The glossary of committed companies

The Activity Based Method serves as the one of the main methods used to calculate emissions in carbon accounting, and is more precise than the spend-based method. 

Blue carbon is the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems, which sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and are an important part of global carbon sequestration.

The term corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to practices and regulations taken up by companies and organizations intended to take ownership of having a positive impact on the world. It is a concept in corporate management that integrates social and environmental commitments throughout a business’s strategy.

The CSRD works to standardize non-financial reporting by companies at the European level in order to increase transparency, facilitate data comparison, and support the achievement of climate goals by 2050. 

Carbon accounting refers to the discipline of measurement and accounting techniques that serve to measure the carbon footprint of an organization or individual, and the trading of carbon credits or offsetting techniques involved in this domain.

‍A carbon assessment is the process of measuring how much greenhouse gasses are produced by an individual or organization.

In simple terms, carbon capturing is the act of capturing carbon before it is released into the atmosphere, with the goal of mitigating its effects on the climate.

Carbon credits are essentially permits that allow the holder to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gasses.

A carbon cycle is the Earth’s natural way of recreating carbon atoms, which is done when carbon is exchanged within the biosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, and the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Carbon Disclosure Project, commonly referred to as the CDP, is a non-profit and global organization that helps companies to disclose their environmental impact.

A carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases that is released into the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular company, individual or organization.

‍Carbon management refers to a series of techniques or practices that control the release of greenhouse gasses related to human activities into the atmosphere.

Carbon neutral means that the total sum of emissions generated by an entity are offset, through means of reducing them or by compensating for them through various offsetting or emissions absorption projects.

CO2e represents ‘carbon dioxide equivalent’. It’s a measurement of the total greenhouse gases emitted, expressed as the equivalent measurement of carbon dioxide.

Decarbonization can refer to the process in which any entity that generates emissions such as a company, organization, or sector, reduces its carbon footprint by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Degrowth is an economic philosophy which refers to avoiding high levels of production and consumption as an effort to conserve natural resources and mitigate further environmental damage. 

Double materiality is a concept prevalent in corporate sustainability reporting, such as in CSRD. It involves combining financial materiality and impact materiality in order to provide a thorough assessment of an organization's current performance. 

An ecosystem refers to all of the living organisms and the exterior environment in which they live – such as trees on an island or fungi on mushrooms.

Energy mix refers to the breakdown of energy consumption in a given geographical area, broken down by energy source (for example: renewable energy, natural gas, coal, petroleum etc.)

Environmental, social, and corporate governance, is a set of criteria through which a company can be measured in terms of its ethics and sustainability, providing a measure of the degree to which the company is futureproof, outside of simply its financial performance.

Fit for 55 is a package presented by the European Commission as part of the European Green Deal.

A fossil fuel is a natural fuel, such as coal, gas, or oil – and is formed from the Earth’s crust.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is an initiative that serves to determine a universal standardized measurement by which companies and organizations can be evaluated on their output of emissions.

Global warming refers to the rising global temperatures around the world, and the effects of these rising temperatures on the planet, life, and society.

The greenhouse effect is when greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere trap the sun’s heat, and result in higher temperatures.

Greenhouse gasses are present in the Earth’s atmosphere and trap heat, which ultimately further aggravate global warming.

Greenwashing, also referred to as “green sheen”, is when a company advertises misleading environmental claims, which allow their customers to believe that their product or service is eco-friendly even if it isn’t.

The IPCC, or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change serves as the United Nations' vessel to evaluate science that explains climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol was a previous international agreement that aimed to reduce the amount of carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

The Life Cycle Assessment is a procedure for measuring the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its entire life cycle.

The Net Zero Initiative helps companies and organizations find a way to get the most out of their decarbonizing efforts, with the goal of achieving global carbon neutrality. In short, Net Zero means lowering greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible and accounting for the remaining emissions by way of carbon offsetting projects.

Carbon offsetting is the process of removing carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. This process can take shape in many different ways.

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty that aims to fight against climate change by joining countries of the world together to work towards a collective goal.

Renewable energy, also sometimes referred to as clean energy, is the concept of using energy sources that are easily replenished and do not depend on the use of finite resources such as oils or fossil fuels.

The Science Based Target Initiative, better known as the SBTi, is an initiative that seeks to improve the global stance on climate change by providing companies who choose to apply for it with scientific data to help them set their carbon emissions reduction targets.

Scope 1 emissions come directly from the source of industrial production or vehicles that are used in a company, including all sources of non-renewable energy as well – such as the energy required to run the office.

Scope 2 emissions are any emissions created by power consumption – like the electricity necessary to run the air conditioning.

Scope 3 emissions are the rest of emissions that are produced that don’t fall under scope emissions 1 or 2.

Scope 4 emissions don’t refer to emissions produced like scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions do.

The Spend-Based Method is the first of two main approaches to carbon accounting, which works by taking the monetary value of a purchased good or service and then multiplying this value by a relative carbon emission factor in order to calculate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced.