Solutions

Will your Scope 3 survive an audit?

CSRD moves the number into the audited report. Scope 3 is the part that fails, and it fails structurally.

The number your customer needs is inside your Scope 3

CSRD moves sustainability data into the audited part of the annual report, and ESRS E1 asks for gross Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions with the basis on which they were prepared. Scope 1 and 2 are usually already in hand. Scope 3 is the one that fails assurance.

It fails for a structural reason, not a diligence one: the standard fallback is spend multiplied by an industry average, and an auditor asking where a figure came from gets the answer "an average". That number also cannot fall when you switch supplier or fuel, so it is no use for the transition plan the same standard asks for.

Purchased goods, from supplier data instead of spend

Category 1 usually dominates the total. Replacing estimates there means collecting primary figures from the companies that actually produced your inputs — and being able to show, per figure, which route it took.

Every result keeps its inputs, the emission factor with its source and year, and the calculation joining them. The auditor checks a trail rather than reconstructing one.

How supplier data is collected

Scope and timing have moved, so we link the text rather than paraphrase it

CSRD has been amended since adoption, including through the simplification package. Any summary of who is in scope and from when starts ageing the day it is written — including one written here.

We track what the EU actually publishes and link the consolidated text, so the answer you act on is the current one.

What the EU published, and when

For an ESRS E1 disclosure

Scope 1, 2 and 3

All fifteen Scope 3 categories, on one engine rather than a spreadsheet per scope.

Both Scope 2 methods

Location-based and market-based, reported side by side as the standard expects.

Provenance per figure

Measured, calculated or estimated — recorded as its own axis, not averaged away.

Factor versioning

Source, year and dataset version travel with every result.

Recomputable results

The assurance question "how did you get this" has a mechanical answer.

No assurance opinion

We are not an accredited body and do not issue one. We make the evidence cheap to examine.

FAQ

Does CSRD apply to us?

Scope and timing have been amended repeatedly, including through the simplification package, so any summary written a year ago is unreliable — including one written here.

The dependable answer comes from the current consolidated text, which we link rather than paraphrase. What has not changed is the direction: more companies reporting more, with assurance attached.

Why is Scope 3 the hard part of our report?

Because it is the only part you cannot measure on your own site. It is typically the majority of the total, and the usual fallback — spend multiplied by an industry average — produces a number that barely moves when your actual suppliers change.

That makes it useless for reduction and awkward under assurance, because an auditor asks where the figure came from and the honest answer is "an average".

Will our auditor accept data from your system?

Auditors accept evidence, not systems. What we can do is make the evidence cheap to examine: every figure keeps its inputs, the emission factor with its source and year, and the calculation that connects them, so the auditor is checking a trail rather than reconstructing one.

We do not issue assurance and we are not an accredited body. Anyone telling you their software makes an audit unnecessary is describing something other than an audit.

Questions we are actually asked →

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