🌥️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

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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

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Carbon accounting methodology & data source

Brightest gives you three options for carbon accounting at the asset level:

1. Automation

2. Activity-based

3. 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)

Electricity emissions data

Electricity emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eGRID database and Energy Information Administration (EIA). Local electricity grid emissions factors are based on data from the EPA and EIA in the United States, the Government of Canada, the United Kingdom Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DEFRA/BEIS), the Australian Government Dept of Environment & Energy Emissions Factors, and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Brightest carbon accounting Scope 2 electricity emissions are location-based by default (as opposed to "market-based"). That means emissions that are physically associated with an organization's electricity consumption are calculated using a location-based average grid emission factor. This methodology should always be used in carbon accounting because the electrical energy on a grid is undifferentiated and undifferentiable with respect to its origin. Even if your organization voluntarily purchases renewable energy credits (RECs) or other instruments, these contracts do not fundamentally change or reduce your organization's emissions. RECs or other carbon credits can be accounted for in an organization's offset inventory, but this should be assessed separately, not factored into Scope 2 emissions from purchased electricity.

Heating emissions data

Heating emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), France's ADEME (Agence de la Transition Ecologique), the United Kingdom's Parliamentary Research, and the European Union's EU 2050 Hotmaps Project.

Water emissions data

Water emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the California Energy Commission, the UK Department for Energy & Net Zero (DEFRA/BEIS), ADEME, and the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Fuel emissions data

Fuel emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the United States EIA and EPA, France's ADEME (Agence de la Transition Ecologique), the United Kingdom's Parliamentary Research, and the European Union's EU 2050 Hotmaps Project.

Waste emissions data

Waste emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the United States EPA, France's ADEME (Agence de la Transition Ecologique), DEFRA/BEIS in the UK, and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).

Refrigeration emissions data

Refrigeration emissions data and emissions factors (by default) come from the United States EPA and the UK Department for Energy & Net Zero (formerly DEFRA/BEIS) in the UK.

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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.

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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