Introduction

How does Consequence calculate and verify my carbon footprint?

Published on

May 11, 2022

Consequence makes calculating your carbon footprint and becoming carbon neutral simple, fast and affordable, whilst providing unparalleled accuracy and insight to help you reduce your impact.

Consequence converts a complicated months-long manual process that requires you to collect hundreds of data points and answer vague questions for consultants running spreadsheets, into an automated process that saves you time and allows you to achieve your carbon neutral goal and the business benefits that come with it: increased competitiveness for Talent, Investment and Customers while supporting a sustainable planet.

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Here we cover the key elements of how it works:

‍Why Consequence analyses financial transactions
Bank-level security vs sharing documents with 3rd parties
Truelayer
Process overview

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Why Consequence analyses financial transactions.

Your transactions provide a blueprint of everything your business has done that has a carbon impact, and we use this to calculate your carbon footprint. Each transaction represents an activity and a decision your organisation has taken from travel to investing in IT infrastructure.

By using your transactions, you’re able to get comprehensive coverage of all your business activities and analyse the carbon footprint of each accurately.

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Each transaction also represents a payment you have made to your supplier or service provider. Consequence identifies each supplier and calculates the carbon footprint using environmental data we have gathered on that entity. This is repeated for every single transaction and our data team reviews each material transaction to improve accuracy.

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Through this process, you are able to rapidly understand the impact of the biggest contributing categories including energy-use, travel and emissions embedded in products and services you purchase, including software.

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Activities, and their emissions, covered by your financial transactions include:

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Electricity and other energy-use
Office emissions
Purchased products and services
Your team
Vehicle-use
Travel
Waste
Logistics

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Bank-level security vs sharing documents externally.

You personally authenticate Consequence’s access to your business bank accounts, so we can read your transactions, and can withdraw this at any time. You are able to do this from your bank account. Consequence receives read-only access to the data and cannot setup any payments etc.

This access automatically terminates after 30 - 180 days depending on your bank, in case you forget to maintain a high level of security.

Our product leverages 256-bit encrypted bank grade security compliant technology, that’s used by millions of people with their business and personal banks every day. It’s not simple but it is a proven technology that’s built on Open Banking which is supported by the UK Government.

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Consequence is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (license no. 903009) to use your financial transaction data to calculate your carbon footprint.

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There is no more secure way to transfer the information necessary for an accurate carbon footprint analysis.

Historically, calculating your carbon footprint has been a complex task that for anyone wanting to have confidence in the results, required external consultants.

The first step would be providing these consultants with hundreds of documents, accounts, invoices and other sensitive material. You share this data with a third party and it then exists outside of your own security systems.

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Truelayer.

Truelayer is our partner and is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Truelayer’s technology integrates with all the UK banks (eg. HSBC, NatWest and new banks like Revolut) and many global banks. We leverage Truelayer to ensure best-in-class security and compliance with the FCA. This technology has been tried and tested by thousands of companies, and millions of end clients - like you.

Connecting your bank does not charge you. It is a separate additional step and you will only start paying knowing how much your first month will cost.

For a list of supported banks, please refer to this link.

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Calculation Process Overview.

‍Step 1. Authenticate your 1st bank account

Start the accurate carbon footprint calculation by authenticating your 1st bank account. No payments or subscriptions are setup at this stage. The carbon footprint of your 1st bank account is calculated within a few minutes.

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Step 2. Authenticate your remaining bank accounts

Link all other business bank accounts in order to analyse all your activity.

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Step 3. Data team analysis

Our specialist data team checks the carbon footprint of all material transactions to increase accuracy and make our system faster and more accurate for next time.

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Step 4. Answer business-specific questions to finalise your analysis

Our analysis will identify gaps in the data. We’ll follow up with you for answers and documentation to complete the carbon footprint calculation.

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Step 5. Start your offset subscription

Now you have your finalised carbon footprint, you can offset between 100% and 200% of your emissions. Once setup, this will run automatically keeping your business carbon neutral every month, always.

Sources for reference.

Sources are not available at the moment.