Carbon accounting is a method used by a person or business to calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they release into the air, either directly or by causing others to release it. Adding up all of these emissions is accounting for them, and will help a business produce a carbon footprint, indicating how much impact they have.

Once your business begins accounting for the carbon released from business activities, this will build up a picture of your environmental impact. A carbon accounting platform calculates how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases your company emits by using a mixture of spend information and other day-to-day activities.

By tracking and measuring your carbon emissions, your business can identify areas where you can reduce your impact on the planet, make informed decisions about sustainable ways of working, and set a net zero goal for reducing emissions in the future. This is likely to have an added benefit of being better for your business, saving you money; it will also help counter risks to your business from weather events, water shortages and commodity and supply chain pressures likely in future.

Sorry, that's not what we do here. Offsetting is the process of paying to have another entity do something that will reduce, avoid or remove carbon emissions on your behalf. It moves the responsibility for your emissions to someone else, and does not encourage outward-thinking behaviours. Carbon accounting is here to help businesses deal with emissions within your own control and take responsibility for reducing them.

Carbon accounting can be the gateway for a business into thinking more sustainably. It doesn't cover all the aspects of how a business fits into the wider picture, i.e. nature and biodiversity impact are not measured in a business's accounts ledger (yet) but maybe one day they can be. What we are helping you do is start to get a handle on your business's wider impact. With that visibility, business benefits can be found and implemented more easily.