Question 1

What is the NoCO2 Net Zero Standard?

Accepted Answer

An open-source standard for quantifying, managing, reducing and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions, aligned with an IPCC 1.5°C pathway.

Question 2

What problem was the Standard designed to solve?

Accepted Answer

It addresses incomplete inventories, inconsistent boundaries, weak reduction obligations, inappropriate credit use and net zero claims that are difficult to understand or compare.

Question 3

How is it different from other net zero frameworks?

Accepted Answer

NoCO2 prescribes what must be counted, what must be reduced, which interventions must occur, how credits may be used and what must be publicly disclosed.

Question 4

Why is the Standard prescriptive?

Accepted Answer

Clear rules reduce ambiguity and help organisations, consultants and assurance providers reach consistent and comparable conclusions.

Question 5

Why is the Standard open source?

Accepted Answer

To make its rules available for scrutiny, adoption and improvement, and to help advance best practice across the entire industry.

Question 6

What does the Creative Commons licence allow?

Accepted Answer

The Standard may be shared and adapted, including commercially, provided appropriate attribution is given, the licence is identified and any changes are disclosed.

Question 7

Who can use the Standard?

Accepted Answer

Private companies, public entities, not-for-profits and other organisations may use it for inventories, reduction planning, disclosures and net zero commitments.

Question 8

Can an organisation use it without engaging CRI?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Using the Standard does not require engaging CRI or constitute certification or endorsement by CRI.

Question 9

Can existing consultants apply the Standard?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Organisations may ask their existing consultants, accountants or advisers to apply all or selected parts of it.

Question 10

Can an organisation apply only selected parts?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but it must clearly identify what it has applied and must not imply full compliance or make a NoCO2 net zero claim.

Question 11

Does applying one methodology mean the organisation complies with the Standard?

Accepted Answer

No. Compliance requires the organisation to meet all applicable requirements of the Standard for the relevant reporting period.

Question 12

How do the Standard, methodologies and schedules work together?

Accepted Answer

The Standard establishes the overall requirements. The methodologies prescribe how particular assessments are performed, while the schedules contain detailed rules, activities and implementation requirements.

Question 13

Is the Standard only for organisations making net zero claims?

Accepted Answer

No. It may also be used for carbon inventories, supplier emissions data, reduction planning, transition plans, product assessments and climate disclosures.

Question 14

Can the Standard improve an inventory without supporting a net zero claim?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Organisations may use its accounting, reconciliation, data-quality and disclosure methods without making a net zero claim.

Question 15

What is financial GHG reconciliation?

Accepted Answer

It is the process of checking the organisation’s financial activities against its emissions inventory to identify expenditure or activities that have not received a carbon accounting treatment.

Question 16

Why does the Standard begin with financial records?

Accepted Answer

Financial records provide a comprehensive starting population of organisational activity. They help expose emissions that might otherwise be excluded, outsourced or overlooked.

Question 17

Is financial reconciliation only relevant to spend-based calculations?

Accepted Answer

No. Financial reconciliation tests completeness regardless of whether emissions are calculated using expenditure, physical activity data, supplier-specific factors or another method.

Question 18

How is physical activity data reconciled with financial records?

Accepted Answer

The related financial account is linked to the emissions calculation and the GHG inventory category in which it has been included.

Question 19

How are supplier-specific calculations reconciled?

Accepted Answer

The purchase remains within the financial reconciliation, but its emissions are calculated using the relevant activity data and Supplier Specific Emission Factor.

Question 20

Must every dollar be multiplied by a spend-based emission factor?

Accepted Answer

No. Each financial activity must receive a carbon accounting treatment, but the emissions may be calculated using a higher-quality non-spend-based method.

Question 21

How are accounts treated when emissions have been calculated separately?

Accepted Answer

The account is assigned a zero factor within the financial reconciliation and linked to the separate emissions calculation and relevant inventory category.

