For years, companies have approached carbon accounting like financial reporting: tallying emissions, filing reports, ticking compliance boxes. But the cracks are showing.

Deloitte's 2024 analysis revealed that nearly half of FTSE 100 companies had to restate their previously reported greenhouse gas emissions, with almost a third of these corrections due to outright errors, not just methodology changes.

The problem runs deeper than accuracy. If all you're doing is carbon accounting, you don't have the tools or the time to actually drive decarbonisation. You're stuck in an inaction loop: measuring last year's emissions while this year's targets slip further away.

Without product-level insights and real supplier data, you can't answer the questions that matter: Which changes will actually reduce emissions? Where should we invest for maximum impact?

Traditional carbon accounting was built for compliance, not change. And that's why it's broken.

Carbon Needs Managerial Accounting Too

Financial accounting records, summarises, and reports transactions to present a performance snapshot to stakeholders. Managerial accounting provides internal teams with insights to drive planning and decision-making.

Traditional carbon accounting follows the financial accounting model: measuring emissions for compliance and external reporting. If meeting regulatory requirements is your only goal, this approach will suffice.

But corporate sustainability teams aren't just here to produce reports. They're here to drive change. That's where carbon needs its equivalent of managerial accounting – an approach that transforms raw data into strategic decisions.

Just as CFOs use management dashboards to optimise operations and forecast scenarios, sustainability teams need tools that connect emissions data across the entire value chain to model impacts and prove which actions will deliver results.

Why Carbon Accounting Alone Falls Short

You miss your biggest decarbonisation lever. Traditional carbon accounting focuses on what you buy and how you operate. But for product businesses, what you sell is often the most powerful lever for change. Without product footprinting, you have a massive blind spot.

Data inconsistencies delay decisions. Building a business case for change requires data that adds up. When different tools assess supplier performance, generate carbon reports, and calculate product footprints using different methodologies, reconciliation becomes impossible. These inconsistencies erode trust in your numbers and paralyse decision-making.

You can't predict or prove progress. Your organisation invests based on business cases that demonstrate return on investment. But relying on secondary emission factors and outdated annual reports leaves you unable to model future scenarios or prove that changes actually reduced emissions. Without primary data and real-time insights, you can't build the compelling cases that unlock investment.

Sustainability Management Software Solves the Problem

Imagine confidently answering questions like: "Will switching this supplier reduce emissions?" "Should we redesign this product or optimise that process?" "How will changing packaging materials impact our footprint?"

When sustainability management software integrates carbon accounting with product insights and supplier data, these questions have clear answers. Here's how the right platform transforms traditional carbon accounting:

Map Your Real Hotspots

‍Traditional carbon accounting might flag your UK facilities for high energy use. But integrated software reveals the complete picture: your real hotspot is sourcing cocoa from West Africa, shipping it to Malaysia for initial processing, then to Belgium for chocolate production. By connecting operations, products, and supply chain data in one system, you see where to focus for maximum impact.

Model All Types of Change

‍Your decarbonisation strategy needs both corporate initiatives (renewable energy, fleet electrification) and product initiatives (material substitutions, design changes). Holistic software models how these work together, showing which combination of actions delivers your targets most effectively.

Connect Data with Suppliers and Customers

‍Collecting primary data from your suppliers, demonstrates reductions are real. Sharing your accurate PCFs with customers, allows you to become their preferred supplier. This two-way data exchange creates competitive advantage upstream and downstream.

Connect Emissions Reductions to Cash

‍Every reduction initiative needs a business case. Sustainability management platforms calculate the ROI of sustainability investments, linking carbon savings to cost savings, revenue opportunities, and risk reduction.

Plus, All the Usual Reporting

‍Of course, you still need compliance reports. The difference is they're generated automatically from the same real-time data driving your business decisions.

Sustainability Management Software Must-Haves in 2025

• Full calculation capabilities: Automated data ingestion, project management, and comprehensive global emission factor databases
• Primary supplier data integration: Capture supplier PCFs and connect them directly to your Scope 3 calculations
• Unified footprinting: Product and corporate carbon footprinting in one system, using aligned methodologies, for a single source of truth
• Real-time progress tracking: Monitor emissions continuously with version control, not just through annual snapshots
• Business case builder: Model reduction scenarios with financial impact to unlock investment
• Scenario planning: Align corporate and product decarbonisation pathways in unified roadmaps

Drive Real Impact with Altruistiq

Your customers demand product footprints. Regulators require corporate footprints. Your business needs actionable insights.

Verdantix recently noted "growing interest in platforms that combine various functions," suggesting vendors should "consider expanding capabilities or partnering."

We've been ahead of this curve. Altruistiq integrates corporate footprinting, product carbon footprinting, and supplier engagement from day one. Here's what that means practically:

• Single source of truth. Connect corporate footprints, product footprints, and supplier data in one platform. When all your data uses the same methodology, your numbers finally add up across every report.
• Modular implementation. Start with what's most urgent – corporate reporting, product footprinting, or supplier engagement. Add new capabilities when you're ready. Your data stays connected as you grow.
• Software and advisory combined. Get more than automated calculations. Work with sustainability experts who know your industry and can guide your strategy. Make decisions backed by both technology and experience.
• Built for evolving requirements. Regulations change. Customer demands shift. New standards emerge. One integrated platform adapts with you, so you never have to start over.

This integrated approach is why we're recognised as Smart Innovators in both Carbon Management Software and Product Carbon Footprinting. Not because we built two good tools, but because we built them to work as one.

Read more here.

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