Sustainability terms, in plain language.
Short definitions that say what each term means and why it matters, whether you met it in a report, a customer request, or your own reading. No jargon explaining jargon.
198 terms
AASB S2 Climate-related Disclosures
AASB S2 Climate-related Disclosures sets the climate information that qualifying Australian entities must include in their statutory sustainability report, covering governance, strategy, risk management, metrics, targets, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Absolute contraction approach
The Absolute Contraction Approach sets a target-year emissions ceiling by applying an SBTi linear reduction rate to a company's base-year emissions, regardless of changes in production or revenue.
Achilles supplier assessment
An Achilles supplier assessment is a MyAchilles prequalification record that separates questionnaire publication, network subscription, audit validity, management-system evidence, Achilles Score and the buyer's own qualification decision.
amfori BSCI
amfori BSCI is a supply-chain social compliance system that combines a code of conduct, the Sustainability Platform, site monitoring, A-to-E ratings and improvement work for amfori members and their business partners.
Aviation radiative-forcing uplift
Aviation radiative-forcing uplift increases a flight emissions estimate to represent non-CO2 warming effects at altitude, such as contrails and changes caused by nitrogen oxides and water vapour.
Avoided emissions
Avoided emissions are estimated greenhouse gas emissions prevented when a solution replaces a credible higher-emitting reference scenario, and they are reported separately from a company’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory.
Biogenic carbon
Biogenic carbon is carbon derived from living organisms or biological processes, tracked separately from fossil carbon in product, land and greenhouse gas accounting.
Blended finance
Blended finance uses development finance, sometimes on concessional terms, to mobilise additional commercial investment for sustainable development in developing countries.
Book-and-claim
Book-and-claim is a chain-of-custody model that transfers a verified sustainability characteristic separately from the physical product, then retires the certificate so that characteristic can be claimed only once.
BRSR (Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report)
BRSR is the annual SEBI disclosure through which India's top 1,000 listed entities report company facts, management processes, and performance against the nine National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) principles.
California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253)
The California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) requires qualifying U.S.-formed businesses doing business in California to disclose annual Scope 1, Scope 2, and, from 2027, Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.
California Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261)
The California Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261) requires qualifying U.S.-formed businesses to publish biennial reports on material physical and transition climate risks, although a federal court injunction currently stops California from enforcing it.
Canada Supply Chains Act (S-211)
The Canada Supply Chains Act (S-211) requires covered entities and federal government institutions to report annually on steps taken to prevent and reduce forced labour and child labour risks in their activities and supply chains.
Carbon Accounting
Carbon accounting is the process of defining a company’s greenhouse gas inventory, collecting activity data, applying emission factors, and reporting Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions on a consistent basis.
Carbon Credit
A carbon credit is a tradeable unit representing one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced or removed by a project, recorded in a registry and retired when used for a claim.
Carbon Emissions
Carbon emissions strictly mean carbon dioxide (CO2) releases, although business reports often use the phrase loosely for all greenhouse gas emissions converted to carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
Carbon footprint of a service
A carbon footprint of a service is the greenhouse gas emissions assigned to a defined service, contract, customer account, or delivery unit for a stated period and boundary.
Carbon Markets
Carbon markets trade allowances created by law or credits issued under voluntary programmes, giving covered emissions or verified reductions and removals a price.
Carbon Neutrality
Carbon neutrality means measuring greenhouse gas emissions for a stated product, service or organisation and year, reducing them where possible, then counterbalancing the remainder with verified carbon credits.
Carbon Reduction Plan (UK procurement)
A UK Carbon Reduction Plan is a supplier's published PPN 006 statement of its emissions, net-zero commitment, reduction targets, completed and planned measures, and senior approval for specified central government procurements.
CDP Corporate Questionnaire
The CDP Corporate Questionnaire is an annual company disclosure covering environmental governance, risks, strategy, targets, emissions, energy, value-chain engagement, and selected nature themes through one set of applicable modules.
CDP score
A CDP score is the letter score CDP gives an eligible response for each scored environmental issue, using the submitted answers, published scoring rules, thresholds and extra conditions called essential criteria.
CDP SME questionnaire
The CDP SME questionnaire is a shorter annual environmental disclosure for eligible companies, with simplified climate questions and optional forests and water content selected during questionnaire setup.
CDP Supplier Engagement Assessment
CDP Supplier Engagement Assessment is a separate letter score for how an eligible full-corporate climate response reports value-chain risk processes, supplier engagement, Scope 3 emissions and targets.
