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Carbon accounting is the practice of measuring the greenhouse gas emissions caused by your organisation, events, or products. It exists so you can stop guessing where your impact is. This page is the short version. Ten minutes here will let you use Salvidia confidently without reading a standard end to end.

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The basic idea

All of carbon accounting reduces to one line:
Activity data × emission factor = emissions in tCO₂e
  • Activity data is what actually happened: kWh of electricity, litres of fuel, kilometres travelled, tonnes of waste, or dollars spent where no physical measure exists.
  • An emission factor is how polluting that activity is: roughly 0.8 kg CO₂e per kWh of grid electricity, or 2.7 kg CO₂e per litre of diesel.
  • Emissions are the result, in kilograms or tonnes of CO₂-equivalent.
Salvidia stores the factors and runs the arithmetic. Your job is to bring the best activity data you reasonably can, and to know which categories are worth the effort.

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Why it matters

A footprint makes climate impact quantifiable, which means it becomes comparable: between years, sites, events, and product variants. That is what turns it from a reporting chore into a decision tool. With one, you can answer the questions that actually determine what you do next:
  • Where do most of our emissions come from?
  • Which projects will make the biggest dent?
  • How are we tracking against last year?
Without one, you are guessing, and usually guessing wrong. Most organisations are surprised by which category turns out to be largest.

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The concepts you need

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Scopes 1, 2, and 3

You will see these everywhere. They group emissions by how directly they are linked to you:
  • Scope 1: direct emissions you control. Company vehicles, onsite fuel, refrigerant leaks.
  • Scope 2: the energy you purchase. Mainly electricity, sometimes steam, heat, or cooling.
  • Scope 3: everything else in your value chain. Purchased goods and services, business travel, commuting, waste, freight.
Scopes are a way of grouping responsibility, not separate worlds. For most organisations Scope 3 is the majority of the footprint. See Scopes 1, 2, and 3 explained.

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Activity-based vs spend-based data

Two ways to measure the same thing:
  • Activity-based uses physical quantities: kWh, litres, tonnes, flight distance. More accurate.
  • Spend-based uses money as a proxy, with per-dollar factors by industry. Broader, less precise.
Use activity data where you have it, spend to cover what you do not. Most good footprints are a mix. See Activity-based vs spend-based.

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Good enough data

You will not start with perfect data, and no standard expects you to. Think in layers:

Rough baseline

High-level estimates and spend factors, enough to see the big picture and find your hotspots.

Better coverage

More activity data, cleaner category separation, more specific factors.

High quality

Detailed activity data with evidence behind it, measured consistently year on year.
What matters is being transparent about which layer you are on, and moving up it deliberately.

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The cycle in practice

The same six steps apply whether you are measuring an organisation, an event, or a product.
1

Define your boundary

Decide what is included. For organisations: which entities, sites, and scopes. For events: which days, venues, suppliers, and travel. For products: which life cycle stages and components.
2

Collect activity data

Start with what already exists: utility bills, fuel reports, travel records, supplier and waste contractor reports, internal logs, finance exports. Do not wait for a complete set.
3

Map data to categories

Add each figure against the activity it belongs to: energy, travel, purchasing, waste. This is where messy real-world records become a structured footprint.
4

Apply emission factors

Salvidia matches factors automatically by category, unit, location, and period. You see emissions per line item and totals by category and scope.
5

Review and refine

Look for gaps, such as electricity missing for a major site, and outliers that do not make sense. Fill gaps with estimates and note the assumption while you still remember it.
6

Use the insight

Identify hotspots, pick reduction projects, and prepare reports and targets. This is the step the previous five exist for.

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What data you’ll need

Electricity and gas bills, fuel for vehicles and equipment, business travel, employee commuting estimates, key purchased goods and services, waste and recycling data.See What data you’ll need for the full checklist.

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Where Salvidia fits

You can do carbon accounting in spreadsheets. It works once. It becomes painful the second year, when you need to repeat the method exactly, explain a number from eleven months ago, and hand the file to someone who did not build it. Salvidia gives you structured tables for each data type, consistent factor selection, dashboards and exports that drop into reports, and a method that repeats without being rebuilt.

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Where to go next