Set up accounts for goods, products and waste

The environmental accounts that deal with selling, purchasing and disposing of materials include:

• Purchased goods and services accounts deal with buying products and services, either for immediate consumption or for long-term use.
• Sold products accounts deal with usage, processing and disposal of sold products.
• Waste accounts deal with the treatment, recycling, disposal and incineration of produced waste. These accounts also deal with both wastewater treatment and waste transportation.

Calculating emissions data

Common to these environmental accounts is the measurement of physical metrics such as volume or weight for a range of materials. However, other metrics are also required for comprehensive carbon accounting.

• Purchased goods and services may be more suitable to measure with activity-based calculations, depending on the individual account.
• Sold products should additionally measure the energy consumed in different processes, as well as activity data for non-combustion emissions.
• Waste accounts should also measure treatment methods such as recycling, composting, incineration or landfill.

In some cases, data on amounts spent is also acceptable, but is often not as preferred because of fluctuations in market price, changes in inflation and locational variance.

Set up purchased goods and services accounts

Purchased goods and services accounts deal with both operational expenses and capital expenses, both directly and indirectly related to your own company’s production.

• Capital goods typically have longer lifespans, such as machinery, buildings and equipment.
• Operational goods and services typically have an immediate use or a shorter lifespan, such as office supplies, food, water consumption or maintenance services.

Accounts for purchased goods and services might be categorized by type of material, such as metals, plastics or electrical items, with individual accounts for more granular categories such as type of battery or plastics.

Purchased Goods and Services Cards include an Account Type field to specify whether the account is for Purchased Goods and Services or for Capital Goods.

Set up sold products accounts

Accounts for sold products could be categorized broadly, for example by product type or materials involved. Alternatively, categories could follow the product life cycle with groupings for processing, use and end-of-life. To get a full understanding of these activities, your company may need to communicate with clients to find out details about the journey of your products after purchase.

While your company may decide to exclude downstream emissions from your assessments, you will be required to have transparent disclosures and justifications for any exclusions. The two primary methods for calculating emissions for sold products are:

• Site-specific method, involving fuel, electricity and waste generation from third-party processing of sold products
• Average-data method, involving estimates based on secondary data averages, such as emissions per process or product

Sold Product Cards include a field that specifies the Type of data to be collected:

• Processing of sold products
• Use of sold products
• End-of-life treatment of sold products

Set up waste accounts

You can use waste accounts in broad categories, for example related to business activities such as manufacture or administration. Alternatively, you could categorize by type of waste, such as plastics or metals, or more specifically by chemical and structural properties, such as PVC or HDPE.

Waste Cards include fields to specify the Disposal Method Code and whether the waste is Hazardous.

Other resources

• Add purchasing goods and services card (Continia Docs article)
• Add a sold products card (Continia Docs article)
• Add a waste card (Continia Docs article)