CDP Supply Chain
CDP Supply Chain is CDP's buyer-request programme, allowing member companies to request environmental disclosures from suppliers and view the submitted data available to them.
Chain of custody for sustainability claims
A sustainability chain of custody sets the rules for carrying a defined material characteristic through purchases, processing and sales, including what may be mixed, how quantities are converted and which claim the records support.
Climate Bonds Standard
The Climate Bonds Standard sets the eligibility, verification, proceeds-control, and reporting requirements for debt instruments, assets, and entities seeking Climate Bonds Certification.
Climate change adaptation (EU Taxonomy objective 2 / ESRS E1)
Climate change adaptation changes operations, assets, or plans to reduce harm from current or expected physical climate conditions, while climate change mitigation addresses the emissions that drive warming.
Climate change mitigation (EU Taxonomy objective 1 / ESRS E1)
Climate change mitigation means cutting greenhouse gas emissions or increasing removals to limit warming, and it is the first EU Taxonomy environmental objective and a separate climate subtopic in ESRS E1.
Climate finance
Climate finance is public or private capital directed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening climate resilience, or supporting the activities and systems needed to deliver those outcomes.
Climate resilience
Climate resilience is your strategy and business model's capacity to keep working, fund a response and change course when physical hazards or the shift to a lower-carbon economy affect the company.
Climate risk management
Climate risk management is the documented process for identifying, assessing, prioritising, and monitoring risks from climate hazards and the shift to a lower-emissions economy, then integrating them into your organisation's wider risk decisions.
Climate scenario analysis
Climate scenario analysis tests how your strategy, business model and financial performance could change under several plausible climate futures, including physical hazards and policy, market and technology shifts.
Climate Transition Benchmark (CTB)
An EU Climate Transition Benchmark starts with portfolio emissions per EUR million of company value, or total emissions for some corporate debt, at least 30% below its eligible pool and requires that measure to fall at least 7% yearly.
Climate transition plan
A climate transition plan turns a climate target into dated actions, assigned resources, governance, financial assumptions, and progress measures for changing a company's strategy and business model toward a lower-carbon economy.
Climate VaR
Climate VaR estimates how climate-related costs and opportunities could change an asset's or portfolio's value under a stated scenario, time horizon, discount rate, and valuation method.
Climate-related financial effects
A climate-related financial effect connects a climate risk or opportunity to a specific consequence for financial position, financial performance, or cash flows in the reporting period or a defined future horizon.
Climate-related opportunity
A climate-related opportunity is a potential positive financial effect for your company arising from climate change or from efforts to mitigate or adapt to it.
Climate-related transition risk
Climate-related transition risk is the financial risk that policy, legal, technology, market, or reputation changes create as economies move towards lower greenhouse gas emissions.
CO2 equivalent (CO2e)
CO2 equivalent (CO2e) expresses different greenhouse gases in one unit by multiplying each gas's mass by its specified 100-year global warming potential, then adding the converted amounts.
Combustion vs life-cycle emission factors
A combustion emission factor covers greenhouse gases released when fuel is burned, while a life-cycle emission factor also covers stages such as extraction, processing, and transport.
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence
Corporate sustainability due diligence is an ongoing, risk-based process for finding and addressing harm to people or the environment connected to a company's operations and business relationships.
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires qualifying EU undertakings and groups, plus certain non-EU groups, to publish assured sustainability information under European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).
Decarbonization
Decarbonization is the planned reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from a company’s operations and value chain through measurable changes in how it uses energy, fuel, materials and suppliers.
Decarbonization lever
A decarbonization lever is a category of change, such as energy efficiency, fuel switching or renewable energy, used to group emissions-reduction actions and quantify how much each category contributes to a climate target.
Declared unit (PCF)
A declared unit is the measured quantity of product used as the reference for a partial product carbon footprint when the product's full function is not assessed.
Do no significant harm (EU Taxonomy)
Under the EU Taxonomy, do no significant harm requires an economic activity seeking alignment for an environmental objective to meet the applicable harm-prevention criteria for the other environmental objectives.
Double materiality assessment
A double materiality assessment is the ESRS process for deciding which impacts, risks and opportunities enter a sustainability statement after testing both effects on people or the environment and financial effects on the company.
Dutch energy-saving obligation
The Dutch energy-saving obligation requires qualifying business locations to implement energy measures with a payback period of five years or less and report completed measures every four years.
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)
The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is the EU's voluntary register for organisations that independently verify their environmental management system, legal compliance, performance data, and public environmental statement.
