This article aims to help you complete the Products and Raw Material module.
The GHG Protocol requires businesses to include emissions from purchased goods and services (Category 1 of Scope 3).
This module offers significant time savings by automating the categorization of purchase and material inventory items. With increased accuracy powered by machine learning, you can now categorize autonomously and consistently, while the simplified workflow makes assigning emission factors seamless and accessible.
1. Why Consider Emissions from Products and Raw materials inventory?
Emissions from raw materials often represent a significant portion of a product's lifecycle impact. Ignoring these emissions would underestimate the environmental footprint. Furthermore, products themselves may also have embedded emissions from their production, transport, and handling.
By considering emissions from products and raw materials inventory, businesses can better understand, reduce, and communicate their environmental impact, staying competitive in a carbon-conscious market.
This data collection template is divided into two main tabs:
Manufactured products tab: finished and processed products that are the combination of one or more raw materials (clothing, pens, etc.),
Raw materials tab: raw materials (steel bars, wood planks, etc.).
Why this distinction?
The emission factors used in this module are based on recognized databases (EcoInvent, ADEME, etc.) and emission calculations differ according to the emission factors available:
If the product purchased is a manufactured product, the calculation is carried out by multiplying the quantity of products by this emission factor. But the value of the emission factor is increased by 20% to take into account the transformation of the raw material into the finished product (the median value of 20% is obtained from several thousand product life-cycle analyses).
If the product purchased is is a raw material, the calculation is carried out by multiplying the quantity of products by this emission factor.
2. Upload your data
To upload your data, use the template by clicking on "Bulk import". The template is downloaded in the same language as the platform. When using it, we ask you to fill the English one with English data and the French one with French data. You can always download the other language on the READ ME page of the template:
Whichever you use, please make sure to fill out the mandatory fields, they appear in green in the template.
The mandatory fields are:
Internal ID: the identifier you use internally for this purchase
Main Material: this data must be clear, understandable, and well-written. It must characterize the physical material or main material that composes the product.
For manufactured products: Quantity, Weight and Unit: If you only have the total weight, then simply set the quantity to 1.
For raw materials: Weight and Unit
Supplier: Mandatory for SBTi clients and optional for others. However, we strongly encourage you to search for this information, as it will be used to reduce your Scope 3 emissions.
There are also additional data that would help us provide even more accurate results and we highly recommend including them:
Product / Raw Material family: used for visualization purposes, write whatever you want to be used for visualization on the platform.
Country of purchase/manufacture: the country where the raw material was bought, or where the product was manufactured.
Purchase date: the date of the purchase is important to be sure that the buying outside the reporting year is not taken into account. This info is also used for specific reporting periods (monthly, quarterly, etc).
Price and Currency: to neutralize the correct financial emission to avoid double counting of emissions in the final report.
Description: if you wish to provide us with details that may help us to understand your data.
"Cross entities", "Entities" and "Business unit": If you are part of a multi-entity company on Greenly, you can use these optional tags to help you visualize and understand your results better.
Don't hesitate to check out the "Example" sheet of the template for guidance on how to complete the file.
If you do not have the necessary information, you can click on "Skip the module" at the top right of the page.
3. Categorization
After uploading your data, in the "Data collection" tab, an automated system will categorize your product purchase inventory. It simplifies the process of assigning emission factors, ensuring accuracy and validity, so you can categorize your products more precisely and select the most appropriate emission factor for each item.
Our algorithm suggests emission factors for most products. You can either validate these suggestions or choose a more suitable category directly from the "Emission factor" dropdown menu in the table.
At least 95% of your products' total weight must be validated to proceed to the next step.
To edit multiple items at once, select them and click the three dots on the right to open the bulk edit menu.
2. For items that do not have a suggested emission factor, please select the category that most closely corresponds to your product.
If an exact match is not available, we recommend choosing the category that best approximates your product. If you are uncertain which category to select, or if none appear suitable, you may request support.
To do so, select the product or click the three dots and choose “Edit.” In the category dropdown menu, scroll to the bottom and select “Request an expert review.” This will enable our team to review the item and assist with accurate categorization.
4. Review your data and read your results
Once your data has been uploaded and you have reached the 95% validation target, you can move on to the Quality Control step. This step helps you identify any potential errors or inconsistencies in your data.
Note that you may need to complete the module even if some controls remain unresolved. Some alerts may be normal for your activity, and you will have the opportunity to justify them during the final Quality Control task at the end of your data collection.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]