Climate Crisis and Carbon Reporting

Emissions are still rising. Regulations are tightening, but carbon reporting is much less detailed, accurate, granular, comprehensive and auditable than financial reporting, with loopholes and estimates. To manage carbon, we must first accurately measure it at scale.

The SME Paradox

  • SMEs Emit Most: Up to 70% of total global business emissions are from Small & Medium Enterprises
  • Big Biz Regulated Most: Currently, only big businesses are required to accurately report their emissions.
  • Scope 3: New regulations include large financial penalties for inadequate reporting of Scope 3 — i.e. including emissions from largely-SME supply chains.
  • No SME Data: Big businesses can pay carbon specialists to calculate their footprints to demonstrate compliance; SMEs can’t afford to, and are not required to.
  • AI Can’t Help: Current commercial carbon standards are obliged to use inaccurate, unverifiable guesswork to calculate Scope 3. Without an accurate data training set, AI is ineffective.

See Through Carbon Carbon Reporting Ecosystem

See Through Carbon is piloting a carbon reporting ecosystem to resolve the SME Paradox:

  • Accurate: uses best-available practice/​methodology to calculate individual SME footprints
  • Free: free at point of use, so any SME with an internet connection can use it
  • Open-Source:data is available in a public database.
  • Transparent: unlike commercial standard who need to protect IP and monetise data, STC makes both its methodologies and data transparent by default

STC’s pilot offers two functions:

  1. Universal Carbon Footprint Calculator Tool: covering 7 diverse sectors (SMEs, Live Music, Industry, Health, Public Bodies, Farming, Textiles).
  2. Emissions Reduction Advice: ​‘good-enough/’better-than-nothing’ carbon reduction advice provided gratis by pro bono consultants, may form a data training set for AI models, with an LLM interface (including voice-only data entry via smartphone)

Benefits

Deployed at scale, the STC database will provide a significant new resource to help big businesses comply with new reporting regulations, carbon consultants to use accurate data, and researchers/policy-makers/regulators/governments with a valuable new dataset.