Calculation Logic
Learn how Tracenable infers missing waste metrics using clear bottom-up and top-down accounting rules, ensuring data is complete, consistent, and transparent.
Introduction
Companies often disclose waste data in fragments. One company might report only hazardous waste, another might report a total without any breakdown, and a third might split waste into recovered and disposed but leave out radioactive waste entirely. On their own, these disclosures are incomplete and inconsistent, making them difficult to compare.
To address this, Tracenable applies a transparent accounting system. This system uses simple but powerful rules to fill in the gaps when companies do not report every possible waste metric. Every calculation is flagged, traceable, and auditable, so users always know what is reported and what is inferred.
The goal is not to “guess” missing numbers, but to apply structured logic based on the relationships between waste types and management methods.
Hierarchical Relationships
Waste metrics are structured hierarchically, meaning parents are made up of children.
Total Waste Generated is the sum of hazardous, non-hazardous, radioactive, and unclassified waste. It is also the sum of waste that is recovered, disposed, or unclassified by method.
Hazardous Waste Generated is the parent of hazardous waste that is recovered, disposed, or unclassified by method.
Total Waste Recovered is the parent of hazardous, non-hazardous, radioactive, and unclassified waste recovered.
Because of these relationships, we can often calculate missing metrics. For example:
If a company reports hazardous and non-hazardous waste but not the total, we can add them together.
If a company reports its total waste generated and the portion of hazardous waste but not the non-hazardous portion, we can sometimes calculate it by subtracting the other parts.
This brings us to the two key accounting rules:
Rule 1: Bottom-up Computation (Sum of Children)
When a parent metric is missing, but some of its children are reported, we calculate the parent as the sum of available children.
Examples
Total Waste Generated = Hazardous Waste Generated + Non-Hazardous Waste Generated + Radioactive Waste Generated + Waste Generated with Unclassified Type
Hazardous Waste Generated = Hazardous Waste Recovered + Hazardous Waste Disposed + Hazardous Waste with Unclassified Management Method
Total Waste Recovered = Hazardous Waste Recovered + Non-Hazardous Waste Recovered + Radioactive Waste Recovered + Waste Recovered with Unclassified Type
This approach ensures that totals are always calculated whenever partial data is available, without discarding any company-reported values.
Rule 2: Top-Down Computation (Subtraction)
Sometimes the situation is reversed: the parent is reported, but one of the children is missing. In this case, we can calculate the missing child by subtracting the sum of the known children from the parent.
Examples
Total Waste Recovered = Total Waste Generated − Total Waste Disposed − Waste with Unclassified Management Method
Non-Hazardous Waste Generated = Total Waste Generated − Hazardous Waste Generated − Radioactive Waste Generated − Waste Generated with Unclassified Type
Hazardous Waste Recovered = Hazardous Waste Generated − Hazardous Waste Disposed − Hazardous Waste with Unclassified Management Method
When do we apply top-down computations?
The top-down computation only work if the most important pieces of the puzzle are already available. For example, to calculate Non-Hazardous Waste Generated, we must at least know Hazardous Waste Generated and Total Waste Generated. Without these two pieces, the subtraction would leave too much uncertainty.We therefore distinguish between:
Mandatory children → the core information that must be present for the subtraction to make sense (e.g., Hazardous Waste for type-level splits, Disposed Waste for method-level splits).
Non-mandatory children → categories like Radioactive or Unclassified. If they are reported, they are included in the subtraction. If they are not, they are treated as zero so that the calculation can still proceed.
This ensures that every top-down computation is both logical and reliable, without creating misleading values.
Takeaway
You can compare companies on equal terms, even if they report different levels of detail
You can trust that no data has been invented or forced into categories.
You can always trace a number back to its source and see whether it was reported or computed.