Double counting
Double counting refers to a situation in which a single source of greenhouse gas emissions is counted more than once, both within and across companies.
Within an organisation, double counting can happen if multiple data sources are collected for the same business activity. Double counting may also arise if companies fail to exclude scope 2 or 3 emissions reported as scope 1 emissions by other facilities or business units of the company.
For example, a company might share data from a centralised fleet management software on its fleet’s fuel consumption for a year but also include these payments as expenses in its spend data. If this was not spotted, the emissions from the consumption of that fuel would be double counted.
The implications of double counting
Double counting can lead to a company overestimating its emissions, which can be detrimental to tracking the progress of reduction targets at the organisational and national levels.
Additionally, if double counting occurs across companies, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions may be claimed by multiple organisations. This would lead to obvious carbon accounting inaccuracies and would undermine global efforts to reduce emissions.
Preventing double-counting
Emitwise will support you throughout the data collection process to ensure that multiple sources of data are not collected for the same activity.
Our in-house team of carbon accounting experts conduct in-depth quality control checks of all greenhouse gas emissions data calculated by the Emitwise calculation software to ensure that there is no double counting of emissions anywhere in your inventory.