Question 22

Does a zero factor mean the activity has no emissions?

Accepted Answer

Not necessarily. It may mean the emissions have been calculated elsewhere. If the organisation concludes that no emissions are associated with an account, it must document its reasoning.

Question 23

How does the Standard prevent double counting?

Accepted Answer

Once an account has been linked to a non-spend-based calculation, a spend-based factor is not applied to the same activity.

Question 24

How does reconciliation identify missing Scope 3 emissions?

Accepted Answer

Every expenditure line must be assessed. Any line without an emissions calculation, documented alternative treatment or justified zero factor represents a potential gap.

Question 25

Why must 100% of expenditure and revenue-generating activities be assessed?

Accepted Answer

Because excluding part of the organisation’s financial activity could create an incomplete inventory boundary.

Question 26

At what level must financial accounts be assessed?

Accepted Answer

At a level detailed enough to identify the activities and their appropriate emissions treatment. This may require examining account classes, individual general ledger accounts or transactions.

Question 27

What if an account contains several different activities?

Accepted Answer

The account must be separated into sufficient detail for each activity to receive an appropriate emissions treatment.

Question 28

What if the description of a transaction is unclear?

Accepted Answer

The organisation must investigate the underlying transaction rather than assume it has no associated emissions.

Question 29

How are capital goods treated?

Accepted Answer

The upstream emissions of capital goods are included in Scope 3 Category 2. They may be recognised when purchased or allocated across the asset’s expected service life.

Question 30

How are depreciation and asset purchases reconciled?

Accepted Answer

The organisation must document whether it uses a purchase-based or use-based allocation method and apply that method consistently. Under the use-based method, embodied emissions are annualised over the asset’s expected service life.

Question 31

What happens when the financial and emissions data cover different periods?

Accepted Answer

The financial records used for reconciliation must relate to the same reporting period as the emissions inventory.

Question 32

Must the financial records be final?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The records used must be complete and not subject to further change.

Question 33

Does financial reconciliation make an inventory easier to assure?

Accepted Answer

Yes. It provides a traceable completeness check between the financial records and the activities assessed in the emissions inventory.

Question 34

Can a financially reconciled inventory still be inaccurate?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Reconciliation tests whether activities have been assessed; it does not, by itself, prove that every activity value, emission factor or calculation is accurate.

Question 35

What is the difference between completeness and accuracy?

Accepted Answer

Completeness asks whether all relevant activities have been assessed. Accuracy asks whether the data, emission factors and calculations appropriately represent those activities.

Question 36

Can financial reconciliation be automated?

Accepted Answer

Much of the account mapping and checking can be automated, but classifications, emission factors, exceptions and documented rationales still require appropriate review.

Question 37

What does the Standard mean by a comprehensive emissions inventory?

Accepted Answer

An inventory that assesses every material emissions source within the organisation’s boundary, including all Net Zero Inventory and Non-Attributable Inventory categories.

Question 38

Does every emissions source have to be included?

Accepted Answer

Every material source within the required boundary must be assessed. Relevant Influence-Based Inventory sources should also be assessed as disclosure best practice.

Question 39

Can an entire Scope 3 category be excluded as immaterial?

Accepted Answer

No. Materiality is not a basis for omitting an entire required emissions category.

Question 40

What happens when accurate data is unavailable?

Accepted Answer

The organisation must use the highest-quality estimate available, disclose its limitations and establish a pathway to improve the data.

Question 41

Can a low-quality estimate be used indefinitely?

Accepted Answer

No. A Tier 5 estimate for an individual inventory element may be used for no more than two reporting periods.

Question 42

Why does NoCO2 separate completeness from attribution?

Accepted Answer

Because an emission may need to be counted and disclosed without necessarily forming part of the organisation’s net zero reduction obligation.

Question 43

What is the Net Zero Inventory?

Accepted Answer

The NZI contains emissions attributable to the organisation’s net zero claim. These emissions are subject to reduction and, where necessary, neutralisation obligations.

