Glossary

An entity over which the parent company has control, including incorporated and non-incorporated joint ventures and partnerships over which the parent company has control (WRI & WBCSD, 2011).

An entity that provides or sells products to another entity (i.e., a customer) (WRI & WBCSD, 2011).

A supply chain is the entire system of processes and resources required to produce and sell a product from start to finish, typically starting with raw materials and ending with the customer in possession of the product.

Tank-to-wheel (or tank-to-wake for air and sea transport) refers to the section of the energy carrier’s life cycle where the energy carrier is converted to propulsion energy.

Mechanism through which target ambition is adjusted to align targets with minimum ambition requirements, rather than arbitrarily between their base year and target year.

The activities and their associated emissions that are included in a target in the target base year and subsequent years within the timeframe of the target.

Expresses the target boundary as the percentage of emissions in the target boundary out of the total. This total can be one or multiple emissions scopes and categories, and may vary depending on the accounting year.

The time frame between the base year and target year.

The target-consistent approach to carbon pricing determines the most cost-effective way to reach an agreed upon goal, such as a temperature limit for global warming. The costs associated with abating GHG emissions are used to inform the calculation of a time path of carbon prices that reflects the least-cost pathway to meeting these goals (Stern et al., 2022).

An advisory body of members with in-depth knowledge of climate change mitigation or expertise in science-based target setting that provides expert advice to inform the development and revision of SBTi standards, methods, guidance and other technical outputs.

A supplier that provides or sells products directly to the reporting company. A tier 1 supplier is a company with which the reporting company has a purchase order for goods or service (WRI & WBCSD, 2011).

A supplier that provides or sells products directly to the reporting company’s tier 1 supplier. A tier 2 supplier is a company with which the reporting company’s tier 1 supplier has a purchase order for goods and services (WRI & WBCSD, 2011).

This is a method for determining the scale of a BVCM pledge.  

Using this method, a company would deliver mitigation beyond its value chain proportional to the climate impact of some percentage of the GHG emissions of that company in a defined period (e.g., in a given year or since a reference year).  

The volume of finance deployed towards BVCM would be determined by the price that a company pays per tCO2e of BVCM (in the case of carbon credits, this would be determined by market prices) and the percentage of unabated emissions that are being “matched” with BVCM in that defined period.

A tonne-kilometer, abbreviated as tkm, is a unit of measure of freight transport which represents the transport of one tonne of goods (including packaging and tare weights of intermodal transport units) by a given transport mode (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways, pipeline etc.) over a distance of one kilometer.

A balance sheet is a financial statement that reports a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity. The balance sheet value refers to the sum of total equity and liabilities, which is equal to the company’s total assets (PCAF, 2022a).

Total emissions are equal to reported and excluded emissions. E.g., total scope 3 emissions = total reported and excluded scope 3 emissions.

A time-bound action plan that outlines how an organization will pivot its existing assets, operations and business model toward a trajectory aligned with established science-based targets.

A cognitive state of incomplete knowledge that can result from a lack of information or from disagreement about what is known or even knowable. In the context of GHG accounting, uncertainty can arise when the underlying science is not fully understood or when GHG emissions are estimated.

A company’s scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions as defined by the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (WRI & WBCSD, 2004).

Vehicle carrier is a type of maritime vessel. It includes:

• Car park
• Vehicle carrier

Professional minority investments in small and micro companies, where no single professional investor owns more than 50%.

Debt financing extended to companies with venture capital backing. For entrepreneurs, venture debt serves to extend the runway to exit without further diluting ownership (PitchBook, 2023).

The process for evaluating a statement of historical data and information related to GHG and non-GHG metrics to determine if the statement is materially correct and conforms to specified criteria.

The year in which the carbon emission reduction or removal associated with a carbon credit or an environmental attribute certificate took place. Because the verification process can take two to three years from project/program inception, projects/programs may generate credits for already-reduced or removed emissions. In the context of scope 2 accounting, vintage reflects the date of energy generation from which the contractual instrument is derived (WRI & WBCSD, 2015).

A marketplace that encompasses all transactions of carbon credits that are not purchased with the intention to surrender into an active regulated carbon market. It includes carbon credits purchased with the intent to resell or retire to meet certain environmental claims.

Well-to-tank (WTT) is the portion of transport related fuels and electricity that occur in the value chain before combustion e.g., gasoline, diesel, electricity for electric vehicles, extraction, production, refining, and distribution of the fuel.

WTW refers to a specific scope or boundary used for measuring GHG emissions from transportation activities. It encompasses the full life cycle of the fuel used by a vehicle, from:

• Well-to-tank (WTT): the extraction, production, refining, and distribution of the fuel (e.g., gasoline, diesel, electricity for electric vehicles).
• Tank-to-wheel or Tank-to-wake (TTW): the combustion of the fuel in the vehicle's engine and the resulting emissions released at the tailpipe.

Therefore, WTW emissions essentially capture the total climate impact of a vehicle's fuel use, going beyond just the immediate exhaust emissions at the tailpipe.