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Carbon & Climate Reporting
Climate Disclosure
Long-cycle programs where regulation, capital, and grid reliability define the pace.
Persefoni
Watershed
Measurabl
Microsoft Sustainability Cloud
Inside this journey
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Pre-Discovery
Align the room on outcomes, decision process, and constraints before deeper discovery.
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Stakeholder Alignment
Confirm decision roles (sustainability, finance, legal, audit committee), timelines, and what ‘good’ looks like for disclosures and assurance.
Alignment Questions
Quick Intro: Who’s in the Room?
- To kick off—who are the people on your internal team that will be directly involved in decision-making for climate disclosures?
- Who currently 'owns' the sustainability disclosure program day-to-day (data collection, narrative, and submission)?
- How urgent is your need to produce an auditable climate disclosure (e.g., next SEC filing, CSRD cycle)?
- What is the single biggest worry on your mind about the upcoming disclosure process?
- Who in your organization will ultimately sign off on the final disclosure (select primary and backups)?
Why Are We Still Waiting?
- If delays are the default, what’s the single assumption people keep making that keeps pushing decisions downstream?
- What specific bottlenecks have repeatedly slowed previous disclosure projects (people, systems, budget, governance, audit readiness)?
- Where do you tend to get stuck when trying to accelerate—process, approval, technical integration, or risk tolerance?
- How long have these bottlenecks been holding your team back, and what have you tried that worked even a little?
- On a scale from 1–5, how would you describe internal alignment today on making a binding decision (1 = misaligned, 5 = fully aligned)?
If the Audit Committee Could Snap Its Fingers…
- What would the audit committee consider an unacceptable outcome from your next climate disclosure?
- What level of external assurance do stakeholders and the board expect right now (if any)?
- How confident are you that your current controls and documentation would withstand reasonable assurance from a Big Four firm?
- Have you faced audit findings or regulatory questions about non-financial disclosures in the past? If yes, please describe what they focused on.
- If pursuing higher assurance requires investment, what trade-offs are your board or finance team willing to accept (time, budget, scope reduction)?
Where Your Data Hides — and What It Won’t Tell You
- What primary systems hold the emissions-related inputs we would need to connect to (select all that apply)?
- Which scopes (1, 2, 3) do you currently report on, and where are the largest blind spots?
- How documented and repeatable are your calculation methods today (e.g., emission factors, allocation rules)?
- Who are the system owners for the data sources you just selected, and how easy is it to get their time and access?
- Roughly what percentage of your disclosure data collection is manual vs automated today?
What Would 'Good' Actually Look Like Here?
- If a regulator, auditor, and an investor all reviewed your disclosure tomorrow—what three things would you want them to say?
- Which reporting frameworks and regulations are you targeting or required to meet in the near term?
- What does a successful first auditable filing look like for you (on-time, zero audit adjustments, limited assurance achieved, board endorsement)?
- Who are the primary external audiences whose confidence matters most (investors, regulators, customers, lenders), and why?
- What internal metrics would prove to you and the board that the disclosure program is working over the next 12 months?
Who Owns What When the Contract Starts?
- If we handed you a runbook tomorrow, who would be responsible for implementing connectors, owning calculations, and approving outputs?
- How comfortable are your IT and data teams with granting third-party access to the systems listed earlier (from 'fully comfortable' to 'requires lengthy approvals')?
- What SLAs or response times would your team require for remediation or data issues during build and post-launch?
- Who in your organization will approve commercial and legal terms, and how long does that approval normally take?
- Are there internal standards or audit protocols our implementation must meet (internal audit checklist, SOX linkage, data retention policies)? If so, please list them.
The Decision Moment — How Will You Choose?
- What would make you walk away from a vendor even if the product technically met your needs (e.g., lack of assurance expertise, poor references, data security doubts)?
- Which evaluation criteria will carry the most weight in your decision (select top three)?
- What demonstrations or proofs would you need to feel comfortable (dry-run, reference calls, pilot, sample audit trail)?
- Who must be present or consulted during the final vendor selection conversation (names/titles)?
- What procurement or budget milestones remain before a commercial commit can be made?
Ready to Commit — What Would Give You Confidence?
- If you could change one thing about your current disclosure process overnight, what would it be and why?
- What are your top three remaining unknowns that, if answered, would make you comfortable moving forward?
- Which formats of support would most reduce your perceived risk (select all that apply)?
- Practically speaking, what is the earliest your team could commit to a mutual commercial and legal agreement if all blockers are addressed?
- Who should we schedule as the next meeting attendees (names/titles), and what outcome should that meeting produce?
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Current State Mapping
Document existing data sources, controls, calculation methods, and gaps versus target frameworks and audit expectations.
Current State
Starting Where You Are: A Quick Snapshot
- Who is on the core team currently responsible for climate disclosures and day-to-day data collection?