EcoVadis score
An EcoVadis score is a 0–100 assessment result shown with theme scores, strengths, improvement areas and benchmark context on the scorecard shared with trading partners.
EcoVadis supporting documents
EcoVadis supporting documents are pre-existing company records attached to questionnaire answers to prove the policies, actions, certifications, and reported results claimed in an assessment.
Emission factor
An emission factor converts a measured activity, such as kilowatt-hours of electricity or litres of fuel, into greenhouse gas emissions by stating the emissions released per unit of that activity.
Emissions intensity
Emissions intensity divides a defined greenhouse gas total by a matching unit of revenue, production, floor area, energy, or another activity so you can track emissions relative to business output.
Energy attribute certificate (EAC)
An energy attribute certificate carries the generation attributes of a defined quantity of electricity and can support a market-based Scope 2 claim when it covers the right period and market and is retired or cancelled for one claimant.
Energy consumption and mix (ESRS E1-5)
Energy consumption and mix under ESRS E1-5 reports the MWh your own operations consume, split among fossil, nuclear, and renewable sources, with extra fossil detail for specified energy-intensive industry categories, such as manufacturing.
EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP)
The EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program requires covered United States facilities, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, and CO2 injection sites to report annual greenhouse gas data under 40 CFR Part 98.
ESG
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) groups the evidence a company provides about its environmental effects, treatment of people and business oversight when investors, customers or rating providers ask.
ESG integration
ESG integration is the systematic use of financially material environmental, social and governance information in investment analysis and decisions to improve the assessment of risk and return.
ESG investment due diligence
ESG investment due diligence is a pre-deal review of material environmental, social and governance risks, opportunities, liabilities, controls and management capacity that could change an investment's valuation, terms, approval or ownership plan.
ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards)
ESRS tell companies reporting under the CSRD which sustainability information to disclose and how to document material impacts, financial risks, governance, strategy, policies, actions, metrics, and targets.
ESRS E1 Climate Change
Under ESRS E1 Climate Change, an in-scope company reports its material climate plans, targets, energy use, gross emissions, removals, internal carbon prices, risks, and expected financial effects.
EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
Under the EU CBAM, EU importers buy certificates for emissions embedded in covered goods, while non-EU producers supply product and emissions data; approved importers, called authorised CBAM declarants, handle reporting and certificate surrender after permitted adjustments.
EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)
The EUDR bars specified commodities and products from being placed on the EU market or exported unless they are legally produced, deforestation-free, and covered by the due diligence statement or simplified declaration required from the responsible operator.
EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) caps covered emissions and requires regulated operators to report verified annual emissions and surrender allowances under the rules for their installation, aircraft or ship.
EU Taxonomy
The EU Taxonomy classifies activities as environmentally sustainable when they support an environmental goal, do not seriously harm the others, follow basic social safeguards, and meet detailed activity rules; Article 8 turns the assessment into company disclosure figures.
EU Taxonomy eligibility vs alignment
An EU Taxonomy-eligible activity is described in a delegated act; it is aligned only if it substantially supports an environmental objective, avoids significant harm, meets minimum safeguards, and passes the applicable technical screening criteria.
European Green Bond Standard
The European Green Bond Standard is the voluntary EU regime that reserves the EuGB label for bonds meeting taxonomy-linked allocation, disclosure, prospectus and external-review requirements.
EVIC for financed emissions
EVIC for financed emissions adds a listed company's year-end ordinary and preferred share market capitalisations, total debt and non-controlling interests without subtracting cash; PCAF uses it as a listed-company denominator in several attribution formulas.
Exposure to companies active in the fossil-fuel sector
Exposure to companies active in the fossil-fuel sector is the share of investments in companies earning any revenue from fossil-fuel exploration, mining, extraction, production, processing, storage, refining or distribution, including transportation, storage and trade.
Facilitated emissions
Facilitated emissions are the share of an issuer's GHG emissions attributed to a financial institution for arranging a primary capital-markets transaction or syndicated loan without holding that financing on its balance sheet.
Financed emissions
Financed emissions are the share of a borrower's or investee's gross GHG emissions allocated to a bank, fund or asset owner through the loans and investments it holds.
Fugitive emissions
Fugitive emissions are greenhouse gases released intentionally or accidentally from equipment and systems, including refrigerant leaks, methane venting, and fire-suppression gas discharges.
Functional unit (LCA)
A functional unit states the quantified performance a product or service must deliver, giving an LCA one reference against which every input, output, and environmental result is measured.
