Carbon and energy management terms, defined.
A structured glossary for sustainability, energy, finance, and operations teams.
A
ADEME (Agency for Ecological Transition)
ADEME is the French public agency for ecological transition. It manages Base Empreinte, France's public reference database of emission factors, used for corporate greenhouse gas inventories and product environmental labeling.
AI Agent
An AI agent is software you can hand a task to and reasonably trust to carry it out, flag what's unclear, and tell you when it's done. Unlike chatbots or copilots that respond to prompts one message at a time, an agent works in the background across an entire task, using the platform's tools and data, and stops for human approval at defined gates.
AI in Carbon Accounting
AI in carbon accounting refers to the application of artificial intelligence — including machine learning, natural language processing, and agentic workflows — to automate data collection, classify emission sources, match emission factors, detect anomalies, enrich supplier data, and generate disclosure-ready reports with reduced manual effort.
AI Skill
An AI skill is detailed written guidance that an agent reads before doing a specific kind of task, including both instructions and context. Skills are reusable expertise: created and validated by human subject matter experts, applied automatically by the agent whenever the task calls for them.
Anomaly Detection (in Energy and Carbon Data)
Anomaly detection uses data analysis to identify unusual patterns in energy consumption or carbon data that may indicate errors, waste, or operational issues.
API-First
API-first describes software where every capability is exposed through an API. In plain terms, the API is a universal door that lets software reach every piece of data in the system: sites, meters, emission factors, reports, all of it. When a platform is built this way, an AI agent can walk through any door and do broad, general work on your behalf.
Asset Control
Asset control is the GHG Protocol framework for determining which emissions belong in which scope based on whether an organization has operational or financial control over an asset, directly affecting how emissions are classified in the inventory.
Assurance and Verification
Assurance (or verification) is an independent third-party assessment of an organization's GHG emissions data and reporting processes. Limited assurance provides moderate confidence that the data is free of material misstatement; reasonable assurance provides a higher level of confidence similar to a financial audit.
B
Base Year
A base year is the reference year against which an organization measures its greenhouse gas emission reduction progress. It establishes the starting-point emissions level from which percentage reductions are calculated, and it must be recalculated when significant structural changes (mergers, acquisitions, divestitures) occur.
BESS (Battery Energy Storage System)
A battery energy storage system (BESS) stores electricity for later use, charging when power is cheap or abundant and discharging when it is expensive or scarce. Commercial and industrial sites use BESS to cut demand charges, shift consumption to off-peak rates, provide backup power, and pair with on-site solar.
Bill Scan
Bill Scan is Gravity’s AI-powered extraction engine that automatically reads utility bill PDFs and extracts consumption, cost, billing period, supplier, and meter data into structured activity records for carbon accounting and energy management.
BSI (British Standards Institution)
BSI is the UK's national standards body. It develops standards, provides certification and training, and publishes the Kitemark. In carbon accounting, BSI is best known for PAS 2060, the withdrawn specification for carbon neutrality, and its successor Carbon Neutrality verification scheme for ISO 14068-1.
Building Envelope
The building envelope is the physical barrier between conditioned interior space and the outdoors, including walls, roof, windows, doors, and insulation.
C
California SB 253 (Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act)
SB 253 is a California law requiring companies doing business in the state with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion to report Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions annually, beginning with Scope 1 and 2 for reporting year 2026 and Scope 3 for reporting year 2027.
California SB 261 (Climate-Related Financial Risk Act)
SB 261 requires companies doing business in California with annual revenues exceeding $500 million to prepare and disclose climate-related financial risk reports aligned with TCFD recommendations, beginning in 2026.
Carbon Accounting
Carbon accounting is the systematic process of measuring, recording, and reporting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by an organization, product, or activity. It follows standardized methodologies — most commonly the GHG Protocol — to quantify emissions across Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (purchased energy), and Scope 3 (value chain) categories, producing an auditable inventory that underpins disclosure, reduction planning, and regulatory compliance.
