PEBBLE ACADEMY · Carbon Accounting
Set the Boundary
Before you measure anything, decide what counts. Are you measuring one product, one team, one office, or the whole company? Every credible carbon footprint starts with a clearly written boundary statement — what's in, what's out, and why.
For most software companies, a sensible first boundary is "all corporate operations plus cloud infrastructure" — broad enough to be honest, narrow enough to actually finish.
Pick a Methodology
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Corporate Standard is the de-facto starting point. It splits emissions into Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (purchased energy), and Scope 3 (everything else — supply chain, travel, end-use). Adopt it as your framework even if your first inventory only covers Scope 1 and 2.
Collect the Activity Data
For Scope 1, you need fuel and refrigerant data from any facilities you operate. For Scope 2, you need electricity bills (or cloud invoices broken down by region). For Scope 3, you start with the biggest categories: purchased goods, business travel, and employee commuting.
Don't aim for perfect data on day one. Aim for defensible data, with assumptions documented.
Convert to Emissions
Each piece of activity data gets multiplied by an emission factor — kilograms of CO₂ per unit of fuel, per kWh of electricity, per dollar of spend. Use published factors from sources like EPA, DEFRA, or the GHG Protocol's tools.
Publish, Then Iterate
The first inventory is always rough. Publish it internally, document the gaps, and pick the largest gap to tighten in the next cycle. Carbon accounting is iterative — year-over-year comparisons matter more than absolute precision in year one.