Product Spotlight: Carbon Accounting Features

Carbon Accounting is the process of quantifying the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by your business’s activities. WatchWire can aid in simplifying and automating carbon accounting for your business. Our platform can track scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, capture your renewable energy contracts, and track progress on your emission reduction goals. All calculations follow the widest industry standard for carbon accounting, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Standard. The integrated energy and sustainability functionality of WatchWire coupled with our automatic ingestion of utility invoices and emissions data allows you to easily calculate your organization’s global warming potentials and scope emissions. Ultimately we can also ensure that emissions inventories are produced at the highest grade of data accuracy and will be ready for audit scrutiny due to the robust audit features of our platform. 

• Emissions Summary: View and compare annual emissions figures with the summary report. 
• Track all 15 Categories of Scope 3 Emissions 
• Customize Emissions Data with custom commodities, scope percentage allocations, and emissions rates 

How it works 

WatchWire contains a wide variety of reports within our Reporting module to help you analyze and distribute your energy and sustainability data. Of the over 30 standard reports the platform allows you to generate, 3 are specifically designed for carbon accounting inventories and roll ups of data. WatchWire allows users to generate custom scope 1, 2 , and 3 GHG emissions reports with performance comparisons across portfolios and buildings. WatchWire calculates emissions based on the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol’s Corporate Standard and uses EPA E-Grid subregion emissions factors in the US, and IEA factors internationally.

Module: Reporting

Downloadable Reports within the Reporting Module: 

• Performance Comparison
  • Compare the total emissions of two selected property groupings side by side with scope breakdown
  • 
• Emissions (GHG)
  • Provides a visual overview of CO2 Emissions per region or property.                     
  • 
• Emissions Factor Report 
  • Our Emissions Factor report provides the applied emission factors for selected commodities based on site locations over selected time periods, whether you’re using WatchWire’s default factors or your own custom factors

Customizing Emissions Data on WatchWire:

• Custom commodities: For example, an organization has identified their most material scope 3 category as category 6 – business travel, and they have retrieved emissions data from a 3rd party travel agency. 
  • Create a new account with Custom Commodity for C02 Equivalent​ → Enter Emissions Data​ → Set Scope 3 Allocation to 100%​ → Set Custom Emissions Factor to 1
• Scope percentage allocations: For example, a real estate firm may have a property that is 100% tenant-controlled and wants to report emissions from accounts in this property under scope 3 emissions.
  • Steps: WatchWire -> Account -> Characteristics -> Custom Emissions -> Set Scope 3 Allocation to 100%
• Custom emissions rates: For example, an organization may have emissions factor data for one of their utilities and wants to input this for scope 2 market-based calculations. ​ 
  • Steps: WatchWire -> Account -> Characteristics -> Custom Emissions -> Add new scope 2 market rate ​

Emissions Factors: 

WatchWire maintains default emissions factors from multiple standard sources, per below:

Scope 1 (e.g. Natural Gas, Fuel Oil, Propane) and other Scope 2 (e.g. steam, chilled water): EPA Emission Factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories 2021.

Scope 2 (Electric):

Location-Based and Market-Based Figures are calculated automatically for you. Here’s how!​

•  Scope 2 Location-Based Emissions – EPA eGRID subregion (USA), IEA Emissions Factors (International). eGRID factors are updated as applicable. IEA factors are typically updated Q4 of each year.
• Scope 2 Market-Based Emissions – hierarchy per GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance. Renewable energy contracts are automatically factoried into scope 2 market-based calculations. WatchWire applies annual Green-e residual mix emissions rates to the remaining energy consumption not covered by REC’s​

The default Global Warming Potential used in WatchWire is the Fifth Assessment Report published by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Users subscribing to WatchWire’s Sustainability module can set their own custom emissions factors by commodity, node, and/or account. Users can also set their own custom Global Warming Potential if they want to utilize a different version of IPCC.

Use Cases

Sustainability Managers and Analysts will find the GHG emissions reports particularly useful when it comes to tracking their company’s emissions performance over time and identifying areas for improvement. The clear visuals, variety of filters and scope adjustments, and comparative analysis of building performance make complicated data easy to understand and share with C-Suite executives, investors, and stakeholders. 

Additionally, sustainability employees may be faced with looming regulatory mandates on GHG emissions reporting, building performance standards, and quasi-mandated investor expectations to report sustainability metrics. Because WatchWire automatically captures and audits comprehensive utility and emissions data, the platform is known for high data accuracy and data coverage. This will be crucial going forward when GHG emissions reporting becomes more scrutinized for investor-grade data quality and auditable data is the norm. 

Importance

Controlling your organization’s greenhouse gas emissions is one of the biggest ways you can combat climate change and respond to the growing number of consumers, investors, and regulators who may require full scale GHG emissions inventories within sustainability reporting.

Carbon Accounting requires access to accurate real-time and historical energy data that can be traced back to the source, easily audited for compliance and rooted in international standards for GHG emissions factors. Spreadsheets and Excel are likely not enough when trying to run data-accurate calculations across multiple business operations and with differing sources of emissions. The enhanced liability risk, and productivity loss associated with older methods of calculation necessitate outsourcing the management and collection of GHG data by a cloud-based software entity like WatchWire. Our platform is also great for clients that value clear visualization and rolled up summaries of their carbon emissions and sustainability progress based on standardized emissions calculations methodologies and comprehensive and accurate data. 

The Reporting Module: 

Carbon Accounting is only a small piece of the overall functionality available to our users within the Reporting section of WatchWire. The Reporting Module is capable of generating over 30 standard reports, analyzing consumption, demand, cost trends, weather impact, budget performance, facility comparisons, KPI reports, and more.

• Scope: Time periods are flexible, with users controlling what range of month(s) or year(s) to include in reports. Reports can be generated at the account, property, region, and/or portfolio level to analyze granular data as well as roll-up summary information. 
• Filters: Through intuitive filters, users can choose what commodities to include in reports, allowing for reporting in native units as well as summary roll-up on a universal unit basis (e.g. kBtu).
• Integration: Reports display in the platform, but can natively integrate with Microsoft Excel, so exports from WW’s platform maintain all formatting (i.e. no hidden rows/columns, data formatting remains so it’s easy to copy/paste, etc.). Reports can also be exported to .csv and .pdf. Additionally, users can be added to monthly distribution lists to automatically receive (via email) system-generated reports.

About WatchWire by Tango

WatchWire is a market-leading sustainability and energy data management platform that uses cloud-based software to collect, automize, and analyze utility, energy, and sustainability data metrics. WatchWire streamlines, automates, and standardizes your sustainability reporting process by integrating directly and/or providing reporting exports to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, LEED Arc, GRESB, CDP, SASB, GRI, and more. The platform provides customizable dashboards, which allow asset managers, sustainability managers, engineers, and more to monitor individual key performance indicators (KPIs) and create custom views for specific use cases. WatchWire provides:

• Automatic collection of energy, utility, sustainability, and emissions data through real-time metering. The data is then fully audited and organized all in one place
• GHG emissions tracking
• Goal tracking (e.g., Net Zero, SBTi, waste diversion)
• Carbon offset view of power purchases from the grid vs. on-site renewables generated vs. off-site RECs.
• Opportunities to implement projects (track EEMs) and monitor distributed energy resource production (e.g. on-site solar)

To discover more about WatchWire and its capabilities, you can visit our website, blog, or resource library, request a demo, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter to keep up-to-date on the latest energy and sustainability insights, news, and resources.