Emissions reporting and target-setting tool launches for companies

Another tool to help companies measure and report their emissions – FutureTrack – has launched, using modules and workflow processes that its creator, ESI Monitor, hopes will help it fit with the day-to-day operations of many businesses.

Meeting the “rush to measure”, as ESI Monitor managing director Marc Laine put it at the launch event for the tool in London last week, FutureTrack aims to simplify sustainability for users, work with teams inside companies rather than outsourcing to consultants, and monitor the business’ progress.

“We boil down sustainability to the parts that are most relevant to a particular business to get you started as quickly as possible,” Laine said.

The tool contains three modules. The first allows companies to input real and approximate data about their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and produces a report, which includes benchmarks against competitors. The tool’s emissions calculators cover areas such as embedded carbon, upstream and downstream emissions, and carbon intensity with metrics from almost every country, and in materials.

Module two uses science-based targets to set net-zero targets for the business, including interim targets and targets for each Scope.

And the third module plans and managed workplace initiatives for the business to meet those targets, although there is also a library of sustainability initiatives other companies have embarked on that can be used for inspiration.

The tool is designed to align with frameworks investment firms may be using, such as the TCFD, but is “not huge on SDGs” according to Laine, who added the focus so far has also not been on social factors. Input about diversity and inclusion, for example, is largely qualitative, which Laine said allows users to “wax lyrical about how they align to SDG5 because the key thing we’re doing is creating a narrative.”