Glossary

What are the acronyms and terms used by the method?

A

Process improvement action

Actions allowing to take a step back from the Bilan Carbone® carried out. This may concern the assessment of compliance with the principles of the Bilan Carbone®, improving data collection to gain precision and reduce uncertainties, increasing the level of maturity, and taking into account feedback regarding the Stakeholder engagement carried out by the organization.

Adaptation actions

Actions in the short and medium term enabling adaptation to the consequences of climate change to ensure the resilience and survival of the organization. They respond to issues raised by theidentification of risks and opportunities. These actions primarily concern the Standard and Advanced levels.

Stakeholder engagement action

Association of a phase of Stakeholder engagement (awareness raising, empowerment, coconstruction, or reporting), during a step, with one or more targets, with messages adapted more or less specifically according to the organisation's profile.

Immediate actions

Actions in the short term, which make it possible to launch the action plan and motivate teams. These actions can be implemented without major difficulties and within a short timeframe

Priority actions

Actions in the short/medium term which make it possible to strongly reduce emissions, since they directly concern significant categories.

Strategic actions

Actions in the medium and long term concerning the organisation's overall strategy and business model and which therefore make it possible to significantly reduce the organisation's carbon and economic vulnerability.

ADEME, French Public Agency for Ecological Transition

ADEME, French Public Agency for Ecological Transition (formerly Agency for the Environment and Energy Management), is a public institution participating in the implementation of public policies in the fields of the environment, energy and sustainable development.

🔗For more information on ADEME, here is its website.

Life Cycle Assessment

Method for assessing the environmental footprint, multi-criteria and multi-stage over the entire life cycle.

Base year

Year, established during the first assessment, to which each new assessment is compared. It is the same from one assessment exercise to another, unless necessary (Example: activity changes drastically).

Reporting year

Year to which the activity data collected to establish the GHG emissions assessment relate.

This therefore consists of 12 consecutive months, on a calendar or fiscal year according to the organisation's practices.

Association

Convention by which two or more persons permanently pool their knowledge or activity for a purpose other than sharing profits. (Source Legifrance)

An association is therefore an organisation, within the meaning of the Bilan Carbone® and its organisational boundary.

Association of Professionals in Climate, Energy and Environment Consulting (APCC)

The Association of Professionals in Climate, Energy and Environment Consulting brings together actors who carry out consulting missions and support private and public organisations on a daily basis on all themes related to climate issues, the transition of structures towards a mode low carbon, as well as on issues related to sustainable mobility.

The APCC aims to contribute to the transition to an economy with low climate impact, more frugal in its energy consumption and more respectful of the environment.

It focuses on the role of organisations (businesses, local authorities, public institutions) in this transition. Indeed, organisations have a major role to play in the face of climate, energy and environmental challenges.

On a daily basis, the goal is carried by 3 main missions, which guide all actions:

Represent the companies that accompany and advise companies, local authorities and public institutions on a daily basis on issues related to climate change, to carry their voice with bodies and stakeholders such as the Ministry for Ecological Transition, ADEME, ABC …
Embed our members in a process of exchange and continuous improvement, to enable them to be ever more relevant in their professions.
Inform, explain, provide keys and disseminate good practices to organisations on topics related to climate change and sustainable mobility, to push them to act and enable them to act concretely.

🔗 For more information on the Association of Professionals in Climate, Energy and Environment Consulting, here is its website.

Self assessment

Monitoring of the process ofevaluation of a Bilan Carbone® internally and autonomously, based on the evaluation guide available publicly. The self assessment therefore does not call upon the evaluation process by an authorised evaluator (trained and certified).

A self assessment allows internal use: to target whether certain maturity level criteria are met, to progress in continuous improvement, to check the relevance of launching an external evaluation, to confirm internally its maturity and thus the interest of following up with complementary low-carbon transition approaches.

A self assessment does not allow declaring its Bilan Carbone® approach as evaluated, nor to communicate externally the result obtained.

Analytical dimensions

The analytical dimension, in accounting, designates the variables used to measure different production costs. It functions like a marker used to filter similar entries and retrieve groups for analysis purposes. Analytical dimensions are inherent to managerial accounting. They support strategic decisions by providing a level of detail to accounting data.

Analytical dimensions can be of different natures. At the scale of a company or group, an analytical dimension makes it possible, for example, to categorize:

The company's activities,
Physical sites,
The legal organisation (subsidiaries, franchisees)
The human organisation (teams, employees),
Projects,
Products or services,
Suppliers,
Clients.