- Which systems currently hold emissions-relevant data in your organization?
- Tell us briefly about the most recent climate disclosure you produced (frameworks reported, whether it was internally or externally assured, and who signed off).
- How confident are you that the source data feeding your Scope 1, Scope 2 and main Scope 3 categories is complete today?
- Which Scope 3 categories do you currently attempt to quantify (select all that apply)?
- Who prepares calculations and who performs final review/approval today? List roles or titles.
Is Your Data Actually Trustworthy — Or Are We Pretending?
- When was the last time someone traced a disclosed emissions number all the way back to a primary source document?
- What formal controls exist today for data capture, validation, and change management?
- Describe a recent instance when a data correction or restatement was needed—what caused it and how was it resolved?
- Are your emissions calculation methodologies documented, approved, and stored centrally?
- How are emission factors selected, governed, and updated in your process?
- Do you maintain an accessible audit trail (who changed what and when) for inputs and calculations?
Where The Gaps Bite the Hardest
- If an auditor asked for evidence of your Scope 3 calculations tomorrow, what specific gap or weakness would keep you awake?
- Which regulatory or framework requirements feel most out of reach for your current state?
- Where do sustainability, finance, and legal most frequently disagree about reported figures or methods? Give one concrete example.
- How often do cross-functional escalations occur because of disputes over climate numbers or methodology?
- What manual workarounds (spreadsheets, email reconciliations, offline approvals) do you depend on to complete disclosures?
How Calculations Really Happen (Not How We Wish They Did)
- Which specific calculations are you most worried would fail an assurance review?
- What tools or environments run those calculations today?
- Walk me through one calculation from raw input to the final disclosure line — what systems, people, and validations touch it?
- Do you capture version history and traceability for calculation formulas and templates?
- What’s your current process for updating calculation methods after a change in guidance or factor updates?
Who Truly Owns Each Piece — And Who's Missing
- Which role would you expect an auditor to ask to explain your disclosures—and could that person confidently do so with evidence today?
- List the named owners (by role/title) for data collection, calculation maintenance, quality review, and final sign-off; note any vacant or shared responsibilities.
- Do you have defined escalation and sign-off matrices for unresolved data issues?
- How do you currently engage suppliers to obtain Scope 3 inputs, and what response rates do you see?
- Which external parties regularly support your disclosures (select all that apply)?
Friction You Won't Admit In Public
- What's the messy internal truth about why your climate disclosures feel risky, delayed, or inconsistent?
- How often do filing or audit timelines get shifted because of data availability or control issues?
- Describe a recent internal debate over boundary decisions (e.g., organizational boundaries, consolidation, or materiality) and how it was resolved.
- Which internal teams most commonly resist changes to data collection or disclosure processes?
- How does investor or board pressure influence decisions you make about timing, disclosures, or assurance?
If We Could Patch One Thing Today, What Would Move The Needle?
- What’s the single smallest change that would significantly reduce your audit or filing risk?
- Which of the following would likely deliver the biggest immediate lift for you?
- Which of those improvements is realistic to implement within the next 3 months given current sponsorship and budget?
- What budget, executive sponsor, or internal mandate would unlock that change?
- Who would need to sign off on a remediation backlog or systems integration to move forward quickly?
What 'Good' Looks Like to Your Board and Auditor
- If your audit committee asked what would make them feel confident about your disclosures, which single piece of evidence would reassure them most?
- What level of assurance are you targeting (or being asked to target) for upcoming filings?
- By what filing or board deadline does the organization need to be 'filing-ready' with auditable records?
- What would you include as minimum acceptance criteria to call a disclosure 'filing-ready'?
Let’s Talk About Data Access and Integration — The Painful Details
- Which single system or data feed, if unavailable, would break your ability to produce the disclosure?
- Which connectors or integrations do you already have versus which are missing?
- Describe typical timelines and blockers for granting read-only access or API credentials to those systems.
- Who controls credentials and approves data access requests in your organization?
- Are there legal, security or contractual constraints we should know about that limit data transfer or storage?
Next Steps — How We Would Work Together
- If we ran a focused 6–8 week Current State Mapping engagement with you, what single deliverable would you insist we deliver at the end?
- Which output would you prefer first: a prioritized remediation backlog, a detailed data map with lineage, or a controls gap & audit trail readiness report?
- Which stakeholders must be present in discovery workshops to make them productive?
- What concerns or risks should we flag before starting the mapping so we can plan mitigations up front?
- What cadence of check-ins would you prefer during the mapping phase?
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Outcome Discovery
Define target frameworks, desired assurance level, filing deadlines, success signals, and provider evaluation criteria.
Discovery Questions
Starting Point: Tell Us About Today
- Quick snapshot—what disclosure frameworks or rules are you already preparing for this year?
- Who currently owns the work to produce climate disclosures in your organization?
- What are the filing or reporting deadlines we need to know about in the next 12 months?
