Carbon Footprint
How Darwin computes a corporate carbon footprint: reporting frameworks, scope and category assignment, and the Carbon Footprint view.
Carbon footprint
Darwin computes a corporate carbon footprint — total greenhouse gas emissions, expressed in kg CO₂-eq — alongside the biodiversity assessment, and lets you report it under a recognised carbon accounting framework. Emission factors come from the same LCA databases used across Darwin (ecoinvent and Agribalyse).
Reporting frameworks
At project creation you choose one carbon reporting framework. Darwin supports three:
- GHG Protocol (default)
- Bilan Carbone
- ISO/TR 14069
The framework determines the set of categories available to classify emissions. The three frameworks share the same Scope 1 / Scope 2 / Scope 3 structure and their categories cross-map to one another where an equivalent exists — some categories are framework-specific and have no counterpart in another framework.
Scopes and categories
Each input point is classified through a single Scope / Category selector — you pick one entry, either a generic scope or a specific category of the chosen framework:
- Generic scope (Scope 1 / 2 / 3 upstream / downstream): no category is recorded (stored internally as "undefined" for that scope). The reported scope then follows the platform's value-chain consolidation.
- Specific category: the scope is automatically derived from the category's native scope, and the category is authoritative — reported under its own scope and not re-consolidated by the entity's position.
(Internally, an input point always holds both a scope and a category field; selecting one fills the other, so the two stay consistent.)
For example, the GHG Protocol categories:
| Scope | Categories |
|---|---|
| Scope 1 | Stationary combustion (1.1), mobile combustion (1.2), process emissions (1.3), fugitive emissions (1.4), optional information (1.5) |
| Scope 2 | Electricity (2.1), steam / heat / cooling (2.2) |
| Scope 3 | Purchased goods & services (3.1), capital goods (3.2), fuel- & energy-related (3.3), upstream transport (3.4), waste (3.5), business travel (3.6), employee commuting (3.7), upstream leased assets (3.8), downstream transport (3.9), processing of sold products (3.10), use of sold products (3.11), end-of-life (3.12), downstream leased assets (3.13), franchises (3.14), investments (3.15) |
The codes above (e.g. 3.4, 3.11) are Darwin's internal scope-prefixed codes (scope.index), not the GHG Protocol's canonical Category 1–15 numbering — Darwin's 3.4 is the GHG Protocol's Category 4 (upstream transport), 3.11 is Category 11 (use of sold products), and so on.
Bilan Carbone and ISO/TR 14069 provide their own category sets following the same Scope 1 / 2 / 3 structure, and each category maps to its GHG Protocol equivalent where one exists — so emissions classified under one framework can be reported under another whenever a counterpart is defined.
How the reported scope is determined
What determines the reported scope is whether the input point has a category assigned:
- No category (default "undefined"): the reported scope is the input point's own scope after the platform's general value-chain consolidation — it depends on both the input point's scope and the entity's value-chain position. See Key Concepts for the consolidation rule.
- Category assigned: the category is authoritative. The result is reported under that category and the category's own native scope, and is not re-consolidated by the entity's position. For example, an input tagged stationary combustion (1.1, Scope 1) on a supplier (upstream) entity is still reported under category 1.1 / Scope 1 — even though the supplier sits in the upstream value chain. Choose a category consistent with the entity's position.
Carbon footprint view
Results are aggregated into a total carbon footprint (kg CO₂-eq) with breakdowns by scope and by category, visualised in the Carbon Footprint tab for each entity — and for each scenario when modelling alternatives.