Sustainability by Monitor

In Monitor you can perform emission calculations for the company's products and compile the company's total climate impact according to the GHG protocol (the Green House Gas Protocol Corporate Standard). You can also report part/chemical contents in your manufactured parts as per ECHA (European Chemicals Agency)/REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals).

The GHG protocol and reporting of CO2e

The GHG protocol has been developed to facilitate companies' reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to make climate reporting more transparent, consistent and comparable between companies.

The GHG protocol is the most widely accepted international reporting standard and is used by governments, businesses, and organizations as a tool to understand, quantify, and manage greenhouse gas emissions. The wide spread of the GHG protocol makes it easier for companies that follow the protocol to compare their emissions with others. This is also the method recommended by ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards).

In the GHG protocol, the emissions are divided into different categories so that an emission cannot be reported multiple times. This division is based on whether the emission is owned or not owned by the reporting company, and whether the emission is direct or indirect.

Direct emissions come from sources owned or controlled by the reporting company. Indirect emissions are a consequence of the reporting company's operations, but the emission is owned by another party.

Scope

According to the GHG protocol, the company's emissions are divided into three different scopes and correspond to the three levels of reporting requirements developed for companies.

  • Scope 1 – Covers the emissions that occur in the company's own operations (direct), e.g., fuel burning and vehicles the company owns or controls.
  • Scope 2 – Covers indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat, and cooling.
  • Scope 3 – Concerns other indirect emissions from purchased materials, product use, waste management, business trips, etc. that the company does not own or control.

The different categories (Scope 1, 2 and 3) should be reported separately when you make a sustainability report.

The support in Monitor ERPMonitor ERPFor a company's yearly CO2e reporting is based on the GHG protocol structure with scope and categories. The emissions are reported in kg CO2e which you can consider as a currency for emissions.

In the emissions report, you use emission factors that you can compare with the price of a product or service.

The emission factors for different products and processes can be found in online databases. Emission factors are divided into two groups: Factors based on price and factors based on quantities. In the databases you can find both types of factor. Generally, factors based on quantity are more reliable and should be used instead of factors based on price.

If possible, you should get emission values directly from the supplier of a product or service. This is preferable as the supplier's values are more reliable than the factors you can find in the online databases.

You can read more about the reporting of green house gases here.

The starting point is that a company should report all the emissions it generates. You should report as detailed and precise as possible, but in reality, you currently often need to use generic emission factors. When you start reporting emissions, it's important that you identify which parts of your processes are responsible for the most emissions. For many manufacturing companies, the material they buy is the biggest source of emissions.

Emission reporting in Monitor ERP

There are two methods of gathering data for emission reporting in Monitor ERPMonitor ERP.

The first method is based on the CO2e value that is included on supplier invoices and you can see these CO2e in Monitor ERP Monitor ERPwhen you register supplier invoices. You can also register these values on final recorded supplier invoices in the Sustainability list procedure, Purchase emissions list type. Entering these values in the Sustainability list procedure can be a good option during startup when you already have registered supplier invoices and need to add further CO2e values. You can also use the list to correct the CO2e values of purchased parts.

The other method involves reporting CO2e values manually. This is done in the Report emissions manually procedure which has been developed to manage emissions that cannot be linked to supplier invoices, but can be used to register all CO2e.

Here you can read more about how you get started with emission reporting in Monitor ERPMonitor ERP.

The reported values can be seen and analyzed in Monitor BI, the Emission log dashboard and as aggregated values in the Company emission register.

Reporting of part contents/chemicals

The report for part contents can be used to create data that is needed as per the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The part contents can be e.g., chemicals, batteries, or recyclable material. Different part contents may have different authorities and these may also have different requirements when it comes to reporting. When a manufacturing order is reported, you can calculate the exact part contents in the Part contents report procedure and you can export the result to Excel to then process and use these values when reporting part contents to the authorities.

Here you can read more about how you get started with emission reporting in Monitor ERPMonitor ERP.