GHG accounting principles
GHG accounting principles require an inventory to be relevant, complete, consistent, transparent, and accurate so its boundary, methods, exclusions, and results can support decisions and withstand review.
GHG allocation key
A greenhouse gas (GHG) allocation key is a measurable driver used to divide shared emissions among products, services, sites, contracts, or customers when emissions cannot be measured separately for each output.
GHG inventory
A GHG inventory is a dated record that fixes an organisation's boundary, lists its emissions sources and calculations, separates Scope 1 and Scope 2 totals and, when required, Scope 3 totals, and documents methods, exclusions and supporting files.
GHG inventory uncertainty
GHG inventory uncertainty is the range or limitation around an emissions estimate caused by imperfect measurements, emission factors, assumptions, sampling, or calculation choices.
GHG organizational boundary (equity share vs control)
A GHG organizational boundary sets which subsidiaries, sites, joint ventures, and other operations enter your inventory, using equity share, financial control, or operational control as the consolidation approach.
GHG Protocol
The GHG Protocol is a suite of standards for deciding which greenhouse gas emissions belong in a company inventory, classifying them as Scope 1, 2 or 3, calculating them, and reporting the methods and boundaries used.
GHG Protocol Corporate Standard
The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard defines the minimum accounting and public-reporting requirements for a company-wide greenhouse gas inventory, including boundaries, Scope 1 and Scope 2 totals, methods, and exclusions.
GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard sets corporate inventory rules for agricultural land emissions, biogenic products, land and geologic carbon storage, and optional CO2 removals, with traceability, monitoring, uncertainty, and separate-reporting safeguards.
GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard
The GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard sets requirements for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and removals attributable to one product across its defined life cycle, in CO2e per unit of analysis.
GHG Protocol Project Protocol
The GHG Protocol Project Protocol sets rules for quantifying a mitigation project's greenhouse gas reductions against a justified forward-looking baseline that delivers the same product or service.
GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance
The GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance sets two methods for purchased-energy emissions: one based on local grid averages and one based on qualifying contracts, certificates, and supplier data, including when a company must report both totals.
GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard
The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard sets the corporate inventory boundary and reporting rules for 15 categories of indirect emissions across a company's upstream and downstream value chain.
GHG removal
A GHG removal is recorded only when a measured land or geologic storage pool gains greenhouse gas taken from the atmosphere, with the result reported separately from emissions, reductions, and carbon credits.
GHG verification
GHG verification is an independent evaluation of a greenhouse gas statement against stated criteria to determine whether the reported historical emissions information is materially correct.
GLEC Framework
The GLEC Framework sets a common method for calculating and reporting freight and logistics-hub greenhouse gas emissions, including operations and the upstream production and delivery of their fuel or electricity.
Global warming potential (GWP)
Global warming potential (GWP) is the multiplier that converts the mass of methane, nitrous oxide, refrigerants and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases into carbon dioxide equivalent over a stated time horizon.
Green Bonds
A green bond is a bond whose proceeds are reserved for eligible projects with environmental benefits; the label applies to the financing, not automatically to the issuer's whole business.
Green loan
A green loan finances or refinances eligible environmental projects under deal-specific rules for project selection, proceeds tracking, allocation reporting, and impact reporting.
Green mortgage (energy-efficient mortgage)
A green mortgage finances an energy-efficient property or qualifying energy-performance improvements, with eligibility tied to the lender's stated building criteria and supporting property records.
Green securitisation
Green securitisation uses securities backed by pooled cash flows to finance or refinance eligible green assets, or allocates the proceeds to eligible green projects of the issuer, originator, or sponsor.
Greenwashing
Greenwashing is a false or misleading environmental message that makes a product, service, investment, or business appear more beneficial or less harmful to the environment than the evidence supports.
GRI Standards
The GRI Standards give organizations a common structure for disclosing their most significant impacts on people, the environment and the economy.
Gross GHG emissions
Gross GHG emissions are Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 greenhouse gases generated during a reporting period before subtracting removals, offsets or carbon credits, reported in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
IFRS S1 General Requirements
IFRS S1 sets investor-focused disclosure requirements for sustainability risks and opportunities that could affect a company's cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital, and connects those disclosures to its financial statements.
IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures
IFRS S2 requires companies applying ISSB Standards to disclose climate-related risks and opportunities that could affect cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital through governance, strategy, risk management, metrics, and targets, including GHG emissions.
