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Climate & financial disclosure, explained

Plain-English definitions of the terms that show up in every climate disclosure report — and exactly where each one comes from in yours.

Emissions & measurement

Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions — the GHG Protocol's three categories for classifying greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 1 is direct emissions from sources you own or control. Scope 2 is indirect emissions from purchased electricity, heat or steam. Scope 3 is everything else in your value chain — supplier emissions, business travel, use of sold products, and more.

In your report

Your GHG Inputs step captures all three scopes, and Section 3 breaks Scope 3 down across all 15 GHG Protocol categories rather than a single lump-sum estimate.

tCO2e (tonnes of CO2 equivalent) — the standard unit for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, converting all gases (methane, nitrous oxide, etc.) into an equivalent amount of CO2 based on their warming potential.

In your report

Every emissions figure — baseline, Scope 1/2/3, sector benchmarks — is expressed in tCO2e for consistency and comparability.

GHG data readiness — an internal consistency check confirming your emissions inventory is arithmetically and logically sound before it goes anywhere near a real GHG verification process (which is a separate, formal, third-party exercise).

In your report

Section 13 runs seven automated consistency checks — scope totals, intensity plausibility, boundary reconciliation — and flags anything that needs attention before you file.

Financial impact

NPV carbon liability — the present-day value of your future carbon costs, discounted back to today's dollars. A future cost is worth less today than the same cost paid immediately, so NPV converts a multi-year carbon price exposure into a single, comparable figure.

In your report

Section 4 (Carbon Cost Analysis) calculates this using your baseline emissions, chosen carbon price, and discount rate — the same NPV estimator is on our homepage if you want to try it without signing up.

MAC curve (Marginal Abatement Cost curve) — a way of ranking decarbonization measures by cost-effectiveness: cost per tonne of CO2 reduced, cheapest measures first. It answers "what should we do first to cut emissions for the least money?"

In your report

Section 5 builds your MAC curve automatically from your abatement target and cost inputs, stacking specific measures (like fleet electrification or supplier engagement) by cost per tonne.

CapEx and OpEx — Capital Expenditure (spending on long-term physical assets, like new equipment) and Operating Expenditure (day-to-day running costs). Both feed into how climate costs are projected forward.

In your report

Your Financial Inputs step captures both, with smart defaults pre-filled from industry averages if you don't have exact figures yet.

Climate risk & scenarios

Transition risk — financial exposure arising from the shift to a low-carbon economy: policy changes, new regulation, shifting technology, and changing market demand.

In your report

Scored 1–5 for likelihood and impact in your Climate Risk Heatmap (Section 7), alongside physical, operational, policy and geopolitical risk.

Physical risk — financial exposure from the direct physical effects of climate change: flooding, extreme heat, sea-level rise, and similar impacts on assets and operations.

In your report

Scored alongside transition risk in the same heatmap, using the same 1–5 likelihood-by-impact methodology consistent with ISO 31000.

IPCC pathways (1.5°C vs 3°C) — climate scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, describing different global warming trajectories depending on how much emissions are reduced. Comparing a 1.5°C "rapid transition" scenario against a 3°C "high physical risk" scenario shows the cost difference between acting early and not acting at all.

In your report

Section 8 models both scenarios side by side using IPCC AR6-calibrated parameters, showing the cost index differential between early action and inaction.

Reporting standards

IFRS S1 & S2 — the ISSB's (International Sustainability Standards Board) global baseline standards for sustainability and climate-related financial disclosure. Increasingly the reference standard multiple jurisdictions build their own local rules around — including Hong Kong and Singapore's listing rules.

In your report

One of three standards you can select per report, with disclosure text drafted around IFRS S2's five pillars — governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets, and disclosure quality.

UK SRS (Sustainability Reporting Standards) / AASB S1 & S2 — the UK's and Australia's own adoptions of the same ISSB baseline, each with local terminology and regulatory references.

In your report

Choose whichever standard a given report needs — you're not locked to one framework account-wide, and every report cites the correct jurisdiction's own language.

GHG Protocol — the Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard that underlies how emissions are actually measured and categorized (Scope 1/2/3), regardless of which disclosure standard you're reporting under. It's the measurement methodology; IFRS S2, UK SRS and AASB S2 are the disclosure rules built on top of it.

In your report

Every report's GHG figures are calculated to GHG Protocol methodology first, then formatted into whichever disclosure standard you've selected.

See these in a real report

Every concept above is computed automatically from a single set of inputs — no separate spreadsheets, no manual recalculation between sections. See how the wizard works, or look at the full table of contents from a real sample report.

GreenReporting

A risk register, a carbon liability model, and a disclosure report — from one source of data. IFRS S2, UK SRS, AASB S2.

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Reports are generated from user-supplied data and do not constitute professional financial, legal or regulatory advice. Verify requirements against the applicable disclosure standard before external submission.