For each of these axes, analytical codes define the possible values.

Analytical dimensions can be used in the Bilan Carbone® for the analytical carbon accounting, to build a reading or a nomenclature used for the operational boundary, to allocate emissions of the GHG profile, etc. They correspond to the division of emissions by responsables, in order to build a transition plan at multiple levels of responsibility within the organisation.

Analytical dimensions are not always present in an organisation's accounting (they sometimes do not have an analytical plan). However, even without a formalised analytical plan, the organisation sometimes has an understanding of its costs and budgets by axes (supplier, client, project, site, team, etc.). These axes will be used by analytical carbon accounting because they are those that enable management of the organisation.

B

Low carbon

Qualifies the ambition to contribute to the mitigation of climate change at a level consistent with the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement, or with future global political agreements likely to replace the Paris Agreement in the years to come. A decarbonisation strategy, for example, is low carbon (or “aligned with the low-carbon pathway”) if the strategy's objectives, which include carbon performance targets, are commensurate with that level of ambition.

(Source ACT Step by Step)

Emission factor database

Documentation of emission factors that can be used in Bilan Carbone® calculations. There are several databases detailed in the annex. The Base Empreinte® of ADEME remains the preferred option, except in exceptional cases (Example: calculation of specific EFs for the case study of an organisation's assessment).

C

Characterisation

Characterisation does not directly concern the Bilan Carbone® since it does not influence calculation results. It only modifies how emissions will be aggregated in the different exports (BEGES-R, ISO 14064, GHG-P), to assign the different emission sources considered within the Bilan Carbone® to the correct categories and subcategories of other carbon accounting methods.

The organisation will generally have to characterise these emission sources. This characterisation depends on the control approach (operational, financial, ...) chosen by the organisation.

In operational control, for example, an emission source can generally be characterised as "Operated" or "Non Operated", or "Supported or Not Supported". For more detail, the organisation should refer to the different relevant methods.

Emission category

Set of GHG emission categories. Two emission categories are distinguished: direct emissions and indirect emissions.

The semantics of emission categories are mainly used for standards other than the Bilan Carbone® (such as ISO 14064-1 or BEGES-R). Some correspondence links are possible.

Evaluation lead

Person trained (following the training offered by ABC and its partners) and certified in theassessment of assessments, and who leads the evaluation of a given assessment, ensures its proper conduct and establishes the final evaluation report. They may be accompanied by various experts according to the complementary skills necessary for the proper conduct of the evaluation process.

CO2 equivalent (CO2eq)

Unit allowing comparison of the radiative forcing of a GHG to that of carbon dioxide, calculated using the mass of a given GHG multiplied by its Global Warming Potential (GWP), provided by the IPCC (adapted from the standard NF- ISO 14064-1:2018).

Coconstruction

This is a phase of Stakeholder engagement in the sense of the Bilan Carbone® :

The main issue of coconstruction is to value initiatives, sharing, and consultation. Coconstruction is central and is therefore strongly linked to other types of Stakeholder engagement: consulted stakeholders must have a sufficient level of information about the process, which requires prior awareness raising and effective outreach, as well as transparent reporting and communication. Coconstruction gives a voice, encourages participation, which helps to empower. It identifies carbon reduction axes that the organisation and its stakeholders can consider, based on their knowledge (of the process, the product, the organisation).

Objective : Confront the choice of actions with real possibilities and potential alternatives, to arrive at a transition plan perceived as a common project by the organisation and its stakeholders.

Indicator : Level of participation in the coconstruction of the transition plan.

Compatibility

Here the capacity of the Bilan Carbone® to be used to meetother frameworks. The notion of “compatible with” does not guarantee reciprocity.

Carbon offsetting

Mechanism to fully or partially compensate an organisation's GHG emissions, which can be triggered directly by a process located outside the organisation's operational boundary, or indirectly by the purchase of GHG reductions in the form of carbon credits made by a third party (adapted from the standard NF-ISO 14069:2013).

Accounting

Process of collecting and exploiting the various data necessary to carry out a Bilan Carbone®.

Consultant

Person external to the organisation, who advises, directs and guides the approach.

Assessment review

Carry out an inspection of the state of an assessment with regard to the requirements of a standard.

