Glossary
This glossary includes terms and definitions for Envizi™ Supply Chain Intelligence.
A
- Average-data method
- A method for calculating emissions of purchased products, goods, and services that uses average emission factors rather than supplier-specific or spend-based emissions. With this method, data is collected per physical or reference unit of the product and is multiplied by an average-industry emission factor for the product category.
- Audit trail
- A documented record of the data that was used to calculate emission values.
- Action
- Actions are used to predict the cost and emission savings that each initiative or action plan might achieve.
- Action plan
- Set of initiatives or activities that are grouped for a common purpose, for example, to achieve a goal.
- Action template
- Outlines a default set of initiatives or activities that can be adapted into a customized program.
C
- Capital good
- A good that you purchase that is not directly consumed in the production process but instead helps to produce other products and services. Examples include machines, equipment, and tools that you use to produce products.
- Commodity
- A category of product, good or service.
D
- Disclosure
- A report that includes responses to questions from one or more sustainability frameworks.
E
- ESG
- Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) are the three pillars that are used to assess the impact of a company on society.
- Emissions
- The release of greenhouse gases into the environment.
- Emissions factor
- A factor that quantifies the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere per unity of activity, such as tonnes of fuel consumed.
- Emission factor sets
- A collection of emission factors for specific types of data. Eora66 is an example of an emission factor set that is typically used to calculate carbon emissions in a supply chain.
- Emissions target survey
- A survey that collects emissions reduction targets for a supplier for scopes 1, 2, and 3.
- ERP systems
- Enterprise Resource Planning systems that integrate various functions of a business, such as finance, HR, and supply chain management.
H
- Hybrid method
- A method for calculating emissions of purchased products, goods, and services that gathers supplier-specific scope 1 and 2 emissions data and total revenue for the supplier and apportions emissions to the product, good, or service based on spend on the supplier. When supplier-specific emissions data is not available for a specific product, good, or service, the average-data method or the spend-based method is applied to calculate emissions.
L
- Life cycle assessment
- An assessment of the emissions that are produced during the entire lifecycle of a product, including raw material extraction, production of a product, use of the product, and later disposal of the product.
O
- Order line
- Individual quantities of purchased product, service, or good that ties to an order.
P
- Primary data
- Supplier-specific data that is directly measured, collected, or calculated.
- Primary data ratio
- The percentage of PCF emissions that were calculated by using primary activities and emission data.
- Product carbon footprint
- The total greenhouse gas emissions that is associated with a product during its lifecycle. Product carbon footprint (PCF) is expressed in Co2e per unit of the product.
- Product category
- A group of products that share the same characteristics. You categorizes products, goods, and services by a three-level hierarchy, for example, by family, brand, and category.
- Proxy data
- Data that is extrapolated or scaled up from a similar process or industry to fill gaps or substitute for actual data.
- Purchased products and services
- Products and services that an organization purchases from an external supplier to use in their operations.
- Purchasing location
- The physical location of the purchasing organization.
- Purchasing organization
- The department or business unit in the organization that is responsible for the purchase of products, goods, and services.
R
- Reporting
- Presenting sustainability data to internal stakeholders or externals stakeholders, such as regulators and the general public.
S
- SBTi target
- Science-based targets include an emissions reduction target for scope 1, 2, or 3 from suppliers and whether it is validated by SBTi. For scope 3, the target might be associated with a specific category.
- Scope
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) scope is the classification of emissions based on their source. The classification defines the operation boundaries in relation to indirect and direct emission sources.
- Scope 1 emissions
- 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 emissions
- 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, heating, or cooling.
- Scope 3 emissions
- 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 and emissions that related to purchased products, goods, and services.
- Secondary data
- Data that is not directly measured or collected. Secondary data includes industry-average data, financial data, and proxy or estimated data.
- Sector LCA
- An industry or sector-level assessment that evaluates the emissions of a sector as a whole rather than individual suppliers or products. The assessment covers emissions during raw material extraction, product use, and disposal across the sector.
- Spend-based method
- A method for calculating emissions of purchased products, goods, and services that applies secondary emission factors to the amount spent on product, good, and service. With this method, data is collected on the amount spent per unit of the product and is multiplied by a spend-based emission factor for the product category.
- Supplier emission survey
- A survey that requests data about scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions of a supplier and total revenue. The data is used in the hybrid factor method to apportion emissions to spend on a specific supplier.
- Supplier-specific method
- A method for calculating emissions of purchased products, goods, and services that uses primary data from the supplier to calculate emissions rather than relying on secondary sources, such as industry-average or spend-based factors. Suppliers collect product-level emissions for the full lifecycle of the product.
- Supplier LCA
- A supplier-level assessment that evaluates the emissions of the supplier as a whole rather than individual products, goods, or services. The assessment covers emissions during raw material extraction, product use, and disposal across the supplier.
- Sub-commodity
- A specific type, grade, or variant of a commodity. For example, stainless steel is a sub-commodity of the commodity steel.
T
- Transaction data
- Detailed records of transactions or orders in the supply chain, which are used to calculate scope 3 emissions.
U
- Unaccounted for spend
- Orders for which an associated emission factor or PCF value cannot be found.
V
- Variance
- The amount of dispersion between values in a set of data around the average value.
- Value chain emissions
- Emissions from the upstream and downstream activities that are associated with the operations of an organization.
C
- Carbon accounting
- The process of measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions.
- Category 1 – Purchased Goods and Services
- Emissions from the production of goods and services purchased by the reporting company.
- Category 2 – Capital Goods
- Emissions from the production of capital goods purchased by the reporting company.