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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Beyond carbon measurement: why businesses must apply the rigour of financial accounting to sustainability
24/1/2024
8 min read
Feature
Even the best-intentioned company may unwittingly undermine its own efforts and plans to reach net zero by failing to properly understand and account for its carbon emissions, writes Matthew Paver, Chief Operating Officer of Carbon Responsible. He advocates a more analytical approach.
In the corporate world, terms like ‘carbon measurement’, carbon management’, ‘carbon reporting’ and ‘carbon accounting’ are often used interchangeably. Companies with net zero targets, or those which report emissions for regulatory or voluntary reasons, might use any of these terms to describe their efforts.
Imprecise vocabulary around net zero practices isn’t necessarily a problem in itself, but it has obscured the fact that not all approaches to emissions reporting and analysis are created equal.
We are seeing this play out already in the corporate sphere. The business community globally has generally understood the urgency to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030, on route to net zero by 2050. Companies across all sectors are taking their responsibility seriously, often going beyond regulatory obligations to set ambitious decarbonisation goals and voluntarily disclose carbon emissions.