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Emissions reporting glossary

Plain-English definitions of the 42 terms you meet when you measure and report emissions in Australia, from activity data to transition plans.

A

AASB S1: AASB S1 is the Australian standard for disclosing sustainability-related financial information in general, and it is voluntary. The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) issued it in September 2024 alongside AASB S2, carrying over the content of the ISSB's IFRS S1. A company preparing a mandatory climate report applies AASB S2, which doesn't require AASB S1.
AASB S2: AASB S2 Climate-related Disclosures is the Australian standard that sets out the climate information a company must put in its mandatory sustainability report. The AASB issued it in September 2024, based on the ISSB's IFRS S2, and it covers governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets, including Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. See AASB S2 climate reporting.
Activity data: Activity data is the measured quantity of something that causes emissions, such as kilowatt-hours of electricity, litres of diesel or tonnes of waste. It comes from bills, fuel card statements, meter data and contractor dockets, and multiplying it by an emission factor gives the emissions.
Assurance (limited and reasonable): Assurance is an independent check of reported information by an auditor: limited assurance is a review, and reasonable assurance is an audit, which goes further. Under the AUASB's ASSA 5010, a company's first year of mandatory climate reporting needs limited assurance over governance, climate risks and opportunities, and Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and sustainability reports for financial years starting on or after 1 July 2030 must be audited in full. Treasury opened consultation on changes to these assurance settings in August 2026, so check the current position.
Audit trail: An audit trail is the record that lets someone trace a reported figure back to its source and see every change made to it. For emissions, that means the original bill or file, the quantity, the factor and edition applied, and who corrected what and when. See how Emitt keeps one on the security page.

B

Base year: A base year is the past year a company measures its emissions against when it sets targets or tracks progress. If the business changes shape, for example by buying or selling a division, the base year figure is usually recalculated so the comparison stays like for like.

C

Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e): Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) is the common unit that expresses each greenhouse gas as the amount of carbon dioxide that would cause the same warming. A gas is converted by multiplying it by its global warming potential: in the NGA Factors, 1 kg of methane is 28 kg CO₂e and 1 kg of nitrous oxide is 265 kg CO₂e.
Clean Energy Regulator (CER): The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) is the Australian Government agency that runs the NGER scheme, the Safeguard Mechanism, the Renewable Energy Target and the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme. NGER reports are lodged with the CER. Emitt prepares the tables an NGER report is built from but doesn't lodge anything with the CER.
Climate Active: Climate Active is the Australian Government program that certifies claims that an organisation, product or event is carbon neutral. In 2026 the government announced that Climate Active certification will end, with a proposed end date of 30 June 2027 after a transition period.
Consumer Data Right (CDR): The Consumer Data Right (CDR) lets a customer direct a business that holds their data, such as their energy retailer, to share it with an accredited third party. It is active in banking and energy, where retailers share data such as account and billing details. Emitt's direct connection to energy retailers through the CDR is coming soon; see integrations.

D

Data completeness: Data completeness is how much of the activity a report should cover is actually in it, for example whether every site has an electricity bill for every month. A total that is missing two months of a site's power looks smaller than it is, so a complete report says what it includes and what it leaves out.

E

Emission factor: An emission factor converts an amount of activity into emissions, for example kilograms of CO₂e per kilowatt-hour of electricity or per kilolitre of diesel. In Australia the standard set is the National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) Factors, where diesel is 2,709.72 kg CO₂e per kilolitre in the 2026 edition. Try them in the emissions calculator.
Energy content factor: An energy content factor is the amount of energy in a unit of fuel, such as 38.6 gigajoules per kilolitre of diesel or 0.0393 gigajoules per cubic metre of pipeline natural gas in the NGA Factors. Multiplying the fuel used by its energy content and then by an emission factor per gigajoule gives its emissions.