ILO fundamental Conventions
The ILO fundamental Conventions are ten international labour standards covering freedom of association and collective bargaining, forced labour, child labour, discrimination, and a safe and healthy working environment.
Impact investing
Impact investing commits capital with a stated intention to generate a measurable positive social or environmental outcome alongside a financial return.
Implied temperature rise
Implied temperature rise is a modelled estimate, expressed in degrees Celsius, of the warming associated with an entity's or portfolio's projected emissions path relative to a chosen climate benchmark.
Insurance-associated emissions
Insurance-associated emissions quantify the share of greenhouse gas emissions from insured customers or activities attributed to a (re)insurer's covered commercial, project, personal motor, or treaty reinsurance portfolio.
Integrated Reporting Framework
The Integrated Reporting Framework connects strategy, governance, performance, prospects, and the resources and relationships a company uses or affects to explain how it creates, preserves, or erodes value over time.
IntegrityNext
IntegrityNext is a supplier sustainability and compliance platform where customers collect a supplier's questionnaire answers or management-system certificates and automatically receive saved responses and later changes.
Internal carbon pricing
Internal carbon pricing assigns a monetary value to greenhouse gas emissions so your company can compare investments, budgets, products or business units using both financial costs and emissions in metric tonnes of CO2e.
Investment stewardship
Investment stewardship uses an investor's rights and influence, including engagement, voting, board oversight and manager accountability, to protect and enhance long-term value for clients and beneficiaries.
ISO 14001
ISO 14001 is the international requirements standard for an environmental management system that controls an organization's environmental impacts, compliance duties, objectives, operating procedures, monitoring, audits and continual improvement.
ISO 14040
ISO 14040 sets the principles and four-phase framework for life cycle assessment, covering goal and scope, inventory, impact assessment, interpretation, reporting, critical review and limitations without prescribing detailed calculation methods.
ISO 14044
ISO 14044 sets the requirements and guidance that make an LCA's method choices, calculations, interpretation, reporting and review traceable to its stated purpose.
ISO 14064-1 corporate GHG inventories
ISO 14064-1:2018 sets organization-level requirements for defining a GHG inventory boundary, quantifying and reporting emissions and removals, managing inventory quality, and preparing the inventory for verification.
ISO 14064-2
ISO 14064-2:2019 sets requirements for quantifying, monitoring, documenting, and reporting the greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal enhancements achieved by a defined project against a baseline scenario.
ISO 14064-3
ISO 14064-3:2019 sets requirements for verifying historical greenhouse gas statements and validating statements about expected future outcomes for an organization, project, or product.
ISO 14067 product carbon footprints
ISO 14067 sets requirements and guidance for quantifying and reporting a product carbon footprint or partial footprint in CO2e using life cycle assessment principles.
ISO 14068-1
ISO 14068-1:2023 gives organisations and products a documented process for making carbon-neutrality claims, covering the subject boundary, footprint, reduction plan, offsetting, report, and claim.
ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board)
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) develops IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards for companies to report investor-focused information about sustainability-related risks and opportunities.
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
A life cycle assessment (LCA) estimates a product's or service's potential environmental impacts for a defined function and life-cycle boundary, using recorded inputs, stated impact methods, and a documented interpretation of the results.
Limited vs reasonable assurance for sustainability reporting
Limited assurance uses less extensive procedures and a negative-form conclusion, while reasonable assurance requires more persuasive evidence and supports a positive-form opinion on whether the sustainability information meets the stated criteria.
Marginal abatement cost
Marginal abatement cost is the net cost of avoiding one additional metric tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, calculated against a defined baseline over the same period.
Materiality
Materiality is the test a company uses to decide which sustainability topics matter enough to manage or report because they could affect its finances, reflect significant impacts on people or the environment, or both.
Measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV)
Measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) is a documented process for measuring emissions or reductions under a stated method, submitting the required result, and checking it against the rule and underlying records.
Natural Capital Protocol
The Natural Capital Protocol is a four-stage decision framework for identifying, measuring, and valuing how a business depends on natural resources and affects them.
Net-Zero
Under the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard, net zero means deeply cutting greenhouse gas emissions across a company's value chain, then permanently neutralising the small amount that remains.
Netherlands work-related mobility reporting (WPM)
Netherlands work-related mobility reporting (WPM) requires covered Dutch employers to submit annual employee commuting and business-travel kilometres to RVO, split by travel purpose, transport mode, and vehicle fuel or energy source.
