(C0.5) Select the option that describes the reporting boundary for which climate-related impacts on your business are being reported. Note that this option should align with your chosen approach for consolidating your GHG inventory.
Change from last year
No change
Rationale
This will help data users interpret your responses.
Connection to other frameworks
RE100
Response options
Select one of the following options:
- Financial control
- Operational control
- Equity share
- Other, please specify
Requested content
General
- Use a consolidated approach when determining reporting boundaries. CDP recommends that you consult your legal or accounting advisors when doing so.
- The “consolidated approach” identifies which entities are included within the reporting boundary. Unless stated otherwise, the information you provide in response to the CDP climate change questionnaire should be presented as one “consolidated” result covering all of the companies, entities, businesses, etc., within your reporting boundary.
- To support the use, tracking, and comparability of reported GHG information, respondents are encouraged to adopt the consolidation approaches based on the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, outlined in more detail in Chapter 3 of the Standard.
- If you have previously disclosed emissions data to CDP and your consolidation approach has changed in the current reporting year, select your new approach here and provide details of the change in C5.1b.
Further clarification of options
- The options in the drop-down for this question are based on the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, and are described in more detail below (text adapted from the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard:
- Financial control: An organization has financial control over an operation if it has the ability to direct the financial and operating policies of the operation with a view to gaining economic benefits from its activities. Generally, an organization has financial control over an operation for GHG accounting purposes if the operation is treated as a group company or subsidiary for the purposes of financial consolidation.
- Companies using the CDSB framework should select this option.
- Operational control: An organization has operational control over an operation if it or one of its subsidiaries has the full authority to introduce and implement its operating policies at the operation.
- Most SMEs select this option.
- Equity share: Under the equity share approach, a company accounts for GHG emissions from operations according to its share of equity in the operation. The equity share reflects the economic interest, which is the extent of rights a company has to the risks and rewards flowing from an operation. Typically, the share of economic risks and rewards in an operation is aligned with the company’s percentage ownership of that operation, and equity share will normally be the same as the ownership percentage. Where this is not the case, the economic substance of the relationship the company has with the operation always overrides the legal ownership form to ensure the equity share reflects the percentage of economic interest. The principle of economic substance taking precedence over legal form is consistent with international financial reporting standards.
- In the case of leasing arrangements, please see the GHG Appendix: Categorizing GHG Emissions from Leased Assets and the International Accounting Standard (IAS) 17 on Leases, published by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to determine the appropriate scope for those emissions.
Explanation of terms
- Company: Throughout this questionnaire, “your company” refers collectively to all the companies, businesses, organizations, other entities or groups that fall within your definition of the reporting boundary. This term is used interchangeably with “your organization”, but CDP recognizes that some disclosing organizations may not consider themselves to be, or be formally classified, as “companies”.
- Consolidation approach: The identification of companies, businesses, organizations etc. for inclusion within the reporting boundary of the responding organization. The way in which you report information for the companies that are included within the reporting boundary is known as the “consolidation approach” because, unless stated otherwise, the information you provide in response to the questionnaire should be presented as one “consolidated” result covering all of the companies, entities, businesses etc within your reporting boundary. The GHG Protocol states that two distinct approaches may be used to consolidate GHG emissions; the equity share and the control approaches. Control can be defined in either financial (financial control) or operational (operational control) terms. This term is used interchangeably with “your organization”, but CDP recognizes that some disclosing organizations may not consider themselves to be, or be formally classified, as “companies”.
- GHG inventory: a quantified list of an organization’s greenhouse gas emissions and sources.
- Organization: Throughout this questionnaire, “your organization” refers collectively to all the companies, businesses, other entities or groups that fall within the definition of your reporting boundary (provided in C0.5). This term is used interchangeably with “your company”, but CDP recognizes that some disclosing organizations may not consider themselves to be, or be formally classified, as “companies”.
- Reporting boundary: This determines which organizational entities, such as groups, businesses and companies, are included in or excluded from your disclosure. These may be included according to your financial control, operational control, equity share or another measure. Please consistently apply this organizational boundary when responding to questions unless you are specifically asked for data about another category of activities.
