Understanding your material emission sources is a crucial first step when measuring your company’s emissions.

In this article you will be able to learn more about what materiality means in carbon accounting, how Unravel Carbon assesses your material emissions sources, and what kinds of items and activities are included in each emissions category listed by the GHG Protocol.

What is materiality?

In financial accounting, information is considered to be material if excluding or misstating  it could change the decisions made by users of the information. A similar approach is used to determine which Scope 3 emissions sources are material or not to your company.

The GHG Protocol identifies seven key criteria that should be used to determine whether an emissions source is material to your company:

  1. Size - The emissions source contributes significantly to your company’s total emissions
  2. Influence - Your company can take action to influence or reduce the emissions
  3. Risk The emissions source contributes to your company’s risk exposure (e.g. financial risks, compliance or litigation risks, reputation risks, supply chain risk etc.)
  4. Stakeholders - The emissions source is important to your company’s stakeholders (e.g. customers, suppliers, investors or civil society)
  5. Outsourcing - The emissions come from outsourced activities that were previously performed in-house, or are typically performed in-house by other companies in your sector.
  6. Sector guidance - The emissions source is recognised as significant by sector-specific reporting or emissions measurement guidance
  7. Spending or revenue analysis - The emissions source makes up a large portion of your company’s spend or revenue, and can be correlated with high GHG emissions

On top of this, you may want to consider other criteria when determining materiality of an emissions source, such as if these emissions are commonly reported by peers in your industry.

During your onboarding with Unravel Carbon, our climate experts will work directly with you to identify all the emissions sources that are material to your company based on your industry, business facilities, business activities and operations. You can learn more about how Unravel Carbon assess materiality here.

Viewing your materiality assessment in Unravel Carbon

You can view your materiality assessment in the Materiality section (under Define) of Unravel Carbon.

Untitled