Null power (Scope 2)
Null power is electricity left without its renewable source and emissions attributes after the related certificates or other contractual instruments have been sold or transferred to another claimant.
PACT Methodology
PACT Methodology V3 sets calculation and handover rules for cradle-to-production-gate product carbon footprints so customers can use the result and its supporting data across different software systems.
Paris-aligned Benchmark (PAB)
An EU Paris-aligned Benchmark is a regulated investment index whose emissions intensity, or total emissions for some corporate debt, starts at least 50% below its eligible pool, falls at least 7% yearly, and meets mandatory exclusions.
PCAF attribution factor
A PCAF attribution factor is the fraction of annual emissions allocated to a financial institution for a loan or investment, calculated with the numerator and denominator specified for the relevant asset class.
PCAF data quality score
A PCAF data quality score ranks the inputs behind financed-emissions estimates from 1, the highest quality, to 5, the lowest, based on whether data are verified, reported, physically measured or economically estimated.
PCAF Standard
The PCAF Standard assigns financial activities to methods for measuring and disclosing emissions associated with loans, investments, capital-markets facilitation, and insurance underwriting.
Physical climate risk
Physical climate risk is the potential for acute events or chronic climate shifts to damage assets, interrupt operations, disrupt supply chains, and change revenue, costs, cash flows, financing, or insurance.
Portfolio carbon footprint
A portfolio carbon footprint sums the GHG emissions attributed to investments and usually divides that total by portfolio value to report tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per million invested.
Portfolio climate alignment
Portfolio climate alignment uses a defined forward-looking metric to assess whether holdings, loans or underwriting activities are moving toward a stated climate pathway, with the method, benchmark, time horizon and weighting rule clearly disclosed.
Primary vs secondary GHG data
Primary GHG data records a specific site, product, activity, or supplier, while secondary GHG data estimates that activity with external averages, databases, financial factors, or other proxies.
Product carbon footprint (PCF)
A product carbon footprint (PCF) is the greenhouse gas emissions assigned to one product across a stated life-cycle boundary and expressed per declared or functional unit.
Proxy data (GHG accounting)
Proxy data fills a defined GHG accounting gap with information from a similar activity, site, period, or supplier, while documenting the substitution, reason, calculation, and limitation for review.
RBA Self-Assessment Questionnaire
The RBA Self-Assessment Questionnaire is a corporate- and facility-level risk questionnaire that suppliers complete in RBA-Online and release to authorized customers, covering labor, health and safety, environmental and ethics practices.
RBA Validated Assessment Program
The RBA Validated Assessment Program is an independent, site-level assessment that checks a facility's labor, health and safety, environmental, ethics and supply-chain management practices against the RBA Code.
Renewable electricity power purchase agreement (PPA)
A renewable electricity power purchase agreement is a long-term contract with a specific generator, but it supports market-based Scope 2 reporting only when the agreement transfers the relevant energy attributes to your company.
Responsible Investing
Responsible investing considers environmental, social and governance information when investors allocate capital, manage holdings and use their influence to pursue stated financial objectives and, where applicable, sustainability objectives.
SASB Standards
SASB Standards provide industry-specific disclosure topics and metrics for sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could affect a company's cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital.
Saudi sustainable debt framework
Saudi CMA guidelines cover green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked debt issued in Saudi riyals through private or public offers in the Kingdom; issuers must disclose departures in their issuance framework or prospectus.
SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard
The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard sets criteria for companies to validate, implement and assess science-based targets that cut Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions to residual levels and neutralise what remains.
Science-Based Targets
A science-based target states how quickly a company will cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with a climate pathway accepted by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), using a defined boundary, base year and target year.
Scope 1 Emissions
Scope 1 emissions are greenhouse gases released directly from sources your company owns or controls, including fuel-burning equipment and vehicles, industrial processes, and refrigerant or other gas leaks.
Scope 2 Emissions
Scope 2 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gas emissions from generating the electricity, steam, heat, and cooling your company buys and uses.
Scope 2 hourly matching
Scope 2 hourly matching measures the share of your electricity use matched with low-carbon electricity generated in the same hourly interval, instead of relying only on annual certificate totals.
Scope 2 quality criteria
A market-based Scope 2 total reflects your electricity contracts, certificates, and supplier choices rather than only the local grid average; the Scope 2 quality criteria are eight GHG Protocol checks for that evidence.
Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services
Scope 3 Category 1 covers emissions from extracting raw materials through producing the goods and services your company buys in the reporting year, except purchases assigned to upstream Categories 2 through 8.