Control (Approach)

The standard ISO 14064-1 or the BEGES-R describe two approaches to determine the organisational boundary:

The "equity share" approach: installations and equipment are included in the organisational boundary in proportion to the entity's ownership share in them.
The "control" approach: International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) define "control" as "the power to direct the financial and operating policies of an entity in order to obtain benefits from its activities".
- Financial control: 100% of the equipment and installations over which it exercises financial control are included in the organisational boundary. An organisation has financial control of an operation if it is able to carry out financial and operational policies on the operation in order to derive economic benefits from its activities (source: NF - ISO 14064-1:2018).
- Operational control : 100% of the equipment and installations over which it exercises operational control, i.e. which it operates, are included in the organisational boundary. An organisation has operational control of an operation if that organisation, or one of its subsidiaries, has full authority to initiate and implement its operating policies at the operational level (source: NF - ISO 14064-1:2018).

The Bilan Carbone® adopts the "operational control" approach for the definition of the organisational boundary.

Coordinator

The Bilan Carbone® coordinator steers the approach. They may be a person internal or external to the organisation.

D

Monitoring system

A monitoring system, such as a dashboard, makes it possible to track the actions of the transition plan and the indicators. It is filled in periodically internally by the Bilan Carbone® lead. A tool is offered by ABC with the tools of version 9 of the Bilan Carbone® method, but alternatives are accepted.

The use of this system does not dictate imposed discussion modalities around monitoring; these are at the organisation's discretion.

This tool also allows the recalculation of significant emissions, which serve as performance indicators of the transition plan.

Documentation

Process similar to the results presentation intended for internal use only. It aims at the continuous improvement of carbon accounting within the organisation. The documentation is useful for future handovers and renewals.

Activity data

Quantitative measurement of a given activity that causes GHG emissions or removals (adapted from the standard NF ISO 14064-1:2018).

An activity data can be actual (physical or accounting), extrapolated, statistical or estimated.

E

Standard deviation and geometric standard deviation

The standard deviation and the geometric standard deviation are two statistical measures used to assess the dispersion or variability of data.

The standard deviation is a measure of dispersion for additive or normalized data (for a Normal distribution), whereas the geometric standard deviation is suited to multiplicative data or for a Log-normal distribution.

Carbon accounting scale

In the context of carbon accounting, four main scales are generally distinguished: Territory, Individual, Product, Organisation. More details in the introduction.

Direct GHG emissions

GHG emissions from sources owned or controlled by the legal entity / organisation (adapted from the standard NF-ISO 14064-1/2018).

To be distinguished from indirect emissions.

Indirect GHG emissions

GHG emissions that result from the operations and activities of the legal entity / organisation but originate from GHG sources not owned or controlled by it (adapted from the standard NF-ISO 14064-1:2018).

To be distinguished from direct emissions.

Induced emissions

Direct and indirect GHG emissions within the organisation's value chain.

The Bilan Carbone® quantifies and acts on induced emissions.

See definition of Pillar A.

To be distinguished from avoided and sequestered emissions.

Avoided emissions

Emission reductions of other stakeholders resulting from an organisation's activities, products and/or services. These reductions therefore occur outside its scope of activity. They are assessed relative to a baseline scenario.

Within the Bilan Carbone®: an organisation can determine the GHG emissions avoided by an activity. The organisation must not subtract these avoided emissions from total emissions, but may account for them and, if applicable, report them separately.

See definition of Pillar B.

To be distinguished from induced and sequestered emissions.

Significant emissions

Within the operational boundary of an organisation, it is accepted that certain sources of indirect GHG emissions do not contribute significantly to the total indirect emissions and can, in some cases, be excluded from the assessment. Significant emissions are then the GHG emissions quantified and reported by an organisation, in accordance with the criteria of significance defined by the organisation (notion derived from theISO 14064-1 and the BEGES-R).

Sequestered emissions or negative emissions

Absorption of GHGs present in the atmosphere, directly (carbon sinks owned by the organisation) or indirectly (through financing of GHG sequestration projects).

Within the Bilan Carbone®: an organisation can determine GHG sinks and reservoirs that capture and concentrate GHGs to prevent their release into the atmosphere (forest growth, soil preservation, etc.). The organisation must not subtract these sequestered or negative emissions from total emissions, but may account for them and, if applicable, report them separately.

See definition of Pillar C.

To be distinguished from induced and avoided emissions

Operated emissions and non-operated emissions

Accounted emissions can be characterised as:

So-called "operated" emissions are those directly generated by activities under an organisation's direct control. This includes emissions from the organisation's installations, its vehicle fleet, leased and used assets, etc. These emissions are considered as "direct emissions" in the emissions classification according to ISO 14064.
“Non-operated” emissions are those arising from activities that are not directly under the organisation's control but are associated with its activities indirectly. This may include emissions generated by suppliers, upstream and downstream transport activities, etc. These emissions are generally classified as "indirect emissions" in the emissions classification.