F

Facility (NGER): Under NGER, a facility is an activity or series of activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions and produce or consume energy, and that form a single undertaking or enterprise, such as a mine or a manufacturing plant. A facility must be reported if it emits 25,000 t CO₂e or more, or produces or consumes 100 TJ or more of energy, in a year. Emitt doesn't decide what counts as a facility; see NGER reporting.
Financial control and operational control: Financial control and operational control are two of the ways the GHG Protocol lets a company decide which operations' emissions it reports as its own; the third is equity share. Under operational control you report the operations you have the authority to run, and under financial control the ones whose financial and operating policies you direct for economic benefit. Under NGER, the corporation with operational control of a facility, meaning the authority to introduce and implement its operating, health and safety and environmental policies, reports it.
Fugitive emissions: Fugitive emissions are greenhouse gases released by leaks or venting rather than by burning fuel, such as refrigerant escaping from air-conditioning and cold rooms, or methane from coal mines and gas pipelines. They are Scope 1 emissions for the company that owns or controls the equipment.

G

Global warming potential (GWP): Global warming potential (GWP) compares the warming caused by a tonne of a greenhouse gas over 100 years with a tonne of carbon dioxide, which has a GWP of 1. The NGA Factors use the values from the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5): 28 for methane, 265 for nitrous oxide and 23,500 for sulphur hexafluoride. AASB S2 points to the Sixth Assessment Report when a company converts gases itself, but doesn't require factors already in CO₂e to be recalculated.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the international set of standards for measuring and reporting a company's greenhouse gas emissions, and it is where Scopes 1, 2 and 3 are defined. AASB S2 requires its Corporate Standard (2004) unless a regulator or stock exchange requires another method, and uses its Scope 3 Standard (2011) for the Scope 3 categories.
Group 1, 2 and 3 reporting entities: Groups 1, 2 and 3 are the three waves of entities brought into mandatory climate reporting under the Corporations Act, starting with financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025, 1 July 2026 and 1 July 2027. An entity is in a group if it meets two of three size tests for the financial year: Group 1, revenue of $500 million, gross assets of $1 billion or 500 employees; Group 2, $200 million, $500 million or 250 employees; Group 3, $50 million, $25 million or 100 employees (each "or more"). Groups 1 and 2 also take in NGER reporters, and Group 2 takes in asset owners such as super funds with $5 billion or more in assets; see AASB S2 climate reporting.

I

Interval data: Interval data is electricity use recorded by a meter in short, fixed periods through the day, such as every 30 minutes, rather than one total per bill. It shows when a site uses power as well as how much, and retailers and distributors can supply it as a file for each meter.
ISSB and IFRS S2: The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) sets global sustainability disclosure standards, and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures is its climate standard. The IFRS Foundation announced the ISSB on 3 November 2021, and it issued IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 on 26 June 2023. Australia's AASB S2 is based on IFRS S2.

K

kWh, MWh and GJ: Kilowatt-hours (kWh), megawatt-hours (MWh) and gigajoules (GJ) are units of energy: electricity is billed in kWh, and business gas is usually billed in megajoules (MJ) or GJ. 1 MWh is 1,000 kWh, 1 GJ is 1,000 MJ, and 1 kWh is 3.6 MJ, so 1 GJ is about 277.8 kWh.

L

Location-based method: The location-based method calculates Scope 2 emissions from electricity using the average emissions of the grid the electricity was drawn from. In Australia that means the state and grid factors in Table 1 of the NGA Factors, and AASB S2 requires Scope 2 to be disclosed this way. The emissions calculator uses it.

M

Market-based method: The market-based method calculates Scope 2 emissions from the electricity a company has bought through contracts and certificates, rather than from the grid average. In the NGA Factors, renewable electricity the company has invested in counts as zero and the rest is priced at a national residual mix factor (Table 2). Emitt doesn't calculate market-based Scope 2.
Materiality: Information is material if leaving it out, misstating it or obscuring it could reasonably be expected to influence the decisions of the people who rely on a company's financial reports, such as investors and lenders. AASB S2 asks for material climate-related information, so each company judges what matters for its own circumstances.
Measurement Determination (NGER): The NGER Measurement Determination is the legislative instrument that sets the methods and factors corporations must use to measure the emissions and energy they report under NGER. It is updated each year: the 2026 Update was issued for the 2026–27 reporting year. NGER reports follow the Determination, not the NGA Factors workbook.