Carbon Footprint
A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by an individual, organization, event, or product, expressed in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂e). For organizations, it encompasses Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (purchased energy), and Scope 3 (value chain) emissions.
Carbon Intensity
Carbon intensity is a ratio that expresses greenhouse gas emissions relative to a business metric — such as emissions per unit of revenue, per product manufactured, per square meter of floor area, or per employee. It complements absolute emissions by showing efficiency improvements even as an organization grows.
Carbon Management
Carbon management is the ongoing practice of measuring, reducing, and reporting an organization's greenhouse gas emissions. It spans the full cycle: building an emissions inventory, setting reduction targets, executing decarbonization projects, engaging suppliers, and disclosing progress to regulators, customers, and investors.
Carbon Neutrality
Carbon neutrality means that an organization's net greenhouse gas emissions equal zero, achieved by balancing emitted carbon with an equivalent amount of carbon offsets or removals. Unlike net zero, carbon neutrality does not require deep absolute reductions first and can be achieved primarily through offset purchases.
Carbon Offsets
Carbon offsets are verified emission reduction or removal credits purchased by an organization to compensate for its own greenhouse gas emissions. One carbon offset represents one tonne of CO₂e reduced or removed from the atmosphere through a project elsewhere, such as reforestation, renewable energy deployment, or methane capture.
Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing is an economic mechanism that assigns a monetary cost to greenhouse gas emissions, incentivizing reductions. The two main forms are emissions trading systems (cap-and-trade, like the EU ETS) and carbon taxes (a fixed price per tonne of CO₂e). Internal carbon pricing is a voluntary tool companies use for investment decisions.
CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism)
CBAM is the EU's carbon border tax that applies a carbon price to imports of certain goods — cement, iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen — to prevent carbon leakage and level the playing field between EU producers subject to the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and importers from countries without equivalent carbon pricing.
CBECS
CBECS (Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey) is a US EIA benchmark dataset that provides average energy consumption per square foot by building type and region, used in carbon accounting to estimate energy usage when actual utility data is unavailable.
CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project)
CDP is a global non-profit organization that operates the world's largest environmental disclosure system. It collects self-reported climate, water, and forest data from thousands of companies, cities, and subnational governments on behalf of investors and purchasers, scoring disclosures from A (leadership) to D– (minimal).
Compressed Air System Optimization
Compressed air system optimization reduces energy waste in industrial compressed air systems through leak repair, pressure management, and efficient controls.
Cooling Tower Optimization
Cooling tower optimization is the tuning of cooling tower operation, including fan control, water treatment, cycles of concentration, and approach temperature, to minimize the energy and water a facility uses to reject heat. Typical projects cut cooling system energy 10-30% and significantly reduce water consumption.
CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive)
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is the European Union's mandatory sustainability reporting law. It requires companies operating in the EU above certain thresholds to disclose environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information according to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), with third-party assurance.
D
Data Completeness
Data completeness is the percentage of expected emissions data that has been collected for a given reporting period, tracked per site, emission source, and month within the Gravity platform.
Data Quality (in Carbon Accounting)
Data quality in carbon accounting refers to the accuracy, completeness, consistency, and transparency of the emissions data and calculation inputs used to produce a GHG inventory. Higher data quality — using primary, measured data instead of estimates — produces more accurate and credible emission figures.
Decarbonization
Decarbonization is the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across an organization's operations and value chain through energy efficiency improvements, fuel switching, renewable energy procurement, process changes, supply chain engagement, and technology adoption. It is the operational work that turns reduction targets into real emission cuts.
DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
DEFRA is the UK government department responsible for the environment, food, farming, and rural affairs. It publishes the UK's official annual greenhouse gas conversion factors for company reporting, used by UK organizations and international companies reporting on UK operations.
Demand Response
Demand response is a mechanism where electricity consumers reduce or shift their power consumption during peak demand periods in response to utility signals, market prices, or grid reliability events. Participants are compensated through bill credits, capacity payments, or wholesale market revenues.