Scope 3 Category 10: Processing of sold products
Scope 3 Category 10 covers the greenhouse gas emissions caused when customers or other third parties process your sold intermediate products into usable or final products.
Scope 3 Category 11: Use of sold products
Scope 3 Category 11 covers the expected lifetime emissions from customers using goods and services your company sold during the reporting year, including fuel or electricity use and greenhouse gases released from products.
Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life treatment of sold products
Scope 3 Category 12 covers the expected emissions from disposing of and treating products and packaging sold during the reporting year after customers finish using them.
Scope 3 Category 13: Downstream leased assets
Scope 3 Category 13 counts operating emissions from assets your company owns and rents to customers when those emissions sit outside your Scope 1 and Scope 2 totals.
Scope 3 Category 14: Franchises
Scope 3 Category 14 records the operating emissions of licensed franchise businesses that fall outside the franchisor's Scope 1 and Scope 2 boundary.
Scope 3 Category 15: Investments
Scope 3 Category 15 covers an investor's proportional share of Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from equity investments made with company capital, debt tied to a named project, and project finance outside its own inventory.
Scope 3 Category 2: Capital goods
Scope 3 Category 2 covers emissions from extracting materials, producing capital goods, and moving inputs or finished goods before your company acquires them during the reporting year, including buildings, machinery, equipment, and vehicles.
Scope 3 Category 3: Fuel- and energy-related activities
Scope 3 Category 3 captures upstream fuel and purchased-energy emissions, transmission and distribution losses, and resold-energy generation that are outside your Scope 1 and Scope 2 totals.
Scope 3 Category 4: Upstream transportation and distribution
Scope 3 Category 4 covers emissions from third-party transport and storage of purchased goods, plus transport services your company buys for inbound freight, site transfers, and paid outbound delivery.
Scope 3 Category 5: Waste generated in operations
Scope 3 Category 5 covers emissions from third-party disposal and treatment of solid waste and wastewater generated by your owned or controlled operations during the reporting year.
Scope 3 Category 6: Business travel
Scope 3 Category 6 covers emissions from employee business travel in aircraft, trains, buses, rental or employee-owned cars, and other vehicles your company does not own or control.
Scope 3 Category 7: Employee commuting
Scope 3 Category 7 covers emissions from employees travelling between home and work and can optionally include extra energy used when employees work from home.
Scope 3 Category 8: Upstream leased assets
Scope 3 Category 8 covers operating emissions from leased buildings, vehicles, and equipment that your company uses but excludes from its Scope 1 and Scope 2 inventory.
Scope 3 Category 9: Downstream transportation and distribution
Scope 3 Category 9 covers emissions from transporting, storing and retailing products after sale in assets you do not own or control, excluding outbound services your company buys, which belong in Category 4.
Scope 3 double counting
Scope 3 double counting includes errors where one company records the same activity twice and permitted overlaps where several value-chain companies report the same emissions in their separate inventories.
Scope 3 Emissions
Scope 3 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gas emissions from goods, services, transport, product use, investments, and other upstream and downstream activities outside your company's Scope 1 and Scope 2 boundary.
Scope 3 relevance criteria
Scope 3 relevance criteria help a company identify which value-chain activities need close attention by considering size, influence, risk, stakeholder concern, outsourcing, sector guidance, and other company-specific factors.
Second-party opinion
A second-party opinion is an independent pre-issuance assessment of whether a sustainable-finance framework or instrument aligns with the principles or criteria it claims to follow.
Sectoral Decarbonization Approach
The Sectoral Decarbonization Approach turns a climate pathway for a defined industry into a company target for greenhouse gas emissions per physical unit of output.
Sedex supplier platform
The Sedex supplier platform stores site-level labour, health and safety, environmental and business-ethics information so a supplier can complete assessments and share selected data and audit records with linked customers.
SMETA audit
A SMETA audit is a site-level assessment of labour, health and safety, environment and business ethics against local law and the ETI Base Code, with findings recorded in an audit report and corrective action plan.
Stranded asset
A stranded asset loses economic value or usefulness before the end of its expected life because policy, technology, markets, or physical conditions change.
Supplier code of conduct
A supplier code of conduct sets the labour, health and safety, environmental, ethics, record-keeping, and subcontractor rules a buyer expects its suppliers to follow and be able to prove.
Supplier engagement target
A supplier engagement target commits a company to having a defined share of suppliers, measured by spend or value-chain emissions, complete a specified sustainability action by a target date.