These categories do not depend on the notion of ownership or lease of the organisation over the emission sources, but on operation and use.

These elements do not directly concern the Bilan Carbone® since they do not influence calculation results. This characterisation only modify how emissions will be aggregated in the different exports (BEGES-R, ISO 14064, GHG-P).

Supported emissions and non-supported emissions

Accounted emissions can be characterised as:

"Held" emissions refer to direct emissions from categories for which the organisation owns the assets or equipment. These emissions are considered as "direct emissions" in the emissions classification according to ISO 14064.
“Non-held supported” emissions are categories for which the organisation does not own the assets or equipment but bears the costs. Supported emissions come from activities financed by the organisation. They therefore appear in accounting exports. These emissions are generally classified as "indirect emissions" in the emissions classification.
“Non-held non-supported” emissions are categories for which the organisation neither owns the assets or equipment nor bears the costs. These emissions are generally classified as "indirect emissions" in the emissions classification.

These elements do not directly concern the Bilan Carbone® since they do not influence calculation results. These two characterisations only modify how emissions will be aggregated in the different exports (BEGES-R, ISO 14064, GHG-P).

Equipment

Vehicle, tool, implement or machine, fixed or mobile, which can be defined within a geographic boundary or an organisational entity.

Within a Bilan Carbone® and regardless of the targeted maturity level, 100% of the equipment and installations over which the organisation exercises operational control, i.e. which it operates and uses, must be included in the organisational boundary. Any other choice must be justified.

Evaluation team

Person(s) responsible for the verification and validation of the assessment. The entire evaluation team is trained in the Bilan Carbone® method. The evaluation team is led by an evaluation lead. They are trained and certified in the assessment of assessments.

The entire team meets the following competencies and principles:

Evaluation expertise (training and certification)
Sectoral Bilan Carbone® expertise
Optional - Ability to provide limited assurance (participation in the process of an auditor or statutory auditor. This is not mandatory, but provides another level of attestation of evaluation)
Integrity
Impartiality
Professional competence
Professional judgement

Facility

An organisation's facility is generally designated by its SIRET (unique 14-digit identification code of an establishment of an organisation with a SIREN number). The first 9 digits of the SIRET number are the SIREN number of the organisation to which the establishment belongs.

Evaluation of an assessment

Process ensuring the reliability and transparency of assessments and their results. It also makes it possible to identify blocking points and improvements between two assessments of an organisation. The evaluation includes verification and validation of the assessments.

The evaluation of the Bilan Carbone® follows the instructions described in the Assessment Guide. It is an optional procedure within the framework of the Bilan Carbone® approach.

Accounting exports

Chart of accounts and analytical plans are stable over time for a given organisation without major structural changes.

At each accounting period, the organisation records all revenues and costs of its activity in accounting entries (debit or credit allocation). This accounting is done in accounting journals (e.g.: purchase journal, sales journal, bank journal…).

Different formats exist to export this accounting in its entirety:

The FEC (Accounting Entries File): a standardized accounting file, notably used by the French administration to tax audit companies. It transcribes all accounting entries but does not include analytical entries.
The general ledger: a standardized accounting file, its structure can nevertheless be configured to some extent to allow the organisation to adapt its accounting to its needs. However, it does not allow analyses of the organisation's activity because it follows general accounting, its final objective being the preparation of the annual accounts (balance sheet, income statement and appendix).
The analytical ledger: a non-standardised accounting file, which nevertheless includes mandatory fields. It includes all analytical allocations and allows an analytical analysis of the accounting.

This definition refers to the analytical carbon accounting guide.

F

GHG emission factor or removal factor (EF)

Coefficient relating activity data to GHG emissions or removals (standard NF-ISO 14064-1:2018).

An emission factor (EF) can come from databases, be developed by the organisation, or be a coefficient known as a “spend-based” ratio (specific or non-specific).

Radiative forcing

It is the difference between the solar energy received by the Earth and the energy radiated back to space, caused by a change in the factors influencing the climate. This measure is expressed in watts per square meter (W/m²). This measure is currently positive, the incoming energy being greater than the outgoing energy: this is referred to as global warming.

G

Greenhouse gases (GHGs)

Gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, natural or anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths in the infrared radiation spectrum emitted by the Earth's surface, the atmosphere and clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect.

Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the natural greenhouse gases of the Earth's atmosphere.

There are a large number of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, such as halocarbons and other substances containing chlorine or bromine, grouped under the Montreal Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol includes CO2, N2O, CH4, SF6, NF3, HFCs and PFCs (adapted from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report – CLIMATE CHANGE 2013 The Physical Science Basis, p1455).

Governance

Framework aimed at defining how to optimally control the different steps of the approach.

Within the Bilan Carbone®, the organisation must put in place management and internal governance enabling the completion of the approach and the attainment of associated criteria. The organisation must ensure that participants have the necessary methodological skills and are trained in the use of the tools employed, as well as in the construction and implementation of transition plans.

H

Time horizon

Deadlines of a transition objective : generally short, medium or long term.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)

Hydrofluorocarbons are a family of gases made only of hydrogen, carbon and fluorine atoms. They are GHGs included in the Kyoto Protocol.

I

Uncertainty

Parameter associated with the result of a quantification that characterises the dispersion of values that can reasonably be attributed to the quantity being measured (standard NF-ISO 14064-1:2018).

Estimates and measurements inherently involve a margin of error; the vast majority of scientific methods tend to associate values called uncertainties with measurement or estimate results. These uncertainties allow deriving a 95% confidence interval, that is an interval [Value 1; Value 2] within which the true value of what is measured or estimated has a 95% chance of being located.

The Bilan Carbone method makes it possible to determine uncertainties qualitatively and quantitatively.

Inflation

Inflation corresponds to a general increase in the prices of goods and services in an economy.

Installation

Material element (building, roads or other type of infrastructure) or production process that can be defined within a geographic boundary or an organisational unit.

Confidence interval

A confidence interval is an interval intended to contain an unknown parameter that one seeks to estimate. A confidence interval is constructed by a method from data. The constructed interval may or may not contain the value of the unknown parameter. One assigns it a level of confidence often expressed as a percentage: the most common level is 95%. This means that the method has a 95% chance of producing an interval containing the true value of the unknown parameter.

L

Deliverables

Set of documents, papers and information obtained at each stage of the approach, compiled for the Results presentation.

Log-normal distribution

A random variable X is said to follow a log-normal distribution with parameters $\mu$ and $\sigma ^{2}$ if the variable $Y=\ln(X)$ follows a normal distribution with mean $\mu$ and variance $\sigma ^{2}$ .

Normal distribution

A normal distribution is an absolutely continuous probability distribution that depends on two parameters: its mean, a real number denoted μ, and its standard deviation, a positive real number denoted σ. The probability density of the normal distribution with mean μ and standard deviation σ is given by:

$f(x)={\frac {1}{\sigma {\sqrt {2\pi }}}}\operatorname {e} ^{-{\frac {1}{2}}\left({\frac {x-\mu }{\sigma }}\right)^{2}}$ .

The curve of this density is called the Gaussian curve or bell curve, among others. It is the best-known representation of these distributions.

M

Data collection matrix

Summary of all activity data and emission factors used during the accounting process, serving as the organisation's documentation (sources, assumptions, uncertainties, value and unit).

Stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement here refers to all processes that will lead the organisation to convey the right messages to the right targets. It continues throughout the Bilan Carbone® approach.

To achieve Stakeholder engagement, the Bilan Carbone® approach involves outreach the issues to raise awareness, empower stakeholders, consult, then reported and communicate the results.

O

Objectives of the approach

The Bilan Carbone® approach has three main objectives:

Engage the organisation's internal and external stakeholders in a transition process, through awareness raising, empowerment, coconstruction and reporting of the transformations enabled by the transition plan.
Account for the organisation's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as rigorously and exhaustively as possible, whether direct or indirect, covering the organisation's boundaries of responsibility and dependence.
To develop a transition and GHG emissions and vulnerabilities reduction plan for the organisation that is ambitious, controllable, operational, and consistent with the emissions accounting.

Objectives of the transition plan

Results that the organisation proposes to achieve over a given period, thanks to its transition plan.

Within the Bilan Carbone® approach, they aim to reduce GHG emissions and enable the organisation to become more resilient. They are set at multiple time horizons : short, medium or long term. They are consistent with the organisation's overall objectives and integrated into its overall strategy.

OCCF

Observatory of Carbon Accounting in France.

🔗 More information in the bibliography.

Climate shadow

See Bibliography.

Organisation

Person or group of persons with a role with the responsibilities, authority and relationships enabling it to achieve its objectives (source ISO 14064-1).

