đĨī¸How Carbon Accounting Works in Brightest
When you use Brightest to calculate, measure, inventory, account, or report your greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon footprint, our software is designed around Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Corporate Standard guidance and methodology of measuring emissions as Scope 1, 2, and 3, unless your organization's license environment is located in France (see below).
Scope 1 direct emissions count carbon from buildings, facilities, and vehicles the company owns
Scope 2 indirect emissions include carbon from purchased electricity, heat, steam, and cooling that comes from an electrical utility or municipal source
Scope 3 indirect emissions are all the other indirect emissions that come from a company's value or supply chain, including things like waste, shipping products, or product usage by customers
The established, global accounting unit for carbon is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), and "carbon equivalents" (CO2e) - the sum of carbon plus other emissions like methane converted into carbon. Carbon equivalents help standardize everything, so when we compare carbon emissions from electricity usage versus driving a car - even though they're different activities - we're measuring them the same way when we categorize them as Scope 1, 2 or 3.
If you're familiar with financial accounting, which adds up income and expenses into a budget using a single currency, carbon accounting works in a similar way. An organization's emissions are its carbon inventory, which can be reduced or netted against emissions reductions and carbon offsets.
Scope 1 + Scope 2 + Scope 3 = Total Emissions
In addition to Greenhouse Gas Protocol, emission "scopes" are also used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ADEME's Bilans GES in France, although ADEME uses a slightly different carbon accounting approach compared to GHG Protocol.
Table of Contents
How carbon accounting works in Brightest
Carbon accounting methodology & data source
How carbon accounting works in Brightest
Carbon accounting in Brightest works by creating, defining, and collecting data related to four areas:
Assets like offices, buildings, facilities, and vehicles the company owns or rents
Products and Materials, which represent the specific goods and services your organization sources, creates, and delivers to customers, as well as the raw material inputs used to create them
Travel and Transportation, which accounts for transit of goods and services throughout your organization's value chain like shipped orders, as well as employee business travel or commuting
Suppliers and Vendors who provide your organization goods, raw materials, and services to operate your business
Together, these four categories of activities can account for most if not all of your organization's Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions.
For example, if you create a Brightest "Asset" to represent a manufacturing facility, then upload or import your monthly utility bills related to electricity, heating, and water, Brightest will automatically calculate the carbon emissions related to that site by month and year, and allocate various emissions into their Scope 1, 2, or 3 sub-category. Our default measurement unit for carbon is metric tonnes of carbon equivalents, or mtCO2e.
A Brightest GHG emissions allocation report with monthly and annual emissions data by scope and category
Carbon accounting methodology & data source
Brightest gives you three options for carbon accounting at the asset level:
Automation
Activity-based
Spend-based
In automation mode, Brightest uses our own default emissions factors for energy-related sources. This includes:
Electricity - measured in kilowatt hours (kWh)
Heating - measured in million British thermal units (mmBTU)
Water - measured in gallons, liters, or cubic meters
Fuel - measured in gallons or liters
Waste - measured in US (short) tons, metric tonnes (MT), or kilograms (kg)
Refrigeration - measured in Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC)
Custom Emissions Factors
In addition to Brightest's automation option, we also support Custom Emissions Factors.
These sector, company, or material-specific emissions factors can be imported and edited by you in your Brightest > Settings > ESG & Sustainability Settings > Emissions Factors Library.
Once you've uploaded and configured your custom emissions factors, you can apply them to specific carbon accounting assets, materials, and inventory items.
Brightest Data Sources Include:
1. https://www.epa.gov/egrid
2. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
3. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-canada.html
4. https://www.gov.uk/
5. http://www.environment.gov.au/
6. https://www.iea.org/
7. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/
8. https://bilans-ges.ademe.fr/
9. http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0523/POST-PN-0523.pdf
10. www.hotmaps-project.eu
11. https://www.energy.ca.gov/
12. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/documents/waste_industrial_profile_9_30_2019.pdf
13. https://www.ciel.org/
14. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/calculate-the-carbon-dioxide-equivalent-quantity-of-an-f-gas
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