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Carbon accounting is the process of measuring the greenhouse gas emissions associated with your organisation, events, or products, so you can:
  • Understand your impact
  • Make better decisions
  • Track progress over time
This page gives you a practical, non-academic overview so you can use Salvidia confidently, even if you’re not a climate nerd.

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The basic idea

At its core, carbon accounting is just:
Activity data × Emission factor = Emissions (tCO₂e)
  • Activity data – what actually happened
    • kWh of electricity
    • Litres of fuel
    • Kilometres travelled
    • Tonnes of waste
    • Dollars spent on certain purchases
  • Emission factor – “how polluting” that activity is
    • e.g. 0.8 kg CO₂e per kWh of electricity
    • 2.7 kg CO₂e per litre of diesel
  • Emissions – the result, usually in
    • kg CO₂e (kilograms of CO₂-equivalent) or
    • tCO₂e (tonnes of CO₂-equivalent)
Salvidia takes care of storing factors and doing the maths. You focus on getting the best activity data you reasonably can.

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Why carbon accounting matters

Carbon accounting:
  • Makes climate impact visible and quantifiable
  • Lets you compare years, sites, events, products
  • Underpins targets, strategies, and “net zero” claims
  • Provides numbers you can use in reports, tenders, and conversations
Without it, you’re guessing. With it, you can answer questions like:
  • “Where do most of our emissions actually come from?”
  • “Which projects will make the biggest dent?”
  • “How are we tracking vs last year?”

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Key concepts (without the jargon)

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1. Scopes 1, 2, and 3

You’ll see these everywhere.
  • Scope 1 – direct emissions you control
    • Company vehicles, onsite fuel, refrigerant leaks
  • Scope 2 – purchased energy
    • Mainly electricity, sometimes steam / heat / cooling
  • Scope 3 – everything else in your value chain
    • Purchased goods and services
    • Business travel and commuting
    • Waste, freight, use of products, etc.
Scopes are just a way of grouping responsibility and sources, not separate worlds. For a deeper dive, see Scopes 1, 2, and 3 explained.

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2. Activity-based vs spend-based data

There are two main ways to measure:
  • Activity-based (preferred where possible)
    • kWh of electricity
    • Litres of fuel
    • Tonnes of waste
    • Flight distance or class
  • Spend-based (when you don’t have activity)
    • Use money spent as a proxy (e.g. $ on marketing, IT, catering)
    • Apply “per dollar” emission factors
Salvidia supports both. In general:
  • Use activity-based where you have good data.
  • Use spend-based to fill gaps or for broad categories.
See Activity-based vs spend-based for more detail.

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3. “Good enough” data vs perfect data

You almost never start with perfect data. Think in layers:
The important thing is to be transparent about what you did and to get better each cycle.

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The carbon accounting process (in practice)

Here’s what a typical cycle looks like, whether you’re measuring an organisation, event, or product.
1

1. Define your boundary

Decide what you’re including:
  • For organisations: which entities, sites, and scopes?
  • For events: which days, venues, suppliers, and travel?
  • For products: which life cycle stages and components?
2

2. Collect activity data

Gather the data you already have:
  • Utility bills, fuel reports, travel records, finance exports
  • Supplier data, waste contractor reports, internal logs
Don’t wait for perfection – start with what’s available.
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3. Map data to categories

In Salvidia, add data to the relevant tables:
  • Energy and utilities
  • Travel and transport
  • Purchases and services
  • Waste and materials
This is where you turn messy real-world data into a structured footprint.
4

4. Apply emission factors

Salvidia applies appropriate emission factors behind the scenes.
You’ll see:
  • Emissions per line item
  • Totals by category and scope
5

5. Review and refine

Check for:
  • Obvious gaps (e.g. electricity missing for a major site)
  • Outliers (numbers that don’t make sense)
Fill gaps with estimates where necessary and note assumptions.
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6. Use the insight

Turn the numbers into decisions:
  • Identify hotspots
  • Pick reduction projects
  • Prepare reports, targets, and communications

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What kind of data will I actually need?

You don’t need to know every detail now, but at a high level:
Common data for an organisation assessment includes:
  • Electricity and gas bills
  • Fuel for company vehicles and equipment
  • Business travel (flights, hotels, car hire)
  • Employee commuting estimates
  • Key purchased goods and services (from finance systems)
  • Waste and recycling data
See Organisation data you’ll need for more detail.

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How Salvidia fits into this

You can do carbon accounting with spreadsheets and PDFs, but it quickly becomes:
  • Hard to repeat
  • Hard to QA
  • Hard to share across a team
Salvidia helps by:
  • Providing structured tables for the data you need
  • Handling factors and calculations consistently
  • Surfacing dashboards and exports you can drop into reports and decks
  • Making it easier to repeat and improve each year or event

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If you only remember three things

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Where to go next