An entity constituted as a capital company or having another status, private or public law, which has its own administrative and functional structure. (Example: company, association, local authority, public institution, company, firm, authority, institution, or a part or combination of the preceding entities).

P

Stakeholders

The stakeholders surrounding the organisation can be distributed as follows. They will be solicited in distinct phases of the Stakeholder engagement.

Project team, internal leads
Management
Other internal collaborators (employees, salaried staff, volunteers)
Upstream external stakeholders (suppliers)
Downstream external stakeholders (clients)
Other external stakeholders (financial and technical partners, local actors, professional federations, or other partners on strategic topics for the organisation such as education, innovation, development).

Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)

Perfluorocarbons are a family of gases made only of carbon and fluorine atoms. They are GHGs included in the Kyoto Protocol.

Reporting boundary

Notion specific to a regulatory carbon accounting exercise of an organisation. It is the emissions contained within the operational boundary that will actually be accounted for in the assessment exercise. It may therefore be part of the operational boundary.

Operational boundary

Set of emission sources considered during an organisation's carbon accounting exercise and their allocation by emission category.

Organisational boundary

Set of sites, installations and equipment taken into account during the organisation's carbon accounting exercise.

Temporal boundary

Specific time period for an organisation's carbon accounting exercise.

Legal entity

Organisation with legal personality, identified by a SIREN number. Notion specific to a regulatory carbon accounting exercise of an organisation.

When the Bilan Carbone® is used for regulatory reporting, its organisational boundary must be that of a Legal entity subject to the applicable regulation.

Pillar A

See definition of induced emissions.

To contribute to the overall reduction of emissions, an organisation must reduce its own direct and indirect emissions (Pillar A) to the levels required by decarbonisation scenarios compatible with the Paris Agreement.

Except in exceptional cases, Pillar A “reduction of the organisation's emissions” is priority compared to the other two pillars B and C, due to its role in the organisation's dependence on a system based on fossil fuels, and its influence on the risks and opportunities that the organisation will have to integrate into its strategy.

The Bilan Carbone® quantifies and acts on Pillar A.

Pillar B

See definition of avoided emissions.

To contribute to the overall reduction of emissions, an organisation must reduce other stakeholders' emissions (Pillar B). It then assesses and increases its contributions to third parties' decarbonisation:

Either through its distributed or sold products and services that substitute a more carbon-intensive solution for end customers
Or through financing emission reduction projects outside its value chain (purchase of certified emission reductions, direct equity stakes in low-carbon projects, low-carbon energy contracts under certain conditions, etc.)

The Bilan Carbone® methodology does not address avoided emissions.

Pillar C

See definition of sequestered or negative emissions.

To contribute to the overall increase in carbon sequestration, the organisation must preserve and increase carbon sinks within or outside its value chain (Pillar C). It assesses its contributions to the preservation and increase of global natural and technological carbon sinks:

Either within its value chain, by developing its own carbon sinks (direct absorptions) or those upstream (in its supply chain) and downstream (within clients or end users)
Or outside its value chain, through its financing of sequestration projects (purchase of certified carbon sequestration, direct equity stakes in projects, etc.)

The Bilan Carbone® methodology does not address negative emissions.

General Carbon Plan

🔗 More information in the bibliography.

Action plan

Set of concrete actions envisaged enabling attainment of the transition plan's objectives. The action plan is established in the short term (until the assessment is renewed), although some actions extend to the medium or long term. It is the operational translation of the transition plan and the organisation's low-carbon transition strategy.

Transition Plan

A transition plan defines all actions and means envisaged for reducing emissions related to an organisation's activities, and the evolution of these activities to make them compatible with a low-carbon world respecting the Paris Agreement. (source ADEME).

Project lead

Person driving the development of the approach. Notion assimilated in the Bilan Carbone® to the coordinator or lead of the approach.

An action lead denotes the person driving and responsible for implementing a specific action.

Emission category

Grouping of GHG emissions coming from several homogeneous emission sources. The Bilan Carbone® nomenclature uses the semantics of emission categories. Other standards may use the semantics of scopes or emission categories. Some correspondence links are possible.

Global Warming Potential (GWP)

Index based on the radiative properties of GHGs, measuring the radiative forcing following a pulse emission of one unit mass of a given GHG in the current atmosphere integrated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) (source: NF- ISO 14064-1:2018).

GHG emissions profile

Aggregation of quantified GHG emission results for all emission sources included within the organisation's boundaries.