- How would you describe your current level of confidence that your data and narrative will withstand external assurance or audit?
- Who will be involved in reviewing and signing off disclosure outputs before they go external?
Why Keep Doing This the Same Way?
- If your current process had to survive an external assurance engagement tomorrow, what would worry you most?
- How much of your disclosure workflow is manual (spreadsheets, emailed files, manual reconciliations) versus automated?
- When data issues surface, how long does it typically take to trace, correct, and re-run calculations?
- Tell us about a recent disclosure or audit moment that felt stressful—what happened and why did it stand out?
- Which internal stakeholders express the loudest concerns about the current approach (and what are they afraid might happen)?
What Would 'Audit-Ready' Actually Feel Like?
- If an assurance provider said you were 'audit-ready' today, what tangible differences would you notice in your day-to-day work?
- What level of assurance are you aiming for (or required to obtain) for your next filing?
- Which outcomes would make you declare the engagement a success three months after filing?
- What evidence or artifacts would you expect to have in place to satisfy auditors (examples: reconciliations, data lineage, calculation logs, control narratives)?
- How would a failed assurance or significant auditor query affect your business (reputational, regulatory, financial timelines)?
Picking the Right Standard — Are We Choosing What's Safe or What's Strategic?
- Are we pursuing a single primary framework because it's most applicable, or multiple frameworks because different stakeholders demand it?
- Which frameworks must be covered for compliance versus which are prioritized for investor or market signaling?
- Are there jurisdictional conflicts or differences that could force different methodologies across regions?
- What parts of the frameworks cause the most uncertainty for your team (Scope 3 boundary setting, materiality assessment, attribution methods, scenario analysis, etc.)?
- If we had to map one small pilot to a single framework to prove the approach, which framework and disclosure area would you choose?
Who Needs To Be Comfortable Before We Move Forward?
- If we presented a vendor that met technical requirements but required organizational change, who is most likely to push back—and why?
- What are the top three criteria you’ll use to evaluate a provider for this program?
- What red flags from past vendor experiences would cause you to stop a proof-of-concept mid-flight?
- Which internal committees or approvals must sign off before contracting (choose all that apply)?
- How important is having advisors with prior assurance experience as part of the vendor team in your decision?
Reality Check — Data, Controls, and Gaps That Break Deals
- What systems hold the data you’ll need to produce disclosures (select all that apply)?
- Which datasets do you trust least today (and why)—activity data, emissions factors, spend-to‑activity mappings, supplier estimates, or internal allocations?
- Do you have documented calculation methodologies and version-controlled calculation logic for key metrics?
- How mature are your internal control processes that would support assurance testing (access controls, change management, reconciliation routines)?
- If we asked for a small sample of raw source files and a reconciled output for a past period, how quickly could your team deliver them?
If We Could Snap Our Fingers, What's the Minimum That Must Change?
- What is the smallest viable scope that would materially reduce risk for your next filing (e.g., Scope 1+2 only, select Scope 3 categories, a single material business unit)?
- Which platform modules would be required for that minimum scope to be successful?
- What internal roles would you expect to own each part of the minimum scope (data provisioning, calculation review, control testing, sign-off)?
- What would be a realistic, conservative timeline to get that minimum scope filing-ready (from kickoff to dry‑run)?
- What are absolute deal-breakers for the minimum scope (examples: no access to certain systems, unwillingness to adopt shared controls, budget caps)?
What Would Success Look Like After Go‑Live?
- Beyond the first filing, what ongoing capabilities would make you feel like the program is delivering long-term value?
- Which KPIs would you track to prove the program is working (reduction in manual effort, time-to-close, audit queries, number of exceptions, assurance cost)?
- How do you want the vendor to support you during the first assurance engagement (hands-on fieldwork support, control testing, liaison with auditors, training)?
- What would make you confident to renew or expand the program after 12 months?
- How do you prefer to monitor ongoing issues and enhancements post-go-live (regular governance calls, shared issue tracker, monthly dashboard, quarterly business reviews)?
Next Steps — Can We Build Confidence Now?
- If we proposed a focused pilot to demonstrate audit-readiness for one material disclosure area, how likely are you to greenlight it?
- Which commercial model would be most comfortable for a pilot-to-scale approach?
- What key legal or procurement terms would halt progress if they cannot be met (data residency, liability limits, audit rights, confidentiality)?
- What would you like us to deliver as proof points from a 6–8 week pilot (examples: populated disclosure template, control evidence pack, sample assurance memo)?
- Who should we invite to the next scoping meeting so we can move from conversation to an actionable pilot plan?
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Solution Experience
Walk through how our software, data architecture, and advisory services deliver auditable disclosures in your real scenarios.
Experience Meetings
- Solution Experience Prep: Current State Confirmation
- Consequence & Prioritization Workshop
- Live Solution Experience — Customer Scenario Dry‑Run
- Assurance Readiness & Controls Review
- Validation, Scope Alignment & Next Steps
- Align advisory engagement steps needed to support the assurance process.
