Carbon footprint verification, validation & assurance

With the new B Corp standards just around the corner, current and aspiring B Corps are also likely to face stricter requirements regarding carbon measurement and reporting from 2025. The current draft standards require larger B Corps to seek third-party verification of their carbon footprints, providing stakeholders with increased confidence in the underlying data and calculations.

While many schemes apply auditing requirements specifically to larger businesses, organisations of all sizes can benefit from independent review of their carbon accounting and reporting processes.

The benefits of independent auditing of your carbon footprint

Independent third-parties review company processes and calculations free from bias, thereby increasing confidence in company approaches, and can deliver fresh perspectives and evidence to enable any necessary changes. Further benefits of independent auditing might include:

• Delivering reputational benefits by demonstrating to stakeholders your organisation’s commitment to transparency and robust accounting methodologies. Independent review can also help to combat claims of greenwash.
• Identifying opportunities to improve data collection and management processes, helping to increase reliability of emissions data. Repeating the verification process year on year can improve and demonstrate externally your organisation’s control over its data.
• Identifying and understanding risks and opportunities, including regulatory/legislative, operational risks (e.g. from data collection processes), and emissions (e.g. understanding carbon footprint hotspots and how to manage them).

Key terms explained

Below are some of the common terms you might come across relating to carbon footprint audits.

ISO14064-3

Part 3 of the ISO14064 standard (Greenhouse Gas Requirements) details the process for verifying and validating greenhouse gas statements.

Verification

Verification takes place after a GHG footprint is completed and assesses whether the resulting GHG statement is materially correct by reviewing the historical data and calculations. This is the service typically referred to when companies are looking to have their GHG emissions audited.

Validation

Validation assesses the methodologies and assumptions behind an organisation’s GHG footprint and strategy, and how well these will reflect the outcomes of future emissions reduction activities. Validation can be conducted before a carbon footprint is carried out to ensure that proposed approaches are appropriate for the desired outcomes.

Assurance

The overall result of verification and/or validation processes, where the third-party reviewer issues a statement on their confidence in the accuracy and completeness of the GHG footprint. Assurance can be completed to different levels, typically limited or reasonable.

• Reasonable assurance provides a high level of confidence in GHG emissions information, through rigorous testing and examination of not only underlying data, but also data collection and management processes. Reasonable assurance may be more appropriate for organisations where the risks from material misstatement are high.
• Limited assurance provides a lower level of confidence in the GHG inventory, focusing primarily on the underlying data and calculations. As it involves a more limited range of testing, it is often a more affordable and timely option compared to reasonable assurance. For most companies, obtaining limited assurance provides an appropriate level of credibility.

How can Green Business help?

Should you need a third-party to audit your business carbon footprint, our carbon footprinting experts can provide support following ISO14064-3.

Get in touch with us if you are in need of third-party GHG footprint auditing services and we will be happy to discuss.