Concepts
Read this topic to learn about the concepts that are used in IBM® ESG Suite.
Key concepts include:
- ESG
- Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) are three pillars that are used to assess the impact of a company on society.
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) scope
- The GHG protocol classifies greenhouse gasses into 3 scopes:
- Scope 1: Direct emissions that are released into the atmosphere as a result of an activity that a company undertakes, such as emissions that are released during an industrial process.
- Scope 2: Indirect emissions where the source activity is not directly owned by the company, for example, emissions that are released during the consumption of purchased electricity.
- Scope 3: Indirect emissions that occur upstream and downstream in the value chain of a company, such as emissions that relate to the transport of raw materials and the transport of the finished product.
- Emission factor
- Quantifies the amount of greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere by an activity or process. Greenhouse gasses are converted into carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) to make the tracking of emissions easier. For more information, see Emission factors.
- Record
- Tracks consumption, cost, or both for a specific period in an account.
- Account
- Captures consumption and cost data for a specific data type, account style, and location, for example, Electricity (kWh) for a warehouse in Perth. Accounts are also used to capture KPI data, for example, floor space, number of employees, and production units. Each account is associated with a single account style. An account captures transaction data, which is data for a point in time, or periodic data, which is data at data points over a period of time. Account data rolls up through the organization hierarchy. For example, electricity consumption at the account level rolls up into electricity consumption at the location level and at the group level.
- Data type
- Models a type of data that can be captured by accounts, for example, diesel transport in liters [L]. The data type defines the primary unit of measure for consumption, such as liters and for cost, if applicable. Another data type under the same diesel transport category might be diesel transport in gallons [gal]. In Envizi ESG Suite, an activity can be collected and recorded in different formats, but the data type enforces a single unit of measure. Each account is associated with a single data type. If the data type represents environmental data, it has a GHG scope assigned. The data type and the scope impact the emissions factor that is assigned.
- Data category
- A grouping of related data types, for example, electricity, natural gas, or waste.
- Account style
- A schema or template for a data type. You can have many account styles for a single data type. Account styles determine which fields are available when you capture data records for an account and which data is captured when you upload data in bulk. Rules are used in account styles to define which fields are mandatory, assign default values, assign a scope 3 category, and to perform some basic math, for example, convert from liters to gallons, on data input. For the list of account styles, see the Reviewing account styles topic.
- Scope 3 emissions
- Scope 3 emissions are indirect GHG emissions that are related to purchased, acquired, or sold goods and services (see Scope 3 emissions).
- Accruals
- Estimates that are generated by the system for missing consumption or cost data, or both in accounts. The missing data generally represents gaps in a historical data set. These gaps might be due to missing invoices or the latest invoice might not yet be available.
- Virtual accounts
- Accounts whose data is automatically derived from the monthly data of other accounts, meters, or static attribute values. Use virtual data rules to populate source data into virtual accounts.