- Introductions & objectives
- Seller: Map how platform capabilities address each quantified consequence and circulate a short mapping memo.
- Customer: Confirm attending stakeholders for the live experience who can validate results against the decision criteria.
- One‑sentence future state re-affirmation
- Prove the platform delivers the agreed future-state outcomes for the customer's scenario.
- Validate calculation outputs, traceability, and audit artifacts with customer decision makers.
- Identify remediation items and estimate work required to reach filing‑ready state.
- Seller: Provide step-by-step demo artifacts (log files, calculation worksheets, audit trail exports) used in the dry‑run.
- Customer: Confirm validation responses and sign off on which results are acceptable or require remediation.
- Seller & Customer: Document remediation backlog with owners and SLA targets.
- Control requirements recap
- Confirm the control framework and evidence package meet assurance provider expectations.
- Agree on control ownership and remediation SLAs to close dry‑run findings.
- Customer: Provide the agreed sample datasets and grant connector/test access.
- Seller: Deliver the audit-ready documentation package template and control mapping spreadsheet.
- Customer: Assign control owners and confirm SLA commitments for remediation.
- Seller & Customer: Schedule a joint call with the selected assurance provider to validate expectations.
- Summary of validation outcomes
- Obtain explicit customer confirmation that the Solution Experience proves the desired future state.
- Agree final scope, measurable deliverables, and acceptance criteria for the SOW.
- Set a clear path to Mutual Commit with owners, dates, and necessary procurement/legal actions.
- Seller: Draft and circulate a Mutual Commit summary including scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and remediation backlog.
- Customer: Provide procurement/legal input and any required contract templates or risk items to address.
- Seller & Customer: Schedule the Mutual Commit meeting and assign pre-meeting deliverables.
- Produce a single, crystal-clear current state sentence the team agrees on.
- Document explicit consequences linked to the current state (cost, timing, audit risk).
- Confirm sample scenarios and data access for the live Solution Experience.
- Agree on success signals and validation checkpoints for the dry‑run.
- Seller: Draft and circulate the one-sentence current state and consequence summary.
- Seller: Prepare the dry-run script mapping each validation checkpoint to demo steps.
- Customer: Identify primary decision maker(s) who will validate results.
- Recap current state and evidence
- Convert gaps into explicit, quantified consequences across cost, timing, and audit risk.
- Align stakeholders on which outcomes are highest priority and measurable.
- Set decision criteria the team will use to accept the solution demonstration.
- Customer: Provide any available cost/time/risk estimates or examples of rework for prioritized areas.
- One‑sentence current state
- Platform control workflows demonstration
- Live data ingest and architecture walkthrough
- Quantify consequence
- Confirm measurable deliverables and acceptance criteria
- Review proposed solution scope and responsibilities
- Calculation engine run with company methodologies
- Audit evidence package walkthrough
- Stakeholder impact mapping
- Consequence snapshot
- Prioritization exercise
- Audit trail & controls proof
- Assurance provider expectations & mock audit Q&A
- Confirm scenarios & sample datasets
- Commercial and legal pre-checks
- Formatted disclosure output and comparability to filing requirements
- Agree immediate next steps and timeline to Mutual Commit
- Data access & pre-demo checklist
- Define top 3 measurable outcomes
- Agree control owners, SLAs, and remediation timelines
- Validation checkpoints and success signals
- Validation checkpoints and forced confirmations
- Wrap up and immediate decisions
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Solution Scope
Define modules (data connectors, calculation engine, assurance advisory, dry-run), responsibilities, and measurable deliverables.
Scope Configuration
- Configure ERP and Utility Data Connectors
- Ingest and Normalize Energy, Fuel, and Travel Data
- Map and Apply Emissions Factors Library
- Calculate Scope 1 Emissions by Facility and Source
- Calculate Scope 2 (Location‑and Market‑Based)
- Calculate Scope 3: Purchased Goods & Services
- Calculate Scope 3: Business Travel & Employee Commuting
- Calculate Scope 3: Transportation & Distribution
- Calculate Scope 3: Use of Sold Products & End‑of‑Life
- Build Assurance‑Grade Data Lineage and Audit Trail
- Populate SEC‑formatted Climate Disclosure Outputs
- Generate IFRS S1/S2 and TCFD Disclosure Files
- Assemble Assurance Evidence Package for Auditors
- Deliver Platform Training for Finance and Sustainability Teams
Scope Questions
Configure ERP and Utility Data Connectors
- Do you want us to configure connectors to your ERP(s) and utility portals?
- Which source systems should be connected (select all that apply)?
- What is the preferred integration method for each system (API, SFTP, flat file, direct DB)? Please list by system.
- How much historical data should be pulled during onboarding?