N

National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) Factors: The National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) Factors are the emission factors the Australian Government publishes each year to help organisations estimate their emissions, including electricity factors by state and grid and combustion factors by fuel. They are published by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), and the 2026 edition was released alongside the NGER Measurement Determination update for the 2026–27 reporting year. See every electricity and fuel factor for 2024 to 2026 in the emissions calculator.
National Metering Identifier (NMI): A National Metering Identifier (NMI) is the unique 10-character number that identifies an electricity connection point in the National Electricity Market, and it appears on the electricity bill. Matching each NMI to a site is how a business makes sure every meter's usage lands against the right site.
Net zero: Net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions as far as possible and balancing whatever remains with removals, so the net amount added to the atmosphere is zero. Australia's Climate Change Act 2022 sets targets of net zero by 2050 and a 43% cut below 2005 levels by 2030.
NGER scheme: The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) scheme requires corporations above set thresholds to report their emissions and energy each financial year to the Clean Energy Regulator. A corporate group must report if it emits 50,000 t CO₂e or more, or produces or consumes 200 TJ or more of energy, and a single facility triggers reporting at 25,000 t CO₂e or 100 TJ. Reports for each 1 July to 30 June year are due by 31 October; see NGER reporting.

O

Organisational and operational boundaries: The organisational boundary sets which businesses, sites and assets a company includes in its emissions inventory, and the operational boundary sets which emissions from them it counts across Scopes 1, 2 and 3. The organisational boundary follows the approach the company chooses: equity share, financial control or operational control.

R

Renewable energy certificates (LGCs): A large-scale generation certificate (LGC) is a tradeable certificate that represents one megawatt-hour of renewable electricity from an accredited power station under the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target. Electricity retailers and other liable entities surrender LGCs to meet their obligations, and they are one of the contractual instruments behind market-based Scope 2 claims.
Reporting period: A reporting period is the span of time a report covers, usually a financial year. NGER uses the 1 July to 30 June year, and AASB S2 disclosures cover the same period as the company's financial statements.

S

Safeguard Mechanism: The Safeguard Mechanism sets emissions limits, called baselines, for Australian facilities that emit more than 100,000 t CO₂e of covered (Scope 1) emissions a year. Most baselines decline by 4.9% each financial year to 30 June 2030, and the Clean Energy Regulator administers the scheme.
Scope 1 emissions: Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from sources a company owns or controls, such as fuel burned in its vehicles, plant and boilers, and refrigerant leaking from its equipment. Work out fuel emissions in the emissions calculator.
Scope 2 emissions: Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from generating the electricity, steam, heating or cooling a company buys and uses. For most Australian businesses that is grid electricity, calculated with the state and grid factors in the NGA Factors; try it in the emissions calculator.
Scope 3 categories: The Scope 3 categories are the 15 groups the GHG Protocol uses to sort value chain emissions: eight upstream, such as purchased goods and services and waste generated in operations, and seven downstream, such as use of sold products. AASB S2 asks companies to consider all 15 and say which ones their Scope 3 figure includes.
Scope 3 emissions: Scope 3 emissions are all the other indirect emissions in a company's value chain, upstream and downstream, from purchased goods and subcontracted work to waste and the use of sold products. AASB S2 lets a company leave Scope 3 out of its first year of reporting. See Scope 3 supplier data.
Supplier-specific data: Supplier-specific data is emissions information a supplier or subcontractor provides about the goods or services it supplied to you, rather than an industry average or a spend-based estimate. It reflects what actually happened, including any reductions the supplier has made. See how Emitt collects it in Scope 3 supplier data.
Sustainability report: A sustainability report is the annual report that entities above the reporting thresholds must prepare under Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act, alongside their financial report. It holds the climate statements required by AASB S2, their notes and a directors' declaration.

T

tCO₂e (tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent): A tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO₂e) is 1,000 kilograms of CO₂e, the usual unit for reporting emissions. AASB S2 requires emissions to be disclosed in metric tonnes of CO₂e, and NGER thresholds are set in tonnes, such as 25,000 t CO₂e for a facility.
Transition plan: A transition plan is the part of a company's strategy that sets out its targets, actions or resources for moving to a lower-carbon economy, such as how it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. AASB S2 asks for information about any transition plan a company has, and Treasury published voluntary transition planning guidance in August 2026.

Want to see the factors behind these definitions at work? The emissions calculator prices electricity, gas and fuel with the NGA Factors and shows its working.

Last reviewed: 9 October 2026. Rules and thresholds change; check the regulator's own guidance before you rely on a date or a number.

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