The emission profile also refers to the breakdown of quantified emissions according to a certain nomenclature (for example according to the Bilan Carbone® emission categories).

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and which adds to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) whose participating countries meet once a year since 1995. It defines in particular the different GHGs to be taken into account within these reductions:

Carbon dioxide, CO₂
Methane, CH₄
Nitrous oxide, N₂O
Sulphur hexafluoride, SF₆
The hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs
The perfluorocarbons, PFCs

GHG sink

Process removing a GHG from the atmosphere (standard NF-ISO 14064-1: 2018).

R

RACI

RACI stands for:

R: Responsible (Responsible) – The person who performs the work to complete the task. These are the individuals who actually do the work or carry out the task.
A: Approver (Accountable) – The person who is accountable for the task. This person must approve or validate the completed work and ensure that objectives are met.
C: Consulted (Consulted) – People who provide advice, comments or information necessary to accomplish the task. They are often experts or key stakeholders.
I: Informed (Informed) – People who must be kept informed of the progress or results of the task. They have no active role in completing the task, but need to know its status or outcomes.

Spend-based emission factors

An emission factor presented as values in kgCO₂e/k€ spent. These EFs are derived from averages over many products and are therefore associated with very high uncertainties.

Specific spend-based emission factors

A spend-based ratio created by the organisation, for example from the carbon accounting of its stakeholders (suppliers, ...).

Framework

Here refers to other carbon accounting methods, standards and regulations or low-carbon transition approaches.

French regulation on greenhouse gas emissions reporting (Regulatory GHG Assessment or BEGES-R)

A scheme requiring organisations to carry out and regularly publish an assessment on a public platform.

🔗For more information on BEGES-R, refer to the Bibliography.

Empowerment

This is a phase of Stakeholder engagement in the sense of the Bilan Carbone® :

The main issue of empowerment is to give everyone a role in the approach. It is up to stakeholders to become aware that every degree matters, that every action matters and therefore that every employee matters in the implementation of these actions. It is up to the organisation to realise that this is about sustainability. New responsibilities will emerge from the approach and will make it possible to enhance existing positions by taking into account an essential component related to the sustainability of the activity.

Objective : Involve and enable each stakeholder to get moving and take action.

Indicator : Level of participation in the approach and level of taking action.

Results presentation and reporting or results presentation report

Three results presentation reports are framed by the Bilan Carbone® approach.

Reporting and communication

This is a phase of Stakeholder engagement in the sense of the Bilan Carbone® :

The main issue of reporting and communication is to enable the appropriation of results and actions by the different concerned stakeholders. To link global issues, local issues, the organisation’s impacts, the role of stakeholders in these impacts, the actions that follow, and the role of stakeholders in the success of these actions.

Objective : Make this approach an initiative that goes beyond the project team to reach other concerned stakeholders (primarily internal employees) through the implementation of actions, in a logic of cross-functionality, togetherness, reputation and exemplariness.

Indicator : Level of knowledge and understanding of the results (impacts and actions)

Transition risks and opportunities

Transition risks, related to changes in our societies and economic models, are distributed across several categories:

Regulatory risks
Image and reputation risks
Market and technology risks

The opportunities that secure the organisation a place in the low-carbon world of tomorrow are of several types:

Reduction in resource consumption
Reduction of GHG emissions
Development of new products and services and innovations
Regulatory/financial incentives
Communication and image
Adaptation

Physical risks

Physical risks, directly related to climate change and its consequences, are distributed across several categories:

Risks related to natural disasters and extreme climatic events becoming increasingly frequent and/or intense
Risks related to gradual changes in the climate.

S

Awareness and popularization

This is a phase of Stakeholder engagement in the sense of the Bilan Carbone® :

The main issue of awareness raising and popularization of the issues is to understand in order to act : strengthen the understanding of essential information around energy and climate issues, and to unite around the approach to ensure better integration of the transition plan.

Objective : Create the necessary groundwork for a good understanding of the issues, acceptance of change and future actions to be undertaken, and enable the organisation to identify the risks and opportunities associated with the ecological transition.

Indicator : Level of knowledge and understanding of the issues.

Significance

🔎 The notion of significance originates from theISO 14064-1 and is included within the BEGES-R.

