Auditing factors

Several factor reports are available in IBM Envizi ESG Suite for you to review emission factors.

The IBM Envizi product team also completes regular audits of factors.

Emissions factors are updated by the Envizi product team when they become available globally. To ensure data integrity, the product team continually reviews emission factor tables that are provided by government and approved authorities to ensure IBM Envizi ESG Suite references the most up-to-date factors. Audit reports are available in IBM Envizi ESG Suite, which show which factors are used regionally and which factors are used in reporting.

All factors that are recorded in the system are time and date stamped. Each factor is valid between a start and end date. For quality assurance purposes, an internal review date is configured for all factors. When factors reach their review date, an internal notification is sent to the product team and a review is conducted to confirm the currency of the factor.

Several reports are available in IBM Envizi ESG Suite to identify and review emission factors.

Emission and Energy Factors report

The Emissions and Energy factors report (see figure 1) provides a detailed view of each factor, including its value, effective dates, and associated GHG body, data type and scope.

A view of some of the columns in the emission and energy factors Excel report. — Figure 1. Emissions and Energy Factors

Note: Limitation: The report does not link factors to activity data and does not contain all of the factors that your company has access to. The report contains factors that are used with the activity data of your organization only.

To run the Emissions and Energy Factors report,

In Global search, select Reports, and enter Emissions and Energy Factors.
Select the report from the Reports grid.
Click Submit.

Since 2022, due to a new licensing agreement with IEA (International Energy Agency), IEA factor values can no longer be made available in a spreadsheet report. To review original IEA factor values for in-house auditing purposes, use the Emission and Energy Factors - PDF Version report. The report is delivered in PDF format as an email attachment and contains the original IEA factor values.

If you are using custom factors, the report Custom Emission and Energy Factors to extract all custom emission factors. If you do not have access to the report, contact the IBM Envizi support team.

The Envizi product team has access to an internal Factor Setup report. The report contains all of the factors in IBM Envizi ESG Suite and is an extract style report that is used for factor loading and updating.

Monthly Data page

The Monthly Data page in IBM Envizi ESG Suite shows monthly data for accounts and factors that are assigned to monthly records, including emissions and energy volumes and factors. You can use the page for spot checking and for detailed investigations. Use the Monthly Data page with the Emission and Energy Factors report to review factors for accounts.

Factor details, such as factor values and effective dates, are available from the preview panel of the Monthly Data page. The Factor ID field on the Preview panel of the Monthly Data page maps to the Factor Link column on the Emission and Energy Factors report.

To open the Monthly Data page,

As a system administrator, from the main menu, click Manage > Accounts.
Select an account on the Accounts grid.
On the secondary menu, click Review > Monthly Data.

Monthly Data Summary report

The Monthly Data Summary report provides the factor name, factor value, factor source, and factor link for the reporting criteria that you specify when you run the report. The Factor Link field provides a unique link to the emission factor. Run the Emission and Energy Factor report to cross-reference emissions data with factor details by using the Factor Link ID.

The Monthly Data page provides details of the factors that were assigned to monthly records for a single account. By contrast, the Monthly Data Summary report provides monthly activity data and the assigned emission factors for multiple accounts in a single view.

For more information, see Monthly Data Summary report.

Internal reports

The Envizi Product team has access to an internal Factor Setup report. The report contains all factors in IBM Envizi ESG Suite and is an extract style report that is used for factor loading and updating. The Factor Conflict report shows where two factors are in conflict.

Factor audits

Several audits of emission factors take place.

Note: The Envizi Product team uses all of the steps that are described in this topic to ensure factor appropriateness and correctness, but your organization is ultimately responsible for the use of factors and calculated emissions figures. Review the factors that your organization uses to ensure factor completeness.

When your organization first onboards with IBM Envizi ESG Suite, you can run the factor report to see the factors that your organization will use, which is based on:

Data type
Factor set
Region
Date range of expected historical data

By default, your organization is assigned the standard set of factors, unless otherwise requested.

For more information about factors sets, see the Emission factors topic in the Reference section. Factors are reproduced in the Emission factors topic with the permission of the owning organizations.

Review of factors based on review dates

Every factor in IBM Envizi ESG Suite is created with a review date. If a review data is blank for a factor, the factor is permanent and does not require review at any time. Factors that are expected to change from year to year have a review date, such as electricity factors, or factors that are used in regulatory reporting. The product team reviews a report that is scheduled to run each month to check the review dates of factors. Once checked, the review date is either removed or updated to an appropriate date in the future.

Review factor for conflict

The product team also has access to a Factor Conflict report. The Envizi product team is responsible for ensuring that no two factors in use by a client share the same four criteria, such as data type, factor set and region and have overlapping effective dates. The product team runs a Factors Conflict report after every factor load to check for errors.

An example of a factor conflict is displayed in the table in Figure 2. The highlighted "effective from" and "effective to" cells in the table show that factor 2 and factor 6 are in conflict. Factor 2 has no effective dates, which means it applies to all time periods. Factor 6 applies from the beginning of July 2013 and into the future. The factor selection procedure that occurs when data is loaded will not work for data that matches data type, factor set, and region on or after July 2013.

A report that shows factors conflicting for a data type. — Figure 2. Factor conflict example

Account-level audits

Reports, such as the Emission and Energy Factors report, are scheduled regularly to trigger factor reviews by the Envizi product team. The Envizi product team:

Reviews factor source documentation and checks factors correctness.
Checks factors in the Emissions and Energy Factor report for overlapping selection criteria, for example, two factors with an identical data type, factor set, region, or overlapping effective dates.
Checks the review data for all factors monthly and either updates or removes the review data of each factor.

Variance audits

Once a year, the IBM Envizi product team performs a variance analysis on all factors in the platform. This analysis assumes certain thresholds per data type and any factors existing outside of the threshold are reviewed.

Managed factors sets

IBM Envizi publishes publicly available factors with permission from the various organizations that have ownership of the emission factors. To increase transparency around how these factors are managed and made available for emissions calculation, Envizi maintains a table of managed factors to help keep organizations informed about upcoming publications and any information related to the managed factor sets.