Chapter A: Technical and methodological framework

The number of carbon accounting tools has been growing rapidly for several years, responding to an increasing need among organizations to take ownership of their decarbonization. These tools are instrumental in widely democratizing the practice of carbon accounting, with a strong capacity to influence the quality of the approaches they make possible.

Within carbon accounting tools, design choices, configuration, and technical and methodological positioning directly determine the quality of the results obtained, and consequently, the use made of them — that is, the ability of organizations to engage in a credible low-carbon transition.

This chapter aims to evaluate the technical and methodological framework of candidate tools against the positioning of the Bilan Carbone® method. The goal is to analyze the technical robustness of the tools, as well as the pedagogical support they provide to users who may have varying levels of maturity.

The audit will cover in particular:

• the structural technical and methodological choices of the candidate tools (calculations, scopes, emission factors used, calculation approach, etc.)
• the pedagogical support provided to accompany users in building their competencies and to enable them, regardless of their level of maturity, to make informed decisions when carrying out their carbon accounting
• the final precision of the calculations, in comparison with the Bilan Carbone® tools developed by ABC

The objective is to ensure that candidate tools provide a reliable and understandable technical and methodological framework, positioning them as decision-support tools throughout the carbon process followed by users.