It is accepted that some sources of indirect GHG emissions, within the operational boundary of an organisation, do not contribute significantly to the total indirect emissions. The notion of significance can be useful for setting priorities during accounting, when choosing actions or when monitoring results. For an emission to be said significant emission, it must meet at least one of the significance criteria :

Magnitude criterion : Indirect emission categories estimated as substantial from a quantitative point of view should be retained. A minimum magnitude threshold to consider is expressed as a percentage. It establishes the minimum proportion of the operational boundary's indirect emissions to include in the reporting boundary. The magnitude threshold must not be lower than 80%. Note that the ISO 14064-1 standard refers to the same notion by importance criterion the same notion.
Level of influence and levers for action : the extent to which the organisation can monitor and reduce emissions and removals (for example, energy efficiency, eco-design, customer engagement, terms of reference).
Strategic importance and vulnerability according to a risk or opportunity approach: concerns indirect emissions or removals that contribute to the organisation's exposure to risks (for example, risks associated with climate change such as financial risks, regulatory risks, supply chain risks, product and customer risks, litigation risks, reputational damage risks) or to its business opportunities (new market or new business model, for example).
Sector-specific guidance : GHG emissions considered significant for the sector concerned, according to sector-specific guidance.
Outsourcing : indirect emissions and removals resulting from outsourced activities that are generally core activities.
Employee engagement : indirect emissions likely to motivate employees to reduce their emissions or that build team spirit around climate change.

GHG source or emission source

A physical unit or process emitting a GHG into the atmosphere (standard NF-ISO 14064-1:2018).

Low-carbon strategy or transition strategy

The organisation's low-carbon transition strategy details the means envisaged to achieve the organisation's objectives, while preserving, and ideally improving, its sustainability. The strategy covers tangible investments, intangible investments (such as R&D or skills), management and policy towards all its stakeholders (employees, but also suppliers, customers). Within the framework of the Bilan Carbone®, the transition plan will lead the organisation to evolve its operating model. As it progresses along the maturity path, the organisation will reflect on the relevance of its activities, products and services in a low-carbon world.

GHG removals

Reduction or removal of GHGs from the atmosphere, being under the control of the organisation, via GHG sinks (adapted from the standard NF-ISO 14064-1:2018).

T

Contrails

At high altitude, water vapour emitted by aircraft engines can condense into fine ice particles, forming what are called contrails or "vapour trails." These trails can impact the climate by altering the reflection of solar radiation (albedo) and by contributing to the formation of artificial clouds.

In addition to the CO2 emitted by fuel production and combustion, aircraft can affect the climate through other emissions and atmospheric processes, such as water vapour (H2O), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particles (aerosols) of sulfate and soot, or contrails. For the latter, although their contribution to the total climate impact of aviation at the global scale (assessed on the basis of radiative forcing) is estimated at a minimum of 50%, significant uncertainties remain about the conditions of their formation per flight (dependent on altitude and various meteorological factors).

(Source Base Empreinte).

Transition pathway

Within the framework of the Bilan Carbone®, the trajectory is defined using a bottom-up approach: the GHG profile (the organisation's current situation) and the reduction potentials of actions allow projecting an achievable trajectory (trend and evolution of emissions) that justifies the credibility of the objectives.

Triple bottom line (TBL or 3BL)

An accounting method that takes into account three main dimensions: economic, environmental and social. It aims to evaluate and report an organisation's performance not only in financial terms but also in terms of environmental impact and social contributions. This holistic approach provides a better understanding of the overall effects of an organisation's activities on society and the planet.

Carbon accounting therefore provides indicators to be included in this triple bottom line accounting.

V

Validation

Assessment of effects that have not yet occurred, concerning the assessed report. For example: validation of the transition plan. Included in the process ofevaluation.

Concept originating from theISO 17029 and ISO 14069.

Verification

Assessment of effects that have already occurred, within the framework of the assessed report. For example: verification of employee data used in the calculation of the GHG profile, verification of obtained results, verification of uncertainties, among others. Included in the process ofevaluation.

Concept originating from theISO 17029 and ISO 14069.

Transition vision

It represents how the organisation projects its place in a low-carbon world (in the long term, up to 2050). It does not require a detailed description within the framework of the Bilan Carbone®, but it helps to project the organisation's future climate strategy.

Vulnerability or Climate Vulnerability

According to the IPCC report, climate risk is a combination of three factors: a "climate hazard" factor (the potential impact), an "exposure" factor (the probability of occurrence), and a "vulnerability" factor to that hazard (the severity).

Climate vulnerability is a key notion in risk assessment. It expresses the propensity of the study subject to be affected by a climate hazard. It is the most difficult variable to estimate because it is highly dependent on the company studied: its level of sensitivity to hazards and its adaptive capacity.

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Last updated 9 months ago