Question 44

What is the Non-Attributable Inventory?

Accepted Answer

The NAI contains emissions within the organisation’s value chain that must be assessed and disclosed but are not attributed to its net zero claim.

Question 45

What is the Influence-Based Inventory?

Accepted Answer

The IBI records relevant impacts outside the organisation’s value chain that it may influence but does not directly cause, control or financially drive.

Question 46

Why are three inventories necessary?

Accepted Answer

They distinguish what must be reduced, what must still be disclosed and what represents broader organisational influence.

Question 47

Which inventory determines the organisation’s reduction obligations?

Accepted Answer

The Net Zero Inventory.

Question 48

Why disclose non-attributable emissions?

Accepted Answer

Because excluding them from the net zero claim should not make them invisible to stakeholders.

Question 49

How does the Standard determine whether an emission is attributable?

Accepted Answer

It considers whether the organisation causes, controls, directs, financially drives or materially influences the activity, benefits economically from it, or has practical decarbonisation levers.

Question 50

What is the difference between scopes and inventory types?

Accepted Answer

Scopes describe how emissions relate to the organisation. Inventory types determine how those emissions are attributed to its net zero claim.

Question 51

Can an organisation choose which inventory an emission enters?

Accepted Answer

No. Emissions must be assigned according to the category and attribution rules in the Standard.

Question 52

Can an emissions source move between inventories?

Accepted Answer

Only where the underlying circumstances or applicable rules change. It cannot be moved simply to reduce the organisation’s net zero obligation.

Question 53

How is purchased electricity treated?

Accepted Answer

Imported energy emissions are included in the Net Zero Inventory under Scope 2 and calculated using the market-based method.

Question 54

Are downstream emissions automatically excluded from the net zero claim?

Accepted Answer

No. Downstream emissions are assigned to the NZI or NAI according to their category and the organisation’s attribution and reduction responsibility.

Question 55

How are financed emissions treated?

Accepted Answer

Direct investee emissions and emissions from the use of financed fossil-fuel products enter the NZI. Other indirect financed emissions and sovereign debt enter the NAI.

Question 56

How are facilitated and insurance-associated emissions treated?

Accepted Answer

Most are disclosed in the NAI. Discretionary claims-payment activities are included in the NZI, while other influence-based impacts may be disclosed in the IBI.

Question 57

Does the Standard eliminate all double counting between organisations?

Accepted Answer

No. Some Scope 3 overlap across value chains is expected. The Standard instead applies consistent attribution rules so the correct organisation carries the relevant claim and reduction obligation.

Question 58

What happens when an error or omission is discovered?

Accepted Answer

The inventory must be corrected where necessary, but the correction does not reset the organisation’s reduction trajectory or net zero target.

Question 59

What happens when a calculation method or emission factor changes?

Accepted Answer

The revised method may change reported emissions, but the organisation must continue towards the same commitment year and Accelerated Reduction Timeline.

Question 60

Can reported emissions increase as data quality improves?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A more complete or accurate inventory may report higher emissions. This is a calculation improvement, not an increase caused by operational activity, and it does not reset the reduction pathway.

Question 61

What data-quality hierarchy does the Standard use?

Accepted Answer

The Standard ranks Scope 3 data from Tier 1, representing physical activity data and supplier-specific factors, to Tier 5, representing incomplete or low-traceability estimates.

Question 62

Must the highest-quality available data be used?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each inventory category must use the highest-tier activity data and conversion factors reasonably available.

Question 63

When can spend-based emission factors be used?

Accepted Answer

They may be used when they are the highest-quality factors available or to fill gaps while better activity or supplier data is obtained.

Question 64

Are all spend-based factors the same quality?

Accepted Answer

No. A supplier-specific spend-based factor is Tier 2, while a generic economy-wide input-output factor is Tier 4.

Technical FAQs

About the NoCO2 Net Zero Standard