Whether you’re taking a proactive step toward sustainability or responding to regulatory or stakeholder requirements, measuring your carbon footprint is becoming an essential part of doing business.
The good news?
You don’t need to be an expert to get started.
This step-by-step guide is designed to help small and medium-sized businesses navigate the carbon measurement process with clarity and confidence — and start generating meaningful results in just a few weeks.
Step 1: Define Your Scope
The biggest mistake small businesses make when they begin measuring their carbon footprint is trying to measure everything at once.
Instead, define your scope to focus on what matters most and what you can control. At a minimum, this includes:
- All direct emissions: think heating, company vehicles, and on-site fuel combustion
- All energy use, which means your power bill
- Key indirect emissions like business travel, major suppliers, and employee commuting
For your first carbon report, focus on categories that represent significant portions of your impact. You can always expand the scope later as you become more comfortable with the process.
Step 2: Choose Your Baseline Year Wisely
Your baseline year acts as the reference point for all future progress measurements.
Select the most recent year with complete data, ensuring it reflects typical business operations. For instance, 2020 was dramatically different due to COVID-19; consider using 2019 or 2021 instead.
Pro tip: Align your baseline year with your accounting period to ensure consistency. Most of your data will come from financial records, making data collection much easier.
Step 3: Gather Your Data
Gathering your data might seem daunting for many business owners, but most of the information you require is already in your records.
Energy Usage
- Gas and electricity bills. Look for kilowatt hours, not just costs
- If you share utilities with other businesses, calculate your percentage based on floor space
Transportation
- Fuel receipts for company vehicles
- Mileage logs if you don’t have fuel data
- Business travel expenses like flights, trains, and rental cars
Refrigerants
- Air conditioning service records (surprisingly important for many businesses)
Supply chain
- Major supplier invoices
- Spending by category from your accounting software
Employee-related
- Commuting survey data like distance, frequency, and transport mode
- WFH estimates (especially relevant post-pandemic)
Step 4: Emissions factors attribution
Here’s where activity data becomes emissions data. The formula is simple:
Activity Data × Conversion Factor = Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use established conversion factors as they’re designed to ensure consistency and comparability across businesses.
Step 5: Add It Up and Analyse
Once you’ve converted all your activities to CO2e, add them together for your total carbon footprint.
But don’t stop there; the real value lies in the analysis. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Which categories contribute the most emissions?
- Where do you have the most control?
- What surprises you?
Many businesses discover that their biggest emissions sources aren’t what they expected. That’s valuable intelligence for targeting improvement efforts.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Aiming for perfection. Your first carbon report will have gaps and estimates. That’s normal and useful. Perfect data that takes six months to collect is less valuable than good data you can act on immediately.
- Ignoring seasonal variations. If your business has significant seasonal fluctuations, make sure your data represents a full year or adjust it accordingly.
- Forgeting about shared spaces. If you rent office space, you’ll need to estimate your portion of shared utilities and facilities.
Making Carbon Measurement Manageable
Start with annual measurement but consider quarterly reviews for key metrics. This approach helps you identify trends and make adjustments before problems compound.
Additionally, establish systems for ongoing data collection and analysis. The hardest part is often the first measurement, but subsequent years become much easier when you have processes in place.
The Reward for Your Effort
A well-calculated carbon report is a powerful business tool. It reveals inefficiencies, guides improvement, and demonstrates commitment to customers and stakeholders. Most importantly, it transforms an abstract environmental concern into concrete, actionable business intelligence.
Your carbon footprint is ultimately a reflection of your business operations. Understanding it means understanding your business better, and that’s always worth the effort.
Ready to take your carbon measurement to the next level?
Don’t let carbon measurement stay in the “too hard” basket — it’s easier than you think! With the right tools and a simple step-by-step approach, you can take meaningful action, and your business will benefit from it
At Collage & Co, we’re here to turn the complex into manageable, insightful, and rewarding actions. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to sharpen your strategy, our practical tools and end-to-end support will help you transform data into meaningful change.
Start today: measure what matters most, uncover ways to cut emissions, save costs, and build a smarter, more resilient business.
Read more:
How Understanding Your Carbon Footprint Could Save Your Business Money
