Concepts
Learn about the key concepts that are used in Envizi Supply Chain Intelligence.
Key concepts include:
- ESG
- Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) are the 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 purchased goods and services.
- Scope 3 emissions
- In Envizi Supply Chain Intelligence, you can collect and report against the Corporate Value Chain Accounting Reporting Standard. The standard provides a step-by-step guide for companies to use in quantifying and reporting their corporate value chain scope 3 emissions. The focus of Envizi Supply Chain Intelligence is Category 1 - Purchased goods and services.
- Emissions calculation methods for Category 1
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- Supplier-specific method – collects product-level cradle-to-gate GHG inventory data from goods or services suppliers.
- Hybrid method – uses a combination of available supplier-specific activity data and
secondary data to fill any gaps. This method involves:
- Collecting allocated scope 1 and scope 2 emission data directly from suppliers.
- Calculating upstream emissions of goods and services from suppliers’ activity data on the amount of materials, fuel, electricity used, distance transported, and waste generated from the production of goods and services and applying appropriate emission factors.
- Using secondary data to calculate upstream emissions wherever supplier-specific data is not available.
- Average-data method – estimates emissions for goods and services by collecting data on the mass, for example, kilograms or pounds, or other relevant units of purchased goods or services and multiplying by the relevant secondary, for example, industry average, and emission factors, for example, average emissions per unit of good or service.
- Spend-based method – estimates emissions for goods and services by collecting data on the economic value of goods and services that are purchased and multiplying it by relevant secondary emission factors, for example, average emissions per monetary value of goods.
- Managed emission factors
- A set of published emission factors designed to provide organizations with a set of default emission factor values that help facilitate carbon accounting calculations and organizational greenhouse gas reporting. Key sources for emission factors include Eora66 and United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA).
- 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.
- Spend-based emission factors
- Emission factors that are based on the monetary value of goods and services that are purchased by an organization. Emissions are calculated by multiplying the spend of a good or service by an appropriate spend-based emissions factor.
- Product carbon footprint (PCF)
- A measure of the total greenhouse gas emission that is generated by a product measured in kg CO2e.
- PCF collection methods
- In Envizi Supply Chain Intelligence, suppliers categorize each PCF value that they provide into one of the following categories:
- Data types
- The types of PCF data include:
- Primary data
- Supplier-specific data that is directly measured, collected, or calculated.
- Secondary data
- Data that is derived from secondary sources.
- Proxy data
- Data that is extrapolated to fill gaps.
- Lifecycle emissions
- GHG emissions that result from all stages of the lifecycle of the product.
- Primary data share
- The percentage of PCF emissions that were calculated by using primary activities and emissions data.
- Eora66 - MRIO
- Eora66 - Multi-region input-output (MRIO) is a globally recognized spend-based emission factor set. For more information, see the Envizi ESG Suite product documentation.