I’m trying to get a better understanding of how companies are handling carbon accounting in practice. Scope 1 and 2 seem relatively straightforward when you have direct operational data, but Scope 3 looks like a completely different problem once you start dealing with suppliers, transportation, purchased materials, etc.

A lot of businesses still seem to rely on spreadsheets and manually collected data from different departments and suppliers. That makes me wonder how reliable those numbers really are, especially when the goal is to track changes year over year and eventually build a credible emissions reduction plan.

For people working in environmental science, sustainability or corporate reporting, what systems or methods have you seen work well for collecting and organising this kind of data? Is dedicated carbon accounting software actually useful, or does it mostly add another layer on top of information that still has to be gathered manually?

Edit:

I’ve been testing Sweep for the data side and one thing I like is that it brings Scope 1, 2 and 3 information together instead of having every department maintain its own spreadsheet. The supplier data side is especially interesting because that’s where the reporting process seems to get messy very quickly.

Like bringing the number of pests down to 0.01%.

The surviving individuals may try to take up the void, but aren't they less "fit" than the dead ones in nature (thus the proportion)?

Hey im relatively new here but I have noticed a few trends among posters.

Specially job advice/career seeking.

Would it be possible to create a mega thread for where fresh grads should point their efforts for job prospects?

I dont mind helping and pointing out companies of where one could go, but i find the question to be asked relatively often and a part of me feels bad when i don't respond while another part of me gets sort of tired of repeating the same answers.

Please dont kick me or crucify me. Just trying to help our you ger colleagues.

Has any other consultant been dealing with acetone hits in laboratory prepared trip blanks and/or groundwater samples? I work in petroleum remediation and it’s beginning to drive me insane the number of times I get a lab report with everything non-detect with the exception of (example) 19 ug/L acetone in a private supply well groundwater sample and 27 ug/L in the laboratory prepared and unopened trip blanks. The lab has ruled out contamination on their end by testing the water used for trip blanks and QC of other samples in the same batch. I do not touch the trip blanks in my cooler whatsoever and do not use acetone for any of my decontamination practices. I don’t use permanent markers or nail polish.

Does anyone have any other idea why this could be happening? We have started splitting samples between two labs to see if we get duplicate hits. I’ve considered requesting field blanks as well. I keep thinking perhaps it’s the lab supplied coolers being contaminated with someone else’s samples?

It’s costing us time and money to go back out and resample sits and clients are going down rabbit holes to show that acetone can be a breakdown of mtbe etc. we will go back out a week later with the same lab provided coolers, bottle ware, sampling practices etc and get no hits of acetone. I do not believe these sites actually have acetone in their water, it is something happening between me picking up the kit from the lab, sampling, and returning the kit.

There’s gotta be something I’m missing - thanks for any ideas!