- How frequently should connectors sync (near‑real time / daily / weekly / monthly)?
- Are there security or network constraints (e.g., IP allowlists, VPN, data residency) we must accommodate?
Ingest and Normalize Energy, Fuel, and Travel Data
- Which data categories will you ingest for this scope module?
- What file formats or structures do your sources provide (CSV, XML, JSON, EDI, other)?
- Do data require unit conversions, timezone normalization, or consolidation by facility?
- How do you currently handle missing or estimated consumption data (imputation rules, averages, nulls)?
- What minimum data quality thresholds should be applied (e.g., >90% meter coverage per facility)?
- Who owns data validation and exception remediation (Sustainability, Finance, Facilities, IT)?
Map and Apply Emissions Factors Library
- Which emissions factor sources do you require (select all that apply)?
- Do you need both market-based and location-based factor libraries maintained and versioned?
- How often should factors be updated and timestamped in the library (annually, quarterly, ad-hoc)?
- Will you provide any custom emission factors or adjustment rules per supplier/product?
- What governance/approval process do you require for factor changes (who signs off)?
- Do you need traceability from factor selection back to authoritative source documents for audit purposes?
Calculate Scope 1 Emissions by Facility and Source
- Do you require facility-level Scope 1 granularity (facility, site, or plant)?
- Which Scope 1 sources do you have (select all that apply)?
- Are consumption data measured (metered) or estimated for each source?
- How should shared/emergency equipment emissions be allocated across facilities or business units?
- Do you require per-source uncertainty or tolerance reporting (for assurance sampling)?
- What acceptance criteria define a successful Scope 1 calculation (e.g., reconciles to AP/GL fuel spend within X%)?
Calculate Scope 2 (Location‑and Market‑Based)
- Do you require both location-based and market-based Scope 2 results published?
- Do you have proof of attribute certificates (I-REC, GOs, RECs) and contract details for market-based calculations?
- At what granularity do you need grid factors applied (country, region, utility, substation)?
- How should residual mix or supplier-specific factors be prioritized if multiple factor sources exist?
- Do you need certificate retirement tracking and reporting tied to specific consumption?
- What reporting outputs are required for disclosures (tables, narrative statements, reconciliation notes)?
Calculate Scope 3: Purchased Goods & Services
- Do you plan to calculate Purchased Goods & Services from spend data, supplier LCA data, or hybrid methods?
- Which procurement systems or datasets will be used (AP, POs, PCard, procurement catalogs)?
- Do you have category mappings (e.g., to GHG Protocol categories) or do we need to create them?
- What materiality threshold or prioritization should we apply to supplier categories (e.g., top X suppliers by spend)?
- Will you engage suppliers for primary data or accept secondary/default factors?
- What assurance evidence do you expect for Purchased Goods calculations (supplier attestations, invoices, LCA studies)?
Calculate Scope 3: Business Travel & Employee Commuting
- Which travel data sources are available for integration (TMC, Concur, Amadeus, expense system)?
- Do you want trip-level emissions (flight segment, cabin class, distance) or aggregated estimates?
- For commuting, do you have survey data, payroll/schedule data, or should we run a survey?
- How should business travel related to subsidiaries or affiliates be treated?
- Do you require privacy-preserving handling of employee-level travel data (masking, anonymization)?
- What reporting cadence and drilldowns do you require for travel emissions (monthly, quarterly, by traveler, by cost center)?
Calculate Scope 3: Transportation & Distribution
- What logistics data sources are available (TMS, carrier EDI, bills of lading, freight invoices)?
- Which emission calculation method do you prefer for freight (fuel-based, distance-weighted, shipment-weight-distance)?
- Do you need to model empty miles, backhauls, and 3PL subcontracting emissions?
- Do carriers provide shipment-level fuel/efficiency data or only invoices/spend?
- What allocation rules should be used for multi-stop shipments or consolidated freight?
- Are contractual scopes with carriers required for market-based reporting (e.g., verified low-carbon carriers)?
Calculate Scope 3: Use of Sold Products & End‑of‑Life
- Which product categories are in-scope for use-phase and end-of-life emissions?
- Do you have product usage profiles, lifetimes, and user behavior data to model use-phase emissions?
- Which end-of-life scenarios should be modeled (landfill, recycling rate, incineration)?
- Do you require product-level disclosures or aggregated portfolio-level metrics?
- Will you provide primary supplier/manufacturer data for product emissions or rely on LCI databases?
- What uncertainty allowances or sensitivity scenarios do you require for use-phase and EoL assumptions?
Build Assurance‑Grade Data Lineage and Audit Trail
- What level of assurance is being targeted for the engagement?
- What retention period is required for audit evidence and logs (e.g., 6 years)?
- Do you require immutable change-logs and versioning for source data, mappings, and calculated outputs?
- Who will be the internal owner(s) responsible for maintaining the audit trail (Sustainability, Finance, Internal Audit)?
