...but we face a problem, how can companies decrease their emissions if they don’t track them?.

According to the Boston Consulting Group 96% of their customers have already set targets in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, yet only 11% are on plan to meet their targets⁴.

This is not surprising when we learn that only 9% of them are measuring their emissions comprehensively, and a whopping 81% of them do not focus on their total emissions, only parts of them⁴.

Without sound understanding of total internal and external emissions how will a company know where to focus reduction efforts? Achieving the ambitious goals set by the Paris Agreement will require companies to measure exhaustively, accurately, and frequently. But why are so many companies reportedly struggling to accurately calculate emissions? The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG-Protocol) is a worldwide acknowledged standard for measuring and managing the total CO2e emissions of companies.

It has identified three scopes to measure emissions (right figure). Until recently companies mainly focused on Scope 1 and Scope 2, only their direct emissions and completely omitted their indirect emissions from Scope 3 such as those incurred through business travel and emissions arising through use of their products. These indirect emissions represent a significant amount of emissions and when left out lead to a exceptionally inaccurate representation of actual total emissions.