Double Materiality
Double materiality is the assessment framework required by the EU's CSRD that evaluates sustainability topics from two perspectives: impact materiality (how the company affects society and the environment) and financial materiality (how sustainability issues affect the company's financial performance, position, and cash flows).
E
ecoinvent
ecoinvent is a Swiss lifecycle inventory database used in lifecycle assessment and carbon accounting. It contains thousands of datasets modeling materials, energy, transport, agriculture, waste, and industrial processes, and supplies emission factors for product carbon footprints and Scope 3 calculations.
EEIO
EEIO (Environmentally Extended Input-Output) is an economic modeling approach that estimates greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of economic output by industry sector, commonly used for Scope 3 spend-based emissions calculations.
Emission Factor
An emission factor is a coefficient that converts an activity measurement — such as litres of fuel burned, kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed, or dollars spent on a commodity — into a quantity of greenhouse gas emissions, typically expressed in kilograms or tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂e).
Emission Factor Rules
Emission factor rules are saved instructions in carbon accounting platforms that automate which emission factor is applied when certain conditions are met, turning expert factor decisions into reusable, auditable logic.
Energy Audit
An energy audit is a systematic assessment of how a building or facility uses energy and where efficiency opportunities exist.
Energy Benchmarking
Energy benchmarking compares a building's or facility's energy consumption against similar buildings, industry averages, or its own historical performance.
Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency means using less energy to deliver the same service or output. In the context of carbon management, energy efficiency is the fastest, lowest-cost decarbonization lever because every unit of energy saved reduces both operating costs and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously.
Energy Management
Energy management is the systematic monitoring, control, and optimization of energy consumption in an organization to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and lower carbon emissions. It encompasses utility bill tracking, real-time meter monitoring, anomaly detection, efficiency project planning, and incentive capture.
Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS)
Energy-as-a-Service is a financing model where a third party owns, operates, and maintains energy assets in exchange for a share of the savings or a fixed service fee.
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
The EPA is the United States federal agency responsible for protecting human health and the environment. It runs the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) and publishes emission factors and tools used in US carbon accounting.
ESG Reporting
ESG reporting is the disclosure of an organization's performance across environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G) dimensions. It encompasses GHG emissions, water and waste management, labor practices, diversity, board structure, ethics, and risk management — providing stakeholders with a holistic view of sustainability performance.
ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards)
ESRS are the detailed reporting standards developed by EFRAG that specify what companies must disclose under the EU's CSRD. They cover ten sustainability topics across environmental, social, and governance dimensions, with ESRS E1 (Climate Change) requiring detailed emissions data, transition plans, and climate risk assessments.
EXIOBASE
EXIOBASE is a global, environmentally extended multi-regional input-output database. It links economic activity across countries and sectors to environmental impacts, and is commonly used for spend-based emissions estimates and macro-level carbon footprint analysis.
F
Financed Emissions
Financed emissions are the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to a financial institution's lending and investment portfolios — Scope 3 Category 15 under the GHG Protocol. They represent the real-economy emissions that banks, asset managers, and insurers fund through their capital allocation decisions.
FLAG (Forest, Land, and Agriculture)
FLAG is the SBTi sector guidance for companies with significant emissions from forestry, land use, and agriculture. It provides target-setting methods for land-related emissions and removals.
Fleet Electrification
Fleet electrification is the transition of an organization's vehicles from internal combustion engines to battery-electric or plug-in hybrid models. It reduces Scope 1 emissions, fuel spend, and maintenance costs, and it is one of the highest-impact decarbonization levers for companies with large vehicle fleets.
G
GHG Protocol
The GHG Protocol is the world's most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standard. Developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), it provides frameworks for organizations, cities, and countries to measure and manage their emissions across three scopes.