- Are there specific control frameworks or SOC / SOX integrations required for auditors?
- What sample sizes or transaction-level traceability will auditors require for verification (e.g., X% of facilities)?
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Mutual Commit
Finalize commercial and legal terms, SLAs, assurance support commitments, and a go-live/filing-ready acceptance plan.
Agreement Modules
- Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
- Master Services Agreement (MSA)
- Statement of Work (SOW)
- Commercial Terms & Pricing Schedule
- Purchase Order / Payment Schedule
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Data Processing Agreement (DPA) & Security Addendum
- Assurance Support Commitment
- Go‑Live and Filing‑Readiness Acceptance Plan
- Implementation Timeline & Milestones
- Roles, Responsibilities & RACI
- Change Order & Scope Management
- Audit Trail & Evidence Retention Protocol
- Escalation, Governance & Steering Committee Charter
- Termination, Exit & Data Return Plan
- Insurance, Indemnity & Regulatory Liability Addendum
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Deployment
Operationalize rollout with readiness checks, enablement, and outcome validation.
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Pre-Deployment Readiness
Confirm data access, system owners, mapping plans, emission factors, and control requirements before build begins.
Readiness Questions
Quick Intro: Who’s in the Room?
- Which of these best describes your role in the disclosure or deployment process?
- What is the primary regulatory or investor-driven filing you are preparing for (select the one that matters most now)?
- Roughly how many employees and/or revenue band best describes your company (this helps us size deployment assumptions)?
- Who else (functions or committees) will be actively involved in data approvals and sign-offs for this project?
If You Can’t Get the Data, Nothing Else Matters
- How confident are you that the stakeholders who control source systems will grant timely access for connector builds?
- Which access patterns will be available for key systems we need to connect to?
- If access is restricted, what has typically blocked it in prior projects—policy, security reviews, vendor contracts, or something else?
- How long does it typically take your IT/security team to approve a new data connector from request to production?
- If granting access could be faster, what would need to change—additional resources, pre-approved security template, executive escalation, or something else?
Where the Data Hides—and Why It’s Hard to Reach
- How fragmented is your emissions and energy data today across systems and teams?
- Which source systems contain the most relevant data we’ll need to map (select all that apply)?
- Do you already have sample extracts or data schemas from those systems that we can review?
- Describe the most awkward or manual step your team currently does when compiling emissions data (tell a short story).
- How frequently do your source systems produce the data we’ll need (select all that apply)?
- What specific data quality problems have surfaced before—missing fields, mismatched units, duplicate records, or long reconciliation lead times?
Do Your Numbers Tell a Courtroom‑Worthy Story?
- How confident are you that your current data lineage, calculations, and controls would satisfy an external assurance provider?
- What formal controls and reconciliations do you already have in place for emissions and energy figures?
- Have you previously had a third-party limited or reasonable assurance engagement on any climate or emissions data?
- When you look back at the last time numbers were questioned, what root cause came up most often—data ingestion errors, methodology disagreement, supplier gaps, or governance issues?
- What audit trail artifacts would be hardest for your team to produce quickly—source extracts, calculation logs, change history, or sign-off records?
- How would failing an assurance dry run affect your filing timeline or board confidence?
Emission Factors: Faith, Facts, or Fuzzy Math?
- How confident are you that your current emission factor choices are defensible and aligned to the frameworks you’re targeting?
- Which emission factor sources do you currently rely on (select all that apply)?
- Do you version and date-stamp the emission factors used so past submissions can be reconstructed?
- For scope 3 categories, how much of the factor selection is based on supplier data versus proxy / modelled factors?
- Where have disagreements about factors or methodology caused delays or rework in the past?
Mapping the Journey: From Source Field to Filing Line
- Do you already have a documented field-to-disclosure mapping (source field → calculation → disclosure line)?
- If mapping is partial, which areas are the biggest gaps—scope 3 categories, travel data, utility normalization, or consolidation across legal entities?
- Who would own maintaining the mapping and business rules after deployment?
- How long do you estimate it would take your team to complete mappings for your most material sources if dedicated resources were assigned?
- Are there legal entity consolidations, carve-outs, or recent acquisitions that complicate mapping and reconciliation (briefly describe)?
- What internal approvals are required to finalize mapping decisions (titles, committees, or cadence)?
Acceptance, Dry‑Runs and the Moment of Truth
- If a dry‑run surfaced material discrepancies, would you be willing to postpone filing to remediate, or must you meet the planned filing date at all costs?
- What acceptance criteria would signal to you that the system is 'filing‑ready' (e.g., reconciliation within X%, audit trail complete, senior sign-off)?
- Who will sign the final acceptance for go‑live and filing readiness?
- What remediation window (days) do you need between dry‑run results and final filing to execute fixes and re-test?
