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BeWo’s Approach to Carbon Accounting

At BeWo, our mission is to streamline the carbon accounting process so that it’s easier to maintain, consistent from year to year, and minimizes manual effort. By leveraging existing data from your ERP system, we aim to maximize data accuracy while adhering to the principles of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.

How We Approach Carbon Accounting​

Our methodology is built around a structured process designed to ensure that every stage—from setting organizational boundaries to final reporting is transparent, efficient, and verifiable.

1. Platform Setup​

When you set up your new BeWo tenant, you’re effectively aligning with GHG Protocol guidelines from the start. This involves:

  • Defining Organizational Boundaries: Understanding how legal structures determine which emissions are included.
  • Selecting Approach: Choosing an approach defines how GHG emissions are consolidated.

Learn more: Organizational Boundaries

2. Getting Data from the ERP System & Ensuring Completeness​

Your reporting completeness is influenced by which financial accounts you decide to include. By pulling data from your ERP system, you define your inventory boundary to ensure that all relevant expense accounts that influence your carbon footprint are captured. This step is crucial for:

  • Completeness: Making sure all significant emission sources are represented.
  • Relevance: Ensuring data reflects your actual operations.

Learn more: Ensuring Completeness (Choosing Accounts)

3. Data Foundation​

ERP and finance data say a lot about your carbon footprint. We strive to extract as much applicable information as possible:

  • Leveraging ERP Data: Expenses, purchases, and associated documents (invoices, receipts) serve as the building blocks of your emission calculations.
  • Prioritizing Accuracy: We focus on selecting and applying the most suitable emission factors to raise the bar for accuracy. Different scopes (1, 2, and 3) and categories require careful selection of emission factors.
  • Addressing Gaps: While ERP data is robust, it may not cover everything. We identify data gaps and suggest ways to fill them, ensuring you understand what data may be missing and how it affects your inventory.

Learn more: Using ERP Data

4. Ensuring Data Quality​

Data quality is the cornerstone of trust in your reporting. We provide structured workflows and tools to review, validate, and refine your data:

  • Reviewing Data: Verifying that the extracted data matches reality, correcting AI-generated suggestions, and confirming that emission factors are appropriately assigned.
  • Guidelines for Good Data: Understanding what makes a “good” invoice or reliable expense data helps improve your results.
  • Complex Scope Scenarios: Some emissions categories aren’t straightforward. We help you handle upstream/downstream logistics, leased assets, and other complexities in a consistent manner.

Learn more: Reviewing and Validating Emissions Data

5. Reporting​

Finally, when producing your carbon report, you must ensure alignment with the five GHG Protocol principles: relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency, and accuracy.

  • Relevance & Completeness: Achieved through careful boundary setting and including all relevant accounts.
  • Consistency & Accuracy: Maintained by methodically reviewing and validating data inputs from the ERP system.
  • Transparency: Ensured by making emission factors, data sources, and invoice references readily available. Each line’s origin, emission factor choice, and underlying documentation are easily traceable.

Learn more: Output Verification & Transparency

Why a Structured Methodology Matters​

In the complex landscape of sustainability reporting, a standardized, transparent methodology ensures that:

  • Trust & Credibility: Stakeholders and auditors have confidence in your numbers.
  • Consistency: Using consistent rules each year makes it easier to track progress over time.
  • Compliance: Aligning with the GHG Protocol and global standards stands up to external scrutiny.
  • Clarity & Confidence: Everyone involved from sustainability managers to the CFO office understands how data is sourced, processed, and reported.

By following a structured methodology, you enable meaningful comparisons, actionable insights, and reliable communication about your organization’s carbon impact.