Global Warming Potential (GWP)
Global warming potential (GWP) is a metric that compares the warming effect of a greenhouse gas relative to CO₂ over a specified time horizon, typically 100 years (GWP-100). It is published by the IPCC and used to convert different greenhouse gases into CO₂ equivalent for emissions inventories.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
Greenhouse gases are atmospheric gases that trap infrared radiation and warm the Earth's surface. The six main GHGs covered by the Kyoto Protocol are carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆). The Kigali Amendment added nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃).
Greenwashing
Greenwashing is the practice of making misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the environmental benefits of a product, service, or corporate practice. It ranges from vague language ('eco-friendly,' 'sustainable') without supporting evidence to selective disclosure that highlights positive actions while concealing negative impacts.
H
Higg Index
The Higg Index is a suite of sustainability measurement tools developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) for the apparel, footwear, and textile industries. It standardizes how brands, retailers, and manufacturers assess environmental and social performance across facilities, materials, and products.
HVAC Optimization
HVAC optimization improves heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system efficiency through controls, scheduling, setpoint tuning, and equipment upgrades.
I
IEA (International Energy Agency)
The IEA is an intergovernmental organization that tracks global energy production, consumption, and emissions. It publishes energy statistics and greenhouse gas emission estimates used for national inventories, corporate reporting, and climate policy analysis.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
The IPCC is the United Nations scientific body that assesses climate change science, impacts, and responses. It publishes the global warming potential values and inventory guidelines used to convert methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases into CO₂ equivalent.
ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board)
The ISSB is a body under the IFRS Foundation that issues global sustainability disclosure standards. IFRS S1 (General Requirements) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures) set the baseline for sustainability reporting worldwide, designed for investor-focused, financially material disclosures.
L
LED Lighting Retrofits
An LED lighting retrofit replaces fluorescent, HID, or incandescent fixtures with light-emitting diode (LED) technology. Retrofits typically cut lighting energy use by 40-70%, pay back in one to three years, and are usually the first project in a facility's energy efficiency roadmap.
Lifecycle Assessment (LCA)
A lifecycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic analysis of the environmental impacts of a product, process, or service across its entire lifecycle — from raw material extraction through production, use, and end-of-life. Governed by ISO 14040/14044, LCAs evaluate multiple impact categories including climate change, acidification, eutrophication, and resource depletion.
M
Materiality Assessment
A materiality assessment is a structured process for identifying and prioritizing the sustainability topics most relevant to an organization and its stakeholders. Under CSRD, it specifically refers to the double materiality assessment (DMA) that determines which ESRS topics require full disclosure.
Motor and Drive Upgrades
Motor and drive upgrades replace inefficient fixed-speed motors with premium efficiency motors and variable frequency drives to reduce electricity use in variable-load applications.
P
PAS 2060
PAS 2060 was the BSI specification for demonstrating carbon neutrality. It required organizations to quantify greenhouse gas emissions, reduce them where possible, and offset the remaining footprint with verified carbon credits. BSI withdrew PAS 2060 in 2025; ISO 14068-1 now supersedes it.
PCAF (Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials)
PCAF is a global partnership of financial institutions that develops and maintains the standard methodology for measuring and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions associated with financial portfolios — known as financed emissions. The PCAF Standard covers six asset classes and provides attribution formulas for allocating emissions to lenders and investors.
Power Factor Correction
Power factor correction is the practice of improving a facility's power factor, the ratio of real power (doing useful work) to apparent power (drawn from the grid). Correcting a low power factor, typically by installing capacitor banks, reduces utility penalty charges, frees up electrical capacity, and cuts distribution losses.
Process Heat Recovery
Process heat recovery captures waste heat from industrial processes and reuses it for space heating, water heating, or process preheating.
Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)
A product carbon footprint (PCF) quantifies the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product throughout its lifecycle — from raw material extraction (cradle) through manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life disposal (grave). It is expressed in units of CO₂e per functional unit of the product.
Proration
Proration is the automatic splitting of activity data across reporting periods when billing cycles or data records cross month or year boundaries, ensuring accurate period-level emissions totals without double-counting.
