ESG Reports: Four Numbers Somebody Else Will Have to Defend

A client’s sustainability lead calls in March and asks what last year’s decommission saved. The answer ends up in an annual report, footnoted, next to figures an assurance provider is paid to poke at. Nobody weighed the carbon — it was never on a scale. Which is exactly why the calculation behind it has to be boring, documented, and identical from one quarter to the next.

Where the factors come from

Every device category carries an emission factor: the kilograms of CO2-equivalent that manufacturing a new unit would have emitted, the cost of refurbishing the existing one, and the difference between them. A laptop is 316 kg to build new and 302 kg avoided by keeping it alive. A monitor is 180 and 172. A server is 1,800 and 1,755. Each row also carries an average weight and an assumed lifetime extension in months, and each one names its source: EU JRC reference data alongside published manufacturer LCAs from Lenovo, Dell, HP, Apple, Cisco and APC.

The factors are reference constants rather than tenant settings, and the report puts them on their own tab. Anyone checking the arithmetic can read the inputs on the same screen as the outputs. That visibility is the entire point — a sustainability number whose assumptions are hidden is a rumour with a decimal place.

Four numbers

A period reports CO2 avoided, e-waste diverted, refurbished units and material recovered. Underneath sit the counts they came from — devices processed, refurbished, recycled, destroyed — plus a per-category breakdown of CO2 and weight, and the same totals expressed as everyday equivalents for the audience that does not think in tonnes.

Snapshots are made, not harvested

A period is generated deliberately: pick a month or a quarter, generate the snapshot from inventory. Nothing refreshes overnight and quietly restates last month while someone is presenting it. Your team decides when a period is finished, and the snapshot holds what the inventory said at that moment.

Which also means the figures inherit the quality of the records beneath them. Incomplete intake, missing grading, an outbound order nobody closed — the report passes all of it through with a straight face. It reports your data, not your intentions.

The client certificate

Beyond the tenant-wide PDF there is a per-client certificate. Pick the reporting period, pick the client company, and the platform aggregates that client’s devices into a certificate your team can download, or generate and e-mail straight to the client’s contact with a covering message of your own. The bank that sent you three pallets gets a document about those three pallets, not about your whole year.

Estimate or confirmed

The internal snapshot and client certificate count each shipped physical device once, using a known disposition that agrees with the outbound type. Returns to the client, internal transfers, unknown dispositions and conflicting movements do not create reuse, recycling or savings claims. A failed source query or missing device record blocks generation. The client certificate uses the same category source and rounding as the period snapshot.

The totals remain estimates from internal factors. A Carbontrace status or imported result does not establish that these totals were calculated by Carbontrace, cover every relevant device or have been independently verified.