Carbon accounting
Accounting for the future
Calculating your carbon footprint can be a major challenge. Challenges like fragmented data, shifting standards, and technical conversion factors make it difficult to know where to begin. That’s why we take a structured, strategic approach that helps you identify emissions across your business units and translate them into meaningful metrics.
Good Growth Collective helps clients measure, understand, and reduce their environmental impact to drive sustainable, long-term growth.
Curious to know more? Here's how we do it:
- Step 1: Company deep-dive
- Step 2: Methodology formulation
- Step 3: Data collection
- Step 4: CO₂e calculation
- Step 5: Carbon footprint reduction roadmap
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Company deep-dive
We start by carefully combing through your business operations and structure to identify key emission sources. This includes mapping your facilities, supply chain, products/services. and employee activities. This provides us with a clear view of your carbon footprint boundaries , and helps us understand what is most relevant to your business.
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Methodology formulation
We define how your emissions will be measured based on the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol or other relevant standards. This includes selecting which scopes to include, and how to categorize them. This helps ensure your approach to carbon accounting is consistent, transparent, and auditable.
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Data collection
Together we gather the necessary data to calculate your emissions. This may include travel records, energy consumption statistics, procurement data and more. We assess the data-quality and fill gaps when needed in order to build a solid, verifiable data foundation for accurate emissions reporting.
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CO₂ calculation with the help of software
We input the data we collected into a carbon accounting platform to calculate emissions across all included categories. For this, we are partnered with Coolset for their carbon accounting software tooling. This allows us to efficiently produce a clear Carbon Footprint report with a breakdown of your Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Do you already use another platform, or have an in-house solution? We are fully adaptable to whatever your needs may be.
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Carbon footprint reduction roadmap
Based on your emissions profile we develop a practical roadmap to reduce your carbon footprint. This roadmap provides valuable insights into a feasible, and practical decarbonization strategy for your company. Our advice ranges from quick solutions to reduce your carbon-footprint in the short-term, and long-term investment solutions, to drive enduring decarbonization across your operations.
Benefits of carbon accounting
Cost cutting
Carbon accounting is the first step in creating a future-proof business strategy. Using the results of a carbon accounting procedure can deliver insights into energy use and waste, as well as allow for appropriate purchase and use of carbon credits
Regulatory compliance
Through carbon accounting you can easily identify stress-points in your ESG-Reguation compliance strategies. Carbon accounting offers a clear picture of your operational risks, and can help odemtofy non-compliance with existing regulations in the ESG-regulatory landscape.
Risk mitigation
Carbon accounting is a critical tool for uncovering sustainability-related risks within your operations. By accurately identifying these risks, your business is better positioned to manage and reduce them, enhancing transparency, boosting environmental performance, and increasing appeal to investors.
Want to know more about carbon accounting?
What gets measured gets managed, and carbon accounting ensures we measure and improve what truly matters.
We’ve calculated the carbon footprint, now what? How can you help us scale up?
That’s a great starting point. Many companies find that once the first footprint is done, the real challenge begins: integrating carbon accounting into business processes, tracking reductions over time, and reporting to stakeholders.
We support you by:
- Operationalizing carbon tracking (setting up repeatable systems, not one-off studies);
- Aligning reporting with frameworks like CSRD, CDP, or SBTi;
- Building internal dashboards or helping you choose the right software;
- Managing Scope 3 data engagement, including supplier outreach templates and workflows.
You don’t have to build an internal team from scratch, we function as your external carbon data desk, scalable to your needs.
What are the different levels of data used in carbon accounting, and why do they matter?
Emissions data can be estimated using two main methods with varying precision. Transaction-based data relies on financial records (e.g., “€500 on electricity”) and uses average emission factors per currency unit, making it easy to start but less accurate. In contrast, activity-based data uses physical units like kWh, liters, or kilometers, enabling more precise calculations with specific emission factors (e.g., 0.233 kg CO₂e per kWh in the UK). Accuracy also depends on geography—location-specific factors matter, as emissions per unit can vary widely (e.g., low in France vs. high in Poland). For reliable reporting, use regionally accurate data from sources like DEFRA, EPA, or IEA.
How accurate does our carbon footprint need to be and is it okay to use estimates?
It's perfectly fine to start with estimates or partial data the key is to start. We begin with simple, structured methods like spend-based data to quickly identify emission hotspots, set priorities, and show early progress. Over time, we shift to more accurate, activity-based and region-specific data, especially in high-impact areas. Our approach is fit for purpose: lean for internal use, or verification-ready for external reporting (e.g., B Corp, SBTi). Throughout, we ensure transparent documentation to support audits and future improvements.
Want to know more?
Wondering how exactly we can help you?
Contact us
Kevin van Dam
Managing Consultant