FAQ
Benefits beyond standard practice in reporting
- Conventional reporting is based on older data, often more than two years old. Limebook, on the other hand, provides you with real-time data that gives you several opportunities to influence and inspire your team and stakeholders.
- The data from Limebook is based on the most crucial activities regarding sustainability performance, such as decisions in procurement and the share of green solutions/products within your portfolio. Limebook brings your sustainability agenda closer to your core business, instead of allowing business and sustainability to become parallel worlds.
- Limebook is far more cost-efficient as it avoids double work efforts for obtaining corresponding ESG data. It does not require any additional software, external consultants, or new staffing for collecting and verifying data.
- Limebook adds much more value than conventional reporting. It provides you with relevant KPIs (key performance indicators) that are easy to understand and pedagogical. It can even be used as an environmental management system within ISO 14001, as Limebook measures your progress and potential for improvement.
A large part of the following statement is summarized from an article in Harvard Business review and a follow up article by the same authors.
When collecting data from various suppliers and comparing the results with the GHG-protocol, you will discover that a significant portion of the data is based on unspecific and uncertain assumptions, derived from statistics from various countries or other generic data. However, the whole idea of sustainability progress is to select better-performing suppliers, not average or mainstream suppliers from a certain country.
An accounting system is organized in such a way that it avoids double counting or missing important data. The GHG-protocol, on the other hand, is not organized in this way, so it is easy to make mistakes when collecting data.
It is also almost impossible to be sure of the quality and accuracy of the data from the root system of suppliers involved in your value chain. There are many tricky allocation issues, such as overhead CO2 costs in transportation of mixed goods to different clients or construction of a factory owned by an upstream supplier where your share of production is very limited in time and volume.
Limebook uses existing systems that can verify environmental performance. Credible eco-labeling and certification schemes have already built systems for verification. Invoices confirm that transactions are in accordance with our requirements. The unverifiable part of goods and services will remain in the black box, but that is not really our focus.
Any professional accounting firm can check that your invoices are compatible with the standard of Limebook. This means better transparency and credibility within your reporting. Other sources than the accounting system requires many hours from senior environmental consultants, and still there will be question marks about latest updates of science and checking verifiable data from suppliers.
Compatibility and compliance
Is Limebook compatible with the CSRD (the European CSR-directive)?
Yes, although you may need to add some minor information. The CSRD is equivalent to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and the majority, 90% of the data, covers the environmental part. You will also get circular economy and CO2 KPIs.
Limebook provides full reporting on the environmental part and some data that even covers social demands in certified products such as Fair Trade, TCO-computers, or FSC-forest certification.
The governance part requires more qualitative than quantitative answers regarding issues such as corruption.
Is Limebook compatible with the EU taxonomy?
Yes, Limebook is stricter, but the most important thing is that we do not define anything as green that should not be considered green according to the taxonomy. The purpose of the EU taxonomy is to distinguish green investments from unsustainable business, and its target audience is investors. This is more of a political statement with political negotiations and compromises than strict science, but the CSRD harmonizes with the existing taxonomy.
Methodology
Limebook covers transactions that are verifiable with purchase of refurbished items such as cellphones, laptops, office, furnitures etc.
Limebook is prepared to measure the green part selling of the business portfolio. Selling of “products as a service” with take-back relationships or parts of the portfolio that fulfills approved and credible certificates are two significant examples.
Materiality (sustainability), defines a method for analyzing the alignment of a business and their stakeholders and prioritizing issues that matter the most (Wikipedia). It is crucial to work upstream and work with root causes rather than consequences. The highest level of upstream impacting is to influence the market via procurement. That is what we tell the consumers to do, and that is even more valid for business and companies. Global coordinated procurement activities for environmental credible certified forestry, certified computers, food etc. are the best game changers and that best the answer on materiality analysis.
Your purchases of fuels used in transportation, electricity, and heating provide you with precise CO2 figures that can be controlled and improved by you, and provide you with accurate data for scope 1 and 2. However, we do not recommend including CO2 data for scope 3, as there are still serious flaws when practicing the method in the GHG-protocol according to an article in Harvard Business review.
Your circular KPIs may be more significant for CO2 impact, as mining for virgin commodities is responsible for more than 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. Limebook will also be able to pick up accurate data from relevant databases in the future when the quality of data can make reporting conclusive. As the purpose of Limebook is to provide you with “manageable” CO2 figures that tell you whether you are improving or not, we have not overloaded the system with meaningless figures for several reasons:
There is a trend to simplify complex sustainability issues into expressions of just CO2 figures, but this is far from the whole story. There are crucial issues with pollution from persistent man-made substances such as plastics and PFAS, fresh water depletion, extinction of species, etc., that will not be covered by CO2 figures.
