Reporting
Organised communication of data, methods and outcomes to a defined audience.
Example
A project report can explain the measurement period and calculation choices.
The catch
Reported information may be estimated, measured or independently reviewed; label the status.
Related terms
Audit trail, Calibration, Carbon neutral, Climate positive, Conflict of interest, Contribution claim
In more depth
Reporting, explained.
Good climate reporting lets a reader rebuild the headline number. The boundary and methods should sit next to the totals, with exclusions named. When a company buys or sells a business or changes method, the GHG Protocol expects it to recalculate its base year so the trend stays comparable.
The GHG Protocol's principles include completeness and consistency, which together rule out quietly dropping a hard-to-measure source. In the EU, the CSRD makes sustainability reporting mandatory for large companies and sets out what they must disclose, guided by materiality. A report that changes its format every year, or drops a metric that turned unflattering, is telling you something.
In the journal