Standardization Guidelines
Learn how Tracenable standardizes corporate GHG reduction targets for consistency, comparability, and alignment with GHG Protocol and SBTi.
Why Standardization Matters
Corporate GHG reduction targets are reported in many different formats and levels of detail, making comparison and analysis extremely difficult.
Some companies refer vaguely to “operational” or “supply chain” emissions without specifying which GHG Protocol scopes these include. Others disclose Scope 2 targets but omit whether they use market-based or location-based accounting. Intensity targets add further variation, with different terms used for the same concept (for example, “per revenue,” “per sales,” or “per turnover").
Beyond terminology, companies also express reduction goals using inconsistent units and structures:
Percentage reductions (e.g., “reduce emissions by 40% by 2030”)
Absolute reductions (e.g., “cut 10,000 tCO₂e by 2030”)
Milestone values (e.g., “achieve 1,000 tCO₂e by 2030”)
Without a consistent framework, it becomes nearly impossible to:
Determine which emissions and scopes each target actually covers.
Compare ambition across companies, sectors, or regions.
Aggregate or benchmark targets at portfolio or global levels.
Tracenable addresses these challenges through a transparent, rules-based standardization system that harmonizes every aspect of corporate GHG targets: from terminology and accounting methods to units and reduction magnitudes.
Tracenable's Standardization Rules
Rule 1: Map Reported Targets to GHG Protocol-Defined Scopes and Sources
Companies often use inconsistent terminology when describing what their climate targets cover.
Examples include:
A target may use vague terms like “direct” (Scope 1) , “indirect" (Scope 2 or 3), or "operational footprint" (Scope 1+2, usually).
Others list raw emission sources like “vehicle fleet” or “air travel” without specifying the scope.
Tracenable resolves this by mapping all reported targets to the GHG Protocol’s standardized framework of scopes and source categories:
Scopes: All targets are classified into Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (indirect energy), or Scope 3 (value chain).
Sources: Within each scope, company terms are mapped to the correct standard categories. For example:
“Natural gas boilers” → Scope 1 - Stationary Combustion.
“Vehicle fleet” → Scope 1 - Mobile Combustion.
“Purchased power” → Scope 2 - Electricity.
“Business travel by air and rail” → Scope 3 - Business Travel (Category 6)
This mapping ensures consistency across disclosures and enables reliable apples-to-apples comparisons.
When reported targets cannot be confidently mapped to a standard category due to limited detail or ambiguous terminology, Tracenable assigns them to a dedicated “Unmapped” category within each Scope. This approach ensures no information is discarded, keeps the dataset complete, and highlights where reporting gaps or data quality issues may affect comparability.
Looking for detailed mapping guides?
Tracenable maintains internal mapping references for Scope 1, 2, and 3 categories. These guides reconcile “as reported” terminology with standardized definitions, based on the GHG Protocol and related frameworks. While not published publicly, they can be shared privately upon request.
Rule 2: Standardize Scope 2 Accounting Methods (Location- vs. Market-Based)
Many companies disclose Scope 2 (and some categories of Scope 3) reduction targets without specifying which accounting method is used. For example:
A disclosure might reference “grid average factors” → mapped to location-based.
Another may provide values “before RECs” and “after RECs” → mapped to location-based vs. market-based.
Or, no method may be specified at all.
Because the same reduction can appear very different depending on the method, clarity here is critical. This ambiguity can also create apparent “duplicates,” where two Scope 2 targets from the same company, with identical baseline and target years, seem inconsistent or overlapping when, in fact, they are calculated under different methods.
Tracenable standardizes all such cases into the three recognized categories (location-based, market-based, or not specified) and preserves both values when available. This ensures clarity, prevents double-counting, and enables transparent comparison of Scope 2 targets across companies and reporting years.
Rule 3: Normalize Units to Metric Tonnes of CO₂e
Companies often report GHG emissions in different physical units: short tons, kilograms, or grams. To ensure consistency, all values are converted to metric tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂e) using standard conversion factors.
Example:
Consider a company that reports a 2019 baseline of 100,000 short tons of CO₂e. Applying the standard conversion factor (1 short ton = 0.907185 metric tonnes), the normalized baseline becomes 90,718.5 tCO₂e.
This ensures that all company targets are expressed in a uniform unit of measurement.
Rule 4: Normalize Target Values and Directions
The core normalization process focuses on expressing all targets as percentage reductions from baselines, wherever possible.
Example 1 – Absolute Reduction Target:
Consider a company that aims to reduce its Scope 1 emissions from 50,000 tCO₂e in 2021 to 25,000 tCO₂e by 2030. This translates to a 50% reduction from baseline.
However, not all targets provide enough information to calculate a percentage reduction. Some companies define goals as absolute milestones rather than relative reductions, and without information about the baseline, our standardization pipelines cannot normalize these absolute milestones into percentage reductions from baseline.
Example 2 – Absolute Milestone Target:
Another company might report, “achieve 1,000 tCO₂e Scope 1 emissions by 2030,” without specifying a baseline.
Because the starting value is unknown, a percentage reduction cannot be computed, and the original value is retained as an absolute milestone target.
This approach ensures that targets are expressed in a standardized form when possible, and otherwise preserved faithfully as reported.
Rule 5: Normalize Achievement Values and Directions
The same principle applies to progress or achievement values, which represent interim performance toward a company’s target. Wherever possible, achievement data is expressed as a percentage reduction from the baseline, ensuring that progress and targets can be directly compared.
Example:
Consider a company targeting a 50% reduction in Scope 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2020 baseline of 100,000 tCO₂e. If in 2023, the company reports 70,000 tCO₂e, this represents a 30% reduction from baseline, showing measurable progress toward the goal.
However, when necessary information is missing, such as the baseline value or the achievement-year emissions, normalization cannot be applied. In such cases, the reported figure is retained in its original absolute format, ensuring completeness and transparency without introducing assumptions.
Note:
Standardization depends on complete and consistent data. When required information, such as a baseline, is missing, the dataset preserves the original company-reported figures rather than estimating or excluding them.
These values remain fully traceable within the data structure, ensuring completeness and transparency even when normalization cannot be applied.
Takeaway:
Tracenable’s Climate Targets standardization rules ensure that:
Targets are mapped to GHG Protocol–defined scopes and sources.
Scope 2 methods are standardized (market-based, location-based, or unspecified).
Values are normalized into comparable units (e.g., tCO₂e, % reduction).
Different target formats (absolute, relative, or milestone) are made analytically equivalent.
The result is a consistent, transparent, and globally comparable dataset that preserves the integrity of each company’s disclosure while making climate targets truly measurable across firms and sectors.
Tracenable’s approach aligns with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol and leading initiatives such as the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), ensuring methodological rigour and alignment with global climate reporting standards.