Data checklist 📋  

• Total production output and customer allocation  
• Energy  
• Refrigerant and other fugitive emissions  
• Process emissions from chemical processes  
• Emissions from transport or mobile equipment  
• Waste   
• Water withdrawal  
• Wastewater discharged 

Total production output and customer allocation ％

Total production output is the amount your facility or company produced in the reporting year. This may be measured in units of mass, volume, finance, or count of items. Your customers are not shown this information, but it may be used to indicate the intensity of your emissions over time. For example, a customer may be able to see that a change in emissions correlates with a change in production output. 

Customer allocation is the % that will be applied to allocate your emissions to your customers, as their Scope 3 emissions or upstream impact. This will never be visible to your customers. The allocation can be determined by:

• Sales revenue (fiscal measure)
• Physical mass (tonnes, kgs, lbs)
• Volume (liters, cubic meters)
• Number of units sold to each customer
• Production hours (share of production time or capacity)
• Material input used (quantity of raw materials used in production for that customer); or
• By estimated share (where no precise data available)

Consider contacting your production, logistics, sales, and finance departments, who will provide you with the required data.

Energy⚡

The best place to identify your energy usage in a reporting year is from your energy bills or meter readings. These should provide you with information on the different energy sources you have used and how much of each type.

• For purchased electricity or steam, look to utility invoices, on-site records of metered consumption, or facility management systems. Steam may also be measured via steam flow meters.

• Natural gas or biogas, consumption would usually be found in supplier invoices or on-site gas meter readings.

• Consumption of liquid fuels such as diesel, may be found in fuel purchase records (delivery notes) which may be managed by procurement or maintenance. Alternative sources include storage tank level logs (showing fuel added) or equipment logs.

• For solid fuel such as coal, this information may be found in weighbridge records, inventory logs or the operation logs of equipment using the coal.

• For renewable purchased energy sources, certificates may provide details on the quantity of energy purchased that is of renewable origin.

If you do not have access to your electricity bills, you will need to contact the building owner if applicable, or in other circumstances your electrical utility provider, who should be able to support and inform you of your energy usage.

Refrigerant and other fugitive emissions ❄️

• Refrigerant gases: Contractors provide receipts of the amount of refrigerant that was used to top-up refrigerant amounts, which can be used to estimate the amount of refrigerant leaked across a site in a reporting year.

• Other fugitive emissions: These are unintentional leaks of greenhouse gases from piping or equipment, and may include, for example: leakage of SF6 from electrical switchgear; leaked methane from gas supply pipeline; or emissions of CH4 and N2O from on-site waste or wastewater treatment.

  If relevant, speak to facilities management or engineering to determine if these emissions are measured.

Process emissions from chemical processes 🔄

These are greenhouse gas emissions that are not related to use of energy and are associated with intentional chemical reactions from specific manufacturing processes. Common examples include the release of CO2 emissions from the reduction of iron ore in steel manufacturing, carbonate decarbonization in glass production, and perfluorocarbon and CO2 emissions during anode baking in aluminium production. If relevant, speak to Plant Operators and/or Process and Production Engineers to determine if these emissions are measured, or use stoichiometric mass balance relationships to estimate these emissions if you know the chemical reactions and various inputs taking place.

Emissions from transport or mobile equipment 🚛

These emissions should only be reported where the energy source has not already been reported with your energy measurements. They refer to emissions from vehicles or equipment owned or operated by your company, where the fuel or electricity used is sourced off-site. Information may be available in fuel purchase records (finance) or fleet management software. 

You can find more information on these emissions on our transport and mobile equipment emissions article. 

Waste🗑️

• Waste data tends to be found from waste contractor records, when collected by a third party. These records may be:

  • Monthly or quarterly invoices listing waste amounts and disposal routes (for example: recycling, landfill)
  • Waste Transfer Notes, or Waste Consignment Notes which are legal requirements in many areas, especially for hazardous waste, and contain all the information about the type, quantity and destination of each waste collection.
  • If your facility has a weighbridge, weight of waste leaving the facility may be found in weighbridge records
  • Annual waste reports are often supplied by waste contractors and provide the annual summary of waste per type and disposal method.

  If you cannot gather a complete set of waste data for the whole year, you may use what data you have to extrapolate, based on reasonable assumptions.

• Your waste management contractors should be able to inform you of the type and amount of waste you produce. If this is not possible, you can inspect your facility’s waste containers to determine the types of waste produced, considering the volume of the waste bins and the frequency of their collection.

  These surveys can be undertaken over a representative period to estimate the type, weight, and treatment pathway for waste generated from a facility. For more information on waste treatment, visit your waste contractor’s website.

Water withdrawal 💧

Information on municipal (mains) water use can usually be collected from bills from your water provider, or from on-site meter readings.

Flow meter logs will be needed to calculate water withdrawn from other sources (boreholes, surface water). 

Wastewater discharged

The volume of wastewater discharged off-site is needed to determine water use, which is the difference between the volume of water withdrawn and the volume of wastewater discharged. On average, approximately 50-60% of a facility’s water withdrawn is discharged as wastewater, 

Sometimes this information can be found on your water, effluent or utility bills. An effluent bill is a charge for businesses that discharge industrial wastewater (trade effluent) into the public sewer system.

If your facility has flow meters at discharge points, they will probably measure flow rate per specified time period (for example m3/h or cubic meter per hour). The data system linked to the meters may be able to provide monthly or annual discharge volumes. When wastewater discharge is subject to local authority consent or permitting requirements, the volumes measured by from flow meters are often reported to the authorities as part of permitting requirements.

If wastewater discharge is not billed or metered, it cannot be measured, and you can select the relevant option when you share your data.