Data Quality Flags: What They Mean and How to Resolve Them

Your emissions intensity (tCO2e/£M revenue) falls significantly outside the range for your industry. This typically happens when the revenue figure is incorrect, significant Scope 3 spending categories are missing, your operations are genuinely different from peers, or a one-off event affected this year.

Verify your revenue against your accounting records (lower revenue inflates intensity; higher deflates it), review your Scope 3 spending categories for completeness, and provide context for any legitimate differences or recent business changes.

Your Scope 3 spending appears insufficient for a company your size. For most suppliers, Scope 3 represents 60–90% of the total footprint, so gaps here have a significant impact. Common causes include omitted categories (subcontracted manufacturing, professional services, temporary staffing, outbound logistics, utilities, waste, facility costs, business travel), incomplete spend data, or shared corporate services allocated to other business units.

To identify gaps, export your general ledger or accounts payable, organise by spending category or supplier, map to Scope 3 categories, and total annual spend by category. Cover all operating entities, all business units and cost centers, and a full 12 months. Where exact data isn't available, estimate using supplier invoices, employee headcount, or historical percentages — and note all estimates clearly.

If you're measuring Scope 3 for the first time, start with what you have, document your methodology, and be transparent that it's a first-year submission. First-year data won't be perfect — it establishes a baseline and demonstrates commitment.

This usually points to double-counted spending, non-operational transactions (loans, dividends, capital purchases), or unclear scope boundaries.

Remove any duplicated or non-operational items, clarify scope boundaries, and provide justification if Scope 3 legitimately dominates your footprint. Before resubmitting, sanity-check your figures: does Scope 3 represent a reasonable proportion of your total footprint for your industry? Can you explain each major category?

This often reflects a genuinely asset-light or service-focused business, or facilities that are leased rather than owned.

Provide an explanation if Scope 1 or 2 is legitimately minimal, gather any direct operations data available, and confirm whether the lessor or lessee is responsible for reporting emissions on leased assets.

A significant change without documentation — whether an increase or decrease — will be flagged for review.

Document the reason (acquisition, divestment, growth, efficiency programme, or methodology change), confirm both years used the same calculation approach, and share any supporting documentation.

Enter your annual revenue from your audited accounts. For non-profits or government organisations, provide an equivalent metric such as budget, grants, or programme spend.

Review all required fields, fill in any blanks, and ensure data is in the correct format (currency, units, dates). Attach supporting documentation where relevant.

Confirm your industry classification is correct, provide context if your emissions are legitimately different from sector peers, and document any efficiency initiatives or unusual items. You can request a sector comparison to understand the expected range.

Start by reading the specific issue and understanding what data element triggered the check. Go back to your source documents, verify the data, and identify any gaps or errors. Then choose one of three approaches:

Aim to respond to any flagged issue within one week. Manual review takes 3–5 business days after your response, and you'll receive a final decision within two weeks total.