R
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)
A Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) represents the environmental attributes of one megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity generated from a renewable energy source. RECs are used in market-based Scope 2 accounting to claim renewable electricity consumption, separate from the physical delivery of electrons.
Report Locking
Report locking is a platform feature that creates a frozen, audit-ready snapshot of an emissions inventory at a specific point in time, preserving the exact data state for disclosure and audit purposes.
S
SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative)
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a partnership between CDP, WRI, the UN Global Compact, and WWF that defines and validates corporate greenhouse gas reduction targets consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Scope 1 Emissions
Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources that an organization owns or controls. This includes combustion of fossil fuels in owned boilers, furnaces, and vehicles; process emissions from manufacturing; and fugitive emissions such as refrigerant leaks and methane from owned landfills.
Scope 2 Emissions
Scope 2 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling consumed by an organization. They are called 'indirect' because the emissions physically occur at the power plant or utility, not at the reporting company's facilities.
Scope 3 Emissions
Scope 3 emissions are all indirect greenhouse gas emissions that occur in an organization's value chain — both upstream (suppliers, purchased goods, business travel, employee commuting) and downstream (product use, end-of-life treatment, investments). Scope 3 typically represents 70–90% of a company's total carbon footprint.
SEC Climate Disclosure Rule
The SEC's climate disclosure rule was adopted in March 2024 to require US public companies to disclose material climate-related risks, Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions (for large accelerated and accelerated filers), governance, strategy, and climate-related financial impacts. The rule was immediately stayed by federal courts and has never taken effect. In May 2026, the SEC proposed to rescind it entirely.
Section 179D (Commercial Buildings Deduction)
Section 179D is a former US federal tax deduction for energy-efficient commercial building improvements. It was repealed for projects beginning construction after June 30, 2026, by the 2025 reconciliation law.
Spend-Based Method
The spend-based method estimates greenhouse gas emissions by multiplying procurement expenditure (in dollars or other currency) by economic emission factors that represent the average emissions intensity per unit of spend in a given sector. It is the most accessible Scope 3 estimation approach but also the least precise.
Supplier Engagement
Supplier engagement is the practice of working with suppliers to collect emissions data, improve data quality, and drive reductions across the value chain. It's the primary path to accurate Scope 3 measurement, replacing spend-based estimates with supplier-specific data over time.
Supply Chain Emissions
Supply chain emissions are the greenhouse gases produced throughout an organization's upstream and downstream value chain — from raw material extraction and manufacturing through distribution, product use, and end-of-life disposal. In GHG Protocol terms, these are Scope 3 emissions, and they typically represent the majority of a company's total footprint.
Sustainability Reporting
Sustainability reporting is the disclosure of an organization's environmental and social performance to stakeholders, including regulators, investors, customers, and employees. It covers GHG emissions, energy, water, waste, and social metrics, structured according to frameworks like CSRD/ESRS, CDP, GRI, and ISSB.
T
TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures)
TCFD is a framework developed by the Financial Stability Board for disclosing climate-related financial risks and opportunities. It organizes recommendations around four pillars: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. Though the TCFD disbanded in 2023, its framework lives on through ISSB S2 and CSRD/ESRS.
tCO₂e (Tonnes of CO₂ Equivalent)
tCO₂e — tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — is the standard unit for expressing greenhouse gas emissions. It normalizes different greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, etc.) to their equivalent warming impact relative to CO₂ using global warming potentials (GWPs), allowing them to be summed into a single comparable metric.
V
Value Chain (in Carbon Accounting)
In carbon accounting, the value chain encompasses all upstream and downstream activities associated with an organization's operations — from raw material extraction and supplier manufacturing through the organization's own operations to product distribution, customer use, and end-of-life disposal. Scope 3 emissions are the GHG impacts of the value chain.
Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)
A variable frequency drive (VFD) is an electronic controller that changes the speed of an electric motor by adjusting the frequency and voltage of the power supplied to it. VFDs cut energy use in fans, pumps, compressors, and cooling tower fans by matching motor output to actual demand.
From definitions to action.
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