because activity data is site-level and finance does not hold it.
- A procurement contact for spend data and for renewable energy contracts.
- A finance contact for the entity list and the consolidation basis.
- For financial institutions, an investment or portfolio contact for financed emissions.
- Your assurance provider, if the inventory will be assured — early, so the evidence standard is known before data collection begins rather than after.
What “done” looks like
Section titled “What “done” looks like”Your first inventory is complete when:
- The organisational boundary is documented, with the entity list it produces.
- Scope 1 and Scope 2 are measured from activity data for all in-scope sites, with Scope 2 reported both location-based and market-based.
- Scope 3 categories are either measured, estimated with a stated method, or excluded with a stated justification — and none of them are silently missing.
- Every figure can be traced from the disclosed number back to the activity data and the emission factor used, including the factor’s version.
- A base year is set, and the recalculation policy is written down.
- Emissions can be decomposed by scope, source, site and category — not just totalled.
- Absolute and intensity figures are both available, and reported together.
- Any offsets held are recorded with retirement evidence and linked to the emissions they address, and emissions are reported gross with offsets shown separately.
Point 4 is the difference between an inventory and an estimate. Point 8 is the difference between a claim and a misstatement.
Working through it in the product
Section titled “Working through it in the product”Getting access
Section titled “Getting access”See Getting access to Nextera products. Your Nextera contact will confirm the address for your organisation.