Carbon Accounting - Scope 1, 2, and 3 Emissions
Carbon accounting is the mathematical process of calculating an organisation's GHG emissions and disclosing them. Carbon accounting is needed for decarbonisation strategies, SBTi, reporting, supply chain engagement, and company ESG analysis. Many software and services in the market help companies calculate their GHG emissions and analyse decarbonisation strategies. Needless to say, knowing the basics and inner working of carbon accounting is still a necessary step to understand how carbon accounting helps businesses improve their ESG efforts. This segment covers the basics, a company example with explanations, current software tools in the market, and current courses for individuals learning about carbon accounting. Jump to section:
Published on 17th December 2025
Calculating Scope 1, 2 and 3
This example is purely for illustrative purposes, keeping in mind that carbon accounting software tools are the most streamlined and efficient way of carbon accounting for organizations.
Let us take an example of a small-medium-sized chocolate manufacturing company based in Europe. The company produces 13 million 150g chocolate bars (a volume of about 1,950 tonnes / year). They run a facility in Germany, which is 5,000 m² and has 50 staff members. Their products are considered to be mid-range to premium, offering mainly dark chocolate varieties of 60-80% cocoa along with other ingredients such as dried berries, raisins, cashew nuts, and rum.
Scope 3 has 15 categories, not all apply to a company. For this company, the image separates the upstream and downstream emissions and the breakdown of the particulars.
After calculating GHG emissions, companies now need to assess areas where emission reduction is possible and create a target and timeline as such for this transition plan.
Carbon Accounting Courses
Free Online Courses:
1) Persefoni Academy - Persefoni is a major player in carbon accounting and this course provides a basic understanding.
2) Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol - GHG Protocol has certain free courses like scope 2 overview and basic overview of the standard.
3) Circular Economy's Introduction to Carbon Footprint - A detailed overview of all scopes, distinguishing between product footprint and organization footprint, and the frameworks surrounding it.
4) Carbon Accounting 101 Course series on Youtube by Sustain Life and Workiva
Free Emission Factor Databases:
UK Government's DEFRA's Conversion Factors: Choose between condensed set or the full set.
US EPA Emission Factors Hub: Offers historical datasets as well as the Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.
EXIOBASE: The underlying database used by many carbon accounting software platforms
Open LCA: They have recommendations for free and paid databases.
Carbon Accounting Softwares
Watershed - https://watershed.com/en-GB A leading software that helps in ESG and Sustainability reporting.
Persefoni - https://www.persefoni.com/en-gb A leading software in footprint measures and decarbonisation measures.
Sweep - https://www.sweep.net This software helps meet international disclosure standards and track sustainability data.
Position Green - https://www.positiongreen.com/about/career/ European based that primarily works in Europe and North America and helps collect supply chain data and measure scopes 1, 2 and 3.
Climatiq - https://www.climatiq.io/calculate Has access to databases as well as integrations.
Normative - https://normative.io Services also CSRD and CBAM and supplier engagement.
Sustain.Life (Workiva) - https://www.sustain.life a comprehensive sustainability management software
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