Supplier self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ)
A supplier self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) is a supplier-completed form that tests named environmental, labour, ethics and governance practices against supporting documents for a specific company or site.
Sustainability
Sustainability is how a company manages its environmental and social impacts, governs those responsibilities, and shows customers, investors and regulators credible evidence of its decisions, actions and results.
Sustainability assurance
Sustainability assurance is an independent assessment of defined sustainability information against named criteria, ending in a report that states the provider's conclusion and level of assurance.
Sustainability contract clause
A sustainability contract clause makes environmental or social duties binding in a commercial agreement by defining the required data, targets, records, reporting dates, cooperation and remedies.
Sustainability criterion in a tender
A sustainability criterion in a tender is a scored or pass-fail environmental or social requirement that a bidder must answer and support before a buyer awards the contract.
Sustainability performance target (SPT)
A sustainability performance target (SPT) is a measurable result set for a key performance indicator by a fixed observation date, with financing terms changing according to whether the result is achieved.
Sustainability Reporting
Sustainability reporting is the process of publishing evidence-backed information about a company's environmental, social, and governance impacts, risks, opportunities, policies, targets, and performance for a defined period and business boundary.
Sustainability-linked bond
A sustainability-linked bond is debt whose financial or structural terms change according to whether the issuer meets predefined sustainability performance targets by specified dates.
Sustainability-linked derivative
A sustainability-linked derivative creates a KPI-linked cash flow either inside a conventional derivative or through a separate agreement that references one.
Sustainability-linked loan
A sustainability-linked loan ties its financial or structural terms to whether the borrower meets agreed, measurable sustainability performance targets for material key performance indicators within set testing periods.
Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 connected UN goals for improving social, economic, and environmental conditions by 2030, used by companies as a voluntary framework for prioritizing and explaining relevant impacts.
Sustainable finance taxonomy
A sustainable finance taxonomy is a classification system that sets objectives and criteria for deciding which economic activities or financial products qualify as environmentally or socially sustainable.
TCFD recommendations
The TCFD recommendations structure 11 climate-related financial disclosures under governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, helping organizations report how climate issues affect decisions and financial prospects.
Thailand Taxonomy
The Thailand Taxonomy is a voluntary classification system that uses sector criteria to label Thai economic activities green, amber, red, or out of scope for environmental and transition finance decisions.
TNFD recommendations
TNFD gives companies and financial institutions 14 recommended disclosures about how they rely on and affect nature, the resulting risks and opportunities, and how these issues are governed and managed.
Transition finance
Transition finance is capital that supports a credible company shift toward Paris-aligned net-zero emissions, linking financing to material reductions, a time-bound pathway, safeguards against keeping high-emitting assets in use, and reported progress.
UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS)
The UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS) are the United Kingdom's investor-focused disclosure standards, with S1 covering sustainability-related financial risks and opportunities and S2 covering climate; they are currently available for voluntary use.
UN Global Compact
The UN Global Compact asks participating companies to embed Ten Principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption in their operations and report publicly on their progress each year.
UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights set out the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect them, and access to remedy for people harmed by business activity.
Virtual renewable electricity PPA (VPPA)
A virtual renewable electricity PPA is a financial contract that exchanges the difference between a fixed strike price and a generator's wholesale price without supplying your sites; project attributes transfer only if the contract says so.
VSME sustainability reporting standard
The VSME sustainability reporting standard is a voluntary EU framework that helps non-listed micro, small, and medium-sized undertakings give proportionate sustainability information to banks, investors, and corporate customers.
Weighted average carbon intensity (WACI)
Weighted average carbon intensity (WACI) measures a portfolio's exposure to carbon-intensive companies by weighting each holding's Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions per million of revenue by its share of portfolio value.
Well-to-wheel emissions
Well-to-wheel emissions combine the greenhouse gases from producing and delivering a vehicle's energy with those released while the vehicle uses that energy.
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A calculator, plain-language articles, a glossary, and checklists, all free, all built to the same standard as the paid work.
What a Sustainability Consultant Does, and What It Costs
What sustainability consultants do, when to hire one, how pricing works, what Keslio charges, and the questions to ask before you choose.
Supplier GHG Reporting Checklist
Use this supplier GHG reporting checklist to collect Scope 1, Scope 2, relevant Scope 3 data, methodology notes, and evidence.
Service-Level GHG Accounting for Suppliers
Service-level GHG accounting helps suppliers allocate emissions to a customer, contract, product, or service when a company footprint is not enough.
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