Reviewing and auditing factors
You can choose which standard emission factor set or sets to use. The IBM Envizi team configures the platform to use those factor sets. You can also request that custom factors to be set up and you can manage those factors through the platform.
The emission factors used in reporting depend on the choices made by your organization with respect to the emission sources, region, location and time period for which they record activity data.
Several methods are used to review factors. The simplest form of audit is checking the correctness of a factor by manually reviewing calculations and checking the factor source documentation. Reports are generated (or scheduled) to notify the IBM Envizi Product team of factors that are scheduled for review. Factors are checked for overlapping selection criteria, for example, two factors cannot have identical data type, sub type, factor set, and region as well as overlapping effective dates. Factors are also sense checked for variance against the average of all factors within a data type using an extract from the database. Each method of factor audit and review is documented in the review section.
Manually reviewing factors
- Emission and Energy Factors report
- The Emission and Energy Factors report shown in Figure 1contains every factor in use by your company for the
selected reporting period. This report is useful to get a detailed view of each factor, including
its value and effective dates, but does have some limitations. The report alone does not provide a
link between factors and activity data, nor does the report contain all factors that your
company has access to. This means that even if you have created custom emission factors for
your organization or standard factors exist in IBM® ESG Suite, this report
only contain factors that are used with your organization's activity data.
Figure 1. Emissions and Energy Factors 
- Monthly data summary report
- To view factors and how they have been applied to your activity data in bulk, you can run the monthly data summary report. This report will provide factor name, value, (kg CO2e/unit), source, link. The link value in this report can be looked up in the same value in the Emission and Energy Factors report to review more detail.
IEA electricity factors
Since year 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. If you require to review original IEA factor values for in-house auditing purposes, you can use the Emission and Energy Factors - PDF Version report - this report is delivered in PDF format as an email attachment and contains the original IEA factor values.
Managing custom factors
If you are using custom factor management, the Custom Emission and Energy Factors report extracts all available custom emission factors. If you don't have access to this report through the Emissions report folder, contact the IBM Envizi support team to request that this report be activated.
Account-level reviews
Envizi system administrators have access to an account-level page on the platform called Monthly Data. This page shows monthly data and the factor assigned to monthly records. To access this page, which is useful for spot checking and detailed investigation, a user must have the system administrator role. This page is also useful when used with the Emission and Energy Factors report. The ID column matches the Factor ID in the Emission and Energy Factors report.
In the Preview panel, you will also be able to find factor details, such as its value and effective dates.
To navigate to this page, go to an account or meter, click the Review sub-menu and select Monthly Data.
Envizi factor review process
Factor audit and review is an activity that is regularly conducted by the Envizi Product team. Envizi updates emissions factors as they become available on a global basis. As part of our ongoing efforts to ensure data integrity, the Envizi Product team continually review emission factor tables provided by government and approved authorities to ensure reference to the most current and up-to-date factors. A full suite of audit reports are available to confirm which factors are used regionally and to show which factors are being used in reporting.
- Factor review dates
- All factors recorded in the system are time and date stamped, that is, they are valid between a start and end date. As part of our quality assurance process, the Envizi product team also sets a review date for all factors. When factors reach their review date, an internal notification is sent and a review is conducted to confirm the currency of the factors in question.
- Documentation pages
- Envizi publishes all 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 Managed emission factor topics to help keep organizations informed about upcoming publications and any information related to the managed factor sets.
Publication review process
When factors are sourced from the various publications the factors must be copied and formatted into loading templates in Envizi ESG Suite by a member of the Envizi product team. Often, this involves some manipulation of factors including applying global warming potentials (GWP), unit of measure conversions, application of inflation for spend factors and conversion for other dimensions (for example, energy, mass, volume).
For each existing publication where manual calculations are performed before loading, a second Envizi product team member performs a review and sign-off on the calculations before the factors are loaded.
With each new publication, a second Envizi Product team member performs a review of the implementation methodology. This could include reviewing factors assignments to data types, sub types, scopes, naming conventions, dimension conversions, effective periods, factor source references and descriptions and any other criteria that defines how factors are stored in the database.
Factor review on new implementations
With every new implementation, the Product team can use a report to create a specific list of factors that a client will have access to based on the five criteria: data type, sub type, factor set, region and date range of expected historical data. It is encouraged that you review this list of factors as your organization is ultimately responsible for factor correctness. By default, your implementation will receive the standard set of factors unless otherwise requested.
Factor conflicts
Factor selection is based on a set of five criteria: data type, sub type, factor set, region and effective dates. In Envizi, the Product team is responsible for ensuring that no two factors in use by a client share the same four criteria (data type, sub type, factor set and region) and have overlapping effective dates. This is managed by running the Factors Conflict report after every factor load to check for errors.
Factor variance
When updating factors, a variance analysis is performed by the Envizi Product team on all updated factors being loaded. This analysis will assume certain thresholds per data type and any factors loaded are outside of the threshold will be reviewed. The threshold value differs by data type and factor set publication.
Scheduled reports for factor review based on review date
Every factor in Envizi ESG Suite is created with a review date. If a factor has a blank value for review date, this means the factor is permanent and does not require review at any point in the future. Factors that are expected to change from year to year will have a review date, such as electricity factors, or factors used in regulatory reporting. A report is scheduled each month for the IBM Envizi product team and all factors having a review date are looked at. Once checked, the review date is either removed or updated to an appropriate date in the future.
Client responsibility
The processes and tools that are used by the IBM Envizi product team to ensure factor appropriateness and correctness are listed, but your organization is ultimately responsible for the use of factors and the calculated emissions figures. If you want more control over the emission factors applied to your organization's activity data, you can request that the Custom Factor Management feature is enabled by contacting the IBM Envizi support team to give you full control over which factors are applied.