Here we guide you through your dashboard and explain what your data means
Summary
Ecologi Zero is an emissions calculation tool, designed to help your business work out your operational carbon footprint. Understanding your carbon footprint is a critical first step on your journey to net-zero.
The tool supports you by securely importing your business’s data, producing emissions calculations from the data for Scopes 1, 2 and 3, and helps you to identify emissions hotspots within your value chain.
Once Ecologi Zero has calculated your carbon footprint, we break down your data into an easy-to-understand and interactive dashboard. In this ‘How to’ guide, we’ll show you how to understand the information shown on your dashboard.
Date range
When you land on Ecologi Zero you can select the ‘Date range’ in the top right dropdown box which allows you to focus on the time period that’s important to you.
Total emissions
Ecologi Zero takes your business transactions and assesses this information using complex input-output tables, which produce emissions values for your financial transactions, based on industry average emissions figures. We then capture information on your vehicles, premises and energy to provide you with a total emissions figure that covers the full spectrum of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Follow this link for more information on how we calculate your emissions.
It’s important to note that Ecologi Zero will increase the accuracy of your footprint over time. As you add further information on your energy usage and company vehicles we will build a more detailed footprint. We also automatically assign your suppliers to certain industries, but some suppliers will need to be manually assigned to an industry or confirmed that our designation is correct. This helps to make your carbon footprint even more accurate.
Once calculated, we present your emissions in kgCO2e; Kilograms of Carbon Dioxide equivalent. You may be asking why we use an equivalent figure; that's because Ecologi Zero includes emissions from six of the seven GHGs identified in the GHG Protocol (with the additional GHG to be captured by the platform in the third quarter of 2022).
Each of the GHG’s captured by Ecologi Zero, Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC), Perfluorocarbons (PFC) and Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6), has a CO2 equivalency factor, based on their global-warming potential (GWP), which allows us to present you with a single consistent figure.
Follow this link for more information on how we present your data.
Emissions by scope
Now that you’ve seen your carbon footprint, you’ll see your emissions broken down by Scope. Under the GHG protocol, emissions are broken down into three categories:
-
Scope 1 are direct emissions from sources that your business owns or controls. For example, this is where you’ll see emissions from your gas usage.
-
Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions generated away from your company premises and are primarily emitted as a consequence of generating electricity (but also offsite generation of heat and steam) for use by your company. Here you’ll see emissions generated from your electricity usage.
-
Scope 3 emissions are generated within your supply chain; both upstream (things that help you get your work done) and downstream (things that your product is used for). Scope 3 should capture all emissions related to your company that are not captured by Scopes 1 and 2. This is where you will see most of the emissions related to your business expenditure.
We present your emissions broken down into these three categories to help you to understand how your emissions are generated and align with established scientific processes.
Follow this link to learn more about Scopes.
Funding Climate Action
Next on the dashboard, you’ll see how to fund climate action on the top right tile; this will take you to our Impact Shop.
It’s important to understand that you can’t simply offset your way to net-zero; the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) requires businesses to reduce their emissions by up to 90% depending on their industry.
But we understand that it can take time to reach net-zero and businesses want to take action right now. That’s why we’ve given you the ability to fund the best in climate action to make a difference on your journey to net-zero.
According to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Management Hierarchy, companies should commit to reducing value chain emissions and implement strategies to achieve their targets as a first priority, before mitigating emissions outside their value chains.
Beyond Value Chain Mitigation
Whilst reducing our emissions is incredibly important and central to achieving net-zero; there’s also a need to protect and restore our planet.
The SBTi report that “Decarbonizing a company’s value chain in line with science and reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century, is increasingly becoming the minimum societal expectation on companies.” This is described as Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM).
Follow this link to discover how funding climate action links into your journey to net-zero.
Start calculating your emissions
This section allows you to add further information to Ecologi Zero which increases the accuracy of your carbon footprint. You can add information on your energy suppliers, energy usage and any company vehicles.
You can also match your suppliers with an industry group to help Zero start estimating your emissions more accurately.
For more information on how to do this, you can see the rest of our how-to guides.
-
How to add your energy usage
-
How to match suppliers and transactions
-
How to add company vehicles and travel
Total emissions over time
Here we see your emissions broken down over time; we show your carbon footprint for each month displayed across the year. This monthly comparison allows you to break your long-term goals into smaller manageable steps and monitor progress toward annual targets.
Total emissions by category
An in-depth understanding of what contributes to your company's emissions is crucial to reducing your carbon footprint. That’s why we’ve broken down your emissions into business activity categories.
Using this part of the dashboard you can quickly see which of your business activities are generating the highest emissions. This information is vital in helping you create an efficient reduction plan.
As you continue your journey with Ecologi Zero this breakdown will become more accurate.
Suppliers by largest emissions
The final area of the dashboard is a breakdown of your suppliers sorted by largest emitters. Based on your data, we sort all your suppliers with those that contribute the largest amount of CO2e (link) at the top. This allows you to make informed decisions on your supply chain and quickly identify areas where achievable reduction plans can be put in place.
Suppliers are classified in the following way;
-
Red indicates that a supplier needs matching to an industry and uses your industry average emissions factor until it is matched. By matching these suppliers you can improve the accuracy of your carbon footprint.
-
Yellow indicates that Ecologi Zero has automatically matched a supplier to an industry group but needs your approval for increased accuracy.
-
Green indicates that you have matched a supplier with its relevant industry group.
Ecologi Zero will automatically match your suppliers to an industry, however, to begin with, we may need your help identifying the industry to which some of your suppliers belong. The next step is to look through your suppliers and click on those which are either unmatched or our match needs approval by you.