Knowledge
The vocabulary your clients are using
Scope 1, 2 and 3. Net zero versus carbon neutral. What a verified figure actually means. No assumed knowledge - if a questionnaire has landed on your desk, start here.
- Carbon footprint
- The total greenhouse gases produced by your organisation's activities over a set period, converted into a single figure and expressed as CO₂e.
- Why it matters: It is the number a client questionnaire or a tender is usually asking for, and it is meaningless without the boundary - which scopes and which sites it covers.
- CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent)
- A common unit that converts every greenhouse gas into the amount of CO₂ that would cause the same warming, so methane, refrigerants and CO₂ can be added together.
- Why it matters: It is why a footprint is one number rather than a list of gases. Figures quoted in 'tonnes of carbon' almost always mean tonnes of CO₂e.
- Scope 1 emissions
- Emissions from sources your organisation owns or controls directly - fuel burned in your vehicles, your boilers, and refrigerant leaks from your own equipment.
- Why it matters: For most service businesses this is the fleet and the heating, and it is the scope you have the most direct control over.
- Scope 2 emissions
- Indirect emissions from the energy you buy and consume - in practice, almost always purchased electricity.
- Why it matters: Switching supply or tariff changes this figure without changing anything you physically do, which is why the reporting method matters.
- Scope 3 emissions
- Every other indirect emission across your value chain, in both directions: purchased goods and services, business travel, commuting, waste, and the use of what you sell.
- Why it matters: This is usually the largest share of a footprint and the hardest to measure. It is also why your customers ask you for data - your Scope 1 and 2 are their Scope 3.
- GHG Protocol
- The most widely used international standard for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions. It defines the three scopes and the rules for setting organisational boundaries.
- Why it matters: If a client asks whether your footprint is 'GHG Protocol aligned', they are asking whether it was built to these rules and is therefore comparable with everyone else's.
- Baseline year
- The first year you measure properly, against which all later years are compared.
- Why it matters: Reductions are only demonstrable relative to a baseline. Changing it later - or measuring a different set of scopes - resets your ability to show progress.
- Carbon neutral
- A state where the emissions attributed to an organisation, product or event have been balanced by an equivalent amount of verified carbon credits.
- Why it matters: It says nothing on its own about whether emissions were reduced first, which is why the claim is increasingly scrutinised and why the boundary must be stated.
- Net zero
- Cutting emissions as far as is technically possible across all scopes, then neutralising only the small residual with permanent removals.
- Why it matters: Net zero is a reduction target with a residual; carbon neutral can be achieved by offsetting alone. They are not interchangeable, and using them as if they were is a common cause of a rejected claim.
- Carbon offsetting
- Funding a project that avoids or removes emissions elsewhere - reforestation, renewable energy, cookstoves - to compensate for emissions you have not eliminated.
- Why it matters: Quality varies enormously. What matters is whether the reduction is additional, permanent, and independently verified against a recognised standard.
- Carbon credit
- A tradable certificate representing one tonne of CO₂e avoided or removed by a specific project, issued under a recognised standard.
- Why it matters: A credit is retired when it is used, so it can only be claimed once. Ask which registry a credit was retired on and in whose name.
- Insetting
- Reducing emissions inside your own value chain - helping a supplier decarbonise, for instance - rather than buying credits from an unrelated project.
- Why it matters: It counts toward your actual Scope 3 reduction, which offsetting does not.
- Science Based Targets (SBTi)
- An initiative that independently validates corporate emissions targets as consistent with limiting warming in line with the Paris Agreement.
- Why it matters: Larger customers increasingly ask suppliers whether they have targets validated this way. It is a formal, audited process rather than a self-declaration.
- SECR
- Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting: a UK requirement for large companies and LLPs to disclose energy use and emissions in their annual reports.
- Why it matters: Most SMEs fall below the threshold - but if you supply a company that is in scope, its SECR reporting is why it is asking you for data.
- Verification
- An independent check that a reported figure was calculated correctly and is supported by evidence.
- Why it matters: Verification is about the number; certification is about meeting a defined standard. A buyer asking for 'verified emissions' wants the former.
- Greenwashing
- Presenting an environmental claim that is unsubstantiated, vague, or more favourable than the evidence supports.
- Why it matters: In the UK the CMA's Green Claims Code applies to environmental marketing, and unsupported claims carry real regulatory and reputational risk. Stating the boundary and the method is the defence.
Asked something that is not here?
Send us the question - or the whole questionnaire. We will tell you what it is really asking for, whether or not you end up working with us.
Ask usTell us what your client is asking for
We will tell you exactly what it takes to answer them, how long it will take, and who here will be doing it. No obligation, and no jargon.