- Describe the most important improvement you’d expect to see after a successful dry‑run (accuracy, speed, auditability, confidence, or something else).
People, Decision Rights, and Escalation Paths
- Who are the three people we should expect to engage with regularly during deployment (name + role is ideal)?
- Which stakeholder will be the single point of contact for urgent blocker escalation?
- How involved will your external auditors or assurance advisors be during the pre‑deployment phase?
- When a cross‑functional conflict arises (e.g., legal vs. sustainability on method), what is your escalation path to make a final decision?
- How does this project rank against other near-term priorities for those decision-makers (critical, important, nice-to-have, or low)?
Practical Constraints, Timeline and Budget Reality
- What is your target date for starting build (when connectors and config begin)?
- What internal bandwidth (FTEs or team percentage) can you realistically commit to the deployment during the first 90 days?
- Have you allocated a budget band for implementation efforts, including advisory and connector work?
- What single constraint (timeline, budget, headcount, executive attention) do you believe is most likely to slow deployment?
- If we were to propose a minimum viable deliverable that must be in place before build (e.g., signed access approvals, sample extracts, steering committee), which would you prioritize?
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Deployment Enablement
Schedule and execute connector builds, calculation configurations, advisory checkpoints, and the full disclosure dry run.
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Validation Checklist
Verify acceptance criteria, audit trail completeness, formatted disclosure outputs, and remediation of dry-run findings.
Validation Questions
Getting Comfortable — Tell Us Who's in the Room
- Which title best describes your role today?
- Are you part of a public company, private company, or another entity type?
- Roughly how large is your organization by revenue or market cap?
- Which disclosure frameworks or rules are you actively preparing for?
- Who are the key decision-makers for choosing a disclosure platform (names or roles)?
- What is the single biggest reason you agreed to this conversation today?
Are You Confident Your Numbers Will Hold Up?
- If an auditor asked for the source, calculation and evidence behind any emissions number, how confident are you that your team could produce it within 48 hours?
- Which Scopes do you currently calculate and disclose today?
- How would you describe your current internal controls over emissions data (ownership, reconciliation, approval)?
- Have you previously obtained external assurance on any climate or emissions figures?
- When reviewers have challenged your disclosures in the past, what specific evidence or calculation issues came up most often?
- How often do you reconcile key activity data (energy, fuel, miles, spend) to financial or operational ledgers?
What's the Story Behind Your Data?
- How many different source systems (ERP, utility bills, travel, procurement, spreadsheets, meters) feed into your emissions calculations today?
- Name the top three data sources and indicate whether each connection is automated or manual.
- Which of these sources do you currently ingest automatically?
- Where do manual interventions or spreadsheets cause the most frequent errors or delays?
- Do you have a single 'source of truth' dataset for emissions, or multiple datasets that are reconciled before reporting?
- How confident are your IT/technical owners about building connectors and APIs for these systems?
Where the Clock Is Ticking
- If a required filing deadline moved up by six weeks, what would break first in your process?
- List your firm’s absolute external reporting deadlines over the next 12 months (SEC filings, CSRD timelines, voluntary submissions).
- Who has the final go/no-go authority for filing readiness?
- How many full-time equivalent staff currently manage climate data and disclosures?
- When did you last run a full disclosure dry-run from source-data through formatted output?
- If we agreed on a go-live date today, what would be an acceptable timeline to be filing-ready?
How Much Risk Are You Willing to Carry?
- Would you prioritize meeting a filing deadline with limited assurance, or delaying slightly to obtain reasonable assurance?
- What level of assurance is your board or audit committee currently leaning toward?
- What keeps your audit committee awake at night when they think about climate disclosures?
- Have you estimated financial or reputational exposure linked to potential disclosure errors or restatements?
- Which legal/compliance sign-offs are required before publishing climate disclosures?
- How important is maintaining an immutable audit trail and version control for your team?
If You Could Wave a Wand
- Imagine your first regulated filing was flawless and unchallenged — what single change made that possible?
- Which formatted outputs are mission-critical for you (select all that must be automated)?
- What does ‘filing-ready’ mean from your finance team’s perspective (ledger alignment, sign-offs, audit evidence)?
- How tightly do you need emissions calculations integrated with your general ledger or financial systems?
- If budget were no constraint, which mix would you choose: software only, advisory only, software + advisory, or software + advisory + assurance facilitation?
- Which measurable outcomes would convince you the solution is working (pick top three)?
What Would It Cost You to Do Nothing?
- If you kept your current approach while regulations tightened for two years, what three risks would you expect to materialize?
- Have investors, auditors, or regulators raised concerns about your climate data in the past 12 months?
- How many hours per week does your team spend on manual collection, reconciliation, and preparing disclosure spreadsheets?
- Have suppliers or third parties failed to provide required Scope 3 data, and how is that currently handled?
- How important is reducing ongoing disclosure cost and headcount pressure to your leadership?
