Numbers You Can Defend

The email arrives on a Tuesday. A large customer wants your greenhouse gas emissions for last year, split into three categories nobody in the company has used before, deadline six weeks out. There is no sustainability department. There is a finance manager, an owner, and a decision. Most companies buy an engagement they cannot evaluate, or leave the fields blank and hope. A blank field is not neutral. It is read as an answer. This book is the third way. Written by a consultant who runs this work for a living, it hands over the workflow: how to calculate your footprint from records you already keep, how to find the few purchases that carry most of your emissions, how to get usable data from suppliers, how to answer questionnaires so they score, and which work is worth buying from a consultant. Every chapter ends with one task under two hours. By the last, you hold a working climate file: your numbers, your priorities, your answers, and a routine for keeping them current. Written for finance managers, owners and the one person in a small or medium sized company who has been handed the questionnaire. No sustainability background needed. Only your own records.