• Where is the data coming from?
• How do I know the data is accurate?
• What can I do with the data?
• Who uses your services?
• How can I benchmark companies using other factors than employee or turnover?
• How often do you add new data?
• How do you differ from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
• Who are your analysts?

Where is the data coming from?

• A team of analysts extracts data from various sources, inclusing sustainability reports, websites and registries.

How do I know the data is accurate?

• Subscribers to our Carbon Screener service will be able to view all source data and references (links to the original report). 
• Our high volume of data enables us to perform statistical quality checks: for example, new entries that vary significantly from the sector averages are double-checked for accuracy. We also perform systematic sample checks for new batches of data. 

What can I do with the data?

There are many ways to use our data, for example:

• Assess how environmentally friendly your suppliers are relative to each other
• Assess how environmentally friendly your investments are relative to each other
• Assess how fast other production plants are becoming more green (% decrease YoY)
• Identify best-in-class performers per sector
• Craft business cases: you can backup assumptions and identify multipliers for business case analysis; for example, if you are food manufacturer and you want to implement a new IT system, you can use the carbon efficiencies of typical desk/IT based professions to quantify the projected carbon savings over time (instead of using data from other food manufacturers)
• Identify trends in carbon efficiencies across different sectors
• Link efficiency measures to overall results: how are success stories published in the press impacting to the overall bottom line?
• Compare what companies are reporting vs. what they are being allocated on the EU ETS
• Set reduction targets that are realistic, based on general observations of a relevant set of benchmarks

Who uses your services?

• Asset Managers: to assess the carbon performance of investment portfolio's
• Carbon accountants: verify the output of calculations, backup assumptions made during calculations
• Carbon consultants: establish carbon reduction strategies, identify trends per industry
• CSR executives in organisations: assess the PR impact of new reports,
• EU ETS recipients: to compare the credits they were allocated vs. their peers
• Policy makers: compare how organisations are evolving with the introduction of new rules

How can I benchmark companies using other factors than employee or turnover?

• You can request a custom analysis from us (link): we can advise you on the most adequate normalisation factor to be used and research data for the normalisation factor you choose to use for your benchmark. For example, we can help you benchmark airlines by computing the TCO2/air miles or TCO2/passengers

How often do you add new data?

• Our data is updated continously, following our quality process that is batch-based.

How do you differ from the Carbon Disclosure Project?

• We continuously update our data based on the latest reports. The CDP only publishes information once a year.
• We cover also companies that do not participate to the CDP surveys. For example, we hold emissions data of 53 banks, while only 28 reported emissions data in the CDP questionnaire in '08. Given the early stage carbon accounting is in, we believe it is important to have a large data set in order to derive meaningful insights. In the most recent CDP results from 2009, they only mention that 70% of the Fortune 500 gave details their GHG emissions - there's no clarity about the total number. In contrast, we hold emissions data of 3,000 companies.
• We provide facility-level emissions data: for example, our database contains 40,000 ETS credits (allocations & verified emissions) and 43,000 toxic emissions from manufacturing in the US. Plant-level or installation level information complements broad organisational level very well when assessing the carbon performance of an organization.
• We offer a service to answer your questions: if you need help with data or if you need a custom benchmarking report. 
• We perform benchmarking calculations in real-time, using employees and turnover as general benchmarking factors
• We classify organisations using 80 sectors as specified by the ISIC. The CDP uses 24 sectors, taken from a classification mainly used in finance. For more information about the ISIC, you can visit the website of the United Nations: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/regcst.asp?Cl=27
• The search service on the CDP website allows you to only get only 1 text report back at the time per company, from which you then need to extract the information one-by-one. We extract data from all companies matching your search criteria and present the facts in graphs or easy to use spreadsheet formats.
• Overall, the CDP team interviewed their signatories to understand how they use the CDP data. Nearly 50% of the respondents indicated they also rely on other sources of information than the CDP (mainly from specialist data providers or from industry associations). Only 25% of respondents were satisfied with their current ability to access CDP responses. The CDP is addressing these concerns and will improve their website services in 2010. Results of the survey can be read in detail on the CDP website.

Who is collecting the information?

• Our team of analysts has a mixed background. Academic credentials span engineering and business degrees e.g. Imperial College, LSE, Durham, Kellogg (Northwestern University). Some of the team members are formally trained for ISO 14064 for GHG accounting and verification (see http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=38381)