Deciding Who Sits Beside You
- What would make a vendor feel like a true partner rather than 'just software' during your first year of engagement?
- Which vendor evaluation criteria will carry the most weight in your decision?
- How would you structure a pilot or proof-of-value so you could confidently evaluate us?
- Who controls budget and procurement for this purchase, and what is your procurement timeline?
- What vendor red flags would immediately disqualify a potential partner?
- Would you want us to run a full dry-run with your auditors and key internal stakeholders present as part of onboarding?
A Practical Next Step — How Should We Start Together?
- Based on what we’ve discussed, what single outcome would you like to achieve in the next 90 days?
- Who should be on our core working group for a discovery and scoping workshop?
- What documents or artifacts should we review during discovery (e.g., current disclosures, methodology docs, supplier templates)?
- How do you prefer to measure progress during implementation (weekly checkpoints, milestone sign-offs, steering committee)?
- When would you be available to schedule an initial discovery workshop?
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Success
Review outcomes against success signals, document learnings, and maintain a shared channel for issues and enhancements.
Success Reviews
- Success Review & Acceptance
- Lessons Learned & Retrospective Workshop
- Operational Handoff & Support Channel Setup
- Enhancements Roadmap & Prioritization
- Assurance & Audit Closeout
Issues & Enhancements
- Agree on governance checkpoints to review roadmap progress and re-prioritize if requirements or regulations change.
- Handoff Overview
- Establish a durable shared channel and clear protocols so operational issues and enhancement requests are tracked and responded to reliably.
- Define SLAs and escalation paths to reduce response times and ensure appropriate visibility for critical issues.
- Ensure platform owners have runbooks and training needed to operate the system without frequent ad-hoc support.
- Create the shared channel and invite named owners from customer and vendor teams; post the SLA matrix and runbook links.
- Publish an operational RACI and on-call roster with 24/7 or business-hour responsibilities as agreed.
- Schedule knowledge transfer sessions and attach recordings to the knowledge repository.
- Input Summary
- Produce a dated roadmap for enhancements that balances regulatory urgency, audit risk, and available budget/effort.
- Assign owners and acceptance criteria so each roadmap item can be executed and verified before the next filing.
- Introductions & Meeting Objectives
- Publish the prioritized roadmap with owners, target release windows, and acceptance criteria to the shared channel.
- Create development tickets for the top 3 roadmap items and include test and verification tasks for assurance readiness.
- Confirm budget approvals or PO issuance for enhancements requiring commercial commitment.
- Assurance Findings Summary
- Close out assurance findings with agreed remediation actions, owners, and timelines acceptable to auditors and finance.
- Confirm that evidence retention and access meet corporate and auditor requirements for regulatory inspections.
- Define pre-audit readiness checkpoints to minimize surprises in the next assurance engagement.
- Record and circulate the assurance closeout memo with remediation actions and deadlines.
- Store the certified evidence package in the agreed secure repository with access logs enabled.
- Schedule a pre-audit readiness check-in 60 days before the next planned assurance engagement.
- Confirm whether the delivery meets the pre-defined success signals and obtain formal acceptance or conditional acceptance.
- Surface and assign remediation for any gaps that block acceptance with clear owners and deadlines.
- Ensure executive alignment across sustainability, finance, legal and assurance stakeholders about the published outcome.
- Produce a one-page acceptance record signed by designated approvers and circulate to stakeholders.
- Create remediation tickets for any open findings with owners, target dates, and verification criteria.
- Deliver the evidence package (audit trails, calculation outputs, narrative versions) to the corporate record repository and assurance team.
- Set the Tone & Goals
- Document concrete lessons and root causes that impacted disclosure quality, timeline, or assurance.
- Create a prioritized improvement backlog with clear owners and success criteria for each item.
- Agree on a cadence for tracking retrospective actions and verifying closure before the next filing cycle.
- Publish the retrospective report with root causes, prioritized improvements, owners, and target dates.
- Open tracked tickets (Jira/Asana) for the top 3 improvements and add them to the program roadmap.
- Schedule a 30/60/90 day check-in cadence to review progress on retrospective actions.
- Evidence Package Review
- Prioritization Framework
- Success Signals Recap
- What Went Well
- Shared Channel & Communication Protocols
- Measured Outcomes vs Targets
- Remediation Plan for Auditor Requests
- SLAs, Escalation & On-call Roster
- Estimate & Scheduling
- What Didn't Go Well / Root Cause Analysis
- Open Issues and Risks
- Improvement Ideas & Prioritization
- Control Improvements & Future Audit Readiness
- Owner Commitments & Acceptance Criteria
- Operational Runbooks & Knowledge Transfer
- Documentation & Retention Compliance
- Acceptance Decision & Sign-off
- Recurring Cadence & Reporting
- Action Planning & Owners
- Governance & Funding
- Next Steps & Immediate Actions