In this two-part series, Thibault Boiron, Director, Supply Chain Decarbonization at RESET Carbon, examines the role of carbon management software metrics in driving meaningful decarbonization. In Part 1, he challenged a widely used carbon management software metric which falls short by measuring data volume instead of climate impact. In this second installment, he draws on his extensive consulting experience in supply chain decarbonization to propose a more meaningful measurement for organizations.
In Part 1 of this series, I argued that “Emissions Under Management” (EUM) is the wrong metric for carbon management software on the basis that it measures data volume, not climate impact. So, what should we measure instead?
The headline metric we need: Emissions Reduction Enabled
I propose a shift toward Emissions Reduction Enabled (ERE): the quantity of real, verifiable emissions reductions achieved by customers that are at least partially attributable to the platform’s role in identifying, prioritizing, and supporting those reductions.
This is not the total change in a customer’s footprint. After all, business downturns, grid decarbonization, and accounting methodology changes can all move that number without the software doing anything meaningful. Instead, ERE is the portion of reductions that can be reasonably connected to the software’s contribution.
What should count toward it:
- Verified absolute reductions in Scope 1-3 emissions, year-over-year on a like-for-like basis
- Operational reductions linked to implemented measures the platform helped identify or track: energy efficiency, fuel switching, electrification, renewable electricity procurement
- Supplier decarbonization outcomes driven through platform-enabled engagement programs
What should not count (without careful handling):
- Reductions from grid decarbonization the customer had no role in driving
- Changes from methodology or emission factor updates: these are accounting shifts, not physical changes
- Reductions that would have happened regardless, rather than being driven by actions enabled by the software
The attribution challenge is real, but it’s not a reason to give up
The obvious objection is that software doesn’t reduce emissions directly. A procurement manager does. A CFO does. A supplier does. How can a platform claim credit?
This challenge isn’t unique to carbon management software. Impact investors have grappled with it for years and built workable frameworks around contribution rather than causation. The voluntary carbon market has wrestled with additionality for decades. The answer isn’t to abandon attribution, it’s to be explicit about the method.
This is a problem I know firsthand. Before moving into sustainability, I spent nearly a decade leading omnichannel and digital commerce strategy at Altima and Accenture, advising Fortune 500 clients across retail, luxury, and consumer goods. Attribution was one of the central challenges we helped clients navigate: which channel deserves credit when a customer visits after a display ad, returns via search two days later, and finally converts on a promotional email? Which channel gets the credit?
Under last-click attribution, the email claims the entire conversion. Under first-click, the display ad does. Neither reflects reality. What the industry learned over time is that the display ad created awareness, the search result drove consideration, and the email closed the deal. Each touchpoint played a role. None of them alone caused the conversion.
Digital analytics teams solved this by distinguishing between ‘direct conversions’ (the channel that closed the deal) and ‘assisted conversions’ (the channels that contributed earlier in the journey). Multi-touch attribution models then distribute credit across all touchpoints based on their position and influence in the funnel, with transparency about the weighting methodology used.
Building a credible model of contribution
The parallel to carbon management software is striking. A company reduces its Scope 3 emissions by 15% in a year. Was it the platform that identified the high-emission suppliers? The scenario modeling that helped the procurement team prioritize? The supplier engagement program that drove data collection and target-setting? Or would the company have reduced emissions anyway, driven by a new CFO mandate or a grid that quietly decarbonized? The answer is almost always a combination, and the honest response isn’t to claim full credit or to throw up your hands and abandon attribution entirely. It’s to build the equivalent of assisted conversion tracking: a transparent record of which platform interventions contributed to the outcome, at what stage, and with what confidence.
The digital marketing industry didn’t abandon attribution when it got complicated. It built Google Analytics, multi-touch models, and marketing mix modeling. Carbon management software needs the same maturity. The question isn’t whether a platform deserves full credit for a customer’s emissions reduction. It’s whether it can credibly demonstrate its contribution to the outcome.
In practice, vendors can do this through:
- Contribution-based attribution: the platform contributed to the decision or implementation, without claiming sole causation
- Baseline scenarios: emissions outcomes compared against a credible “what would have happened anyway” scenario without the intervention
- Confidence scoring: ERE figures disclosed with explicit tiers based on data quality
- Auditability: documented measures, data inputs, and assumptions available for review
An imperfect ERE figure, disclosed transparently with its methodology, is more useful than a perfectly calculated but climate-irrelevant managed-emissions total.
A small set of supporting metrics that are harder to game
ERE should be the headline figure, but a credible impact framework needs a few supporting metrics. From my experience working with companies on their decarbonization programs, the ones that matter most are:
- Percentage of customers achieving year-over-year absolute reductions on a like-for-like basis
- Abatement implementation rate: of the reduction measures the platform identifies, how many actually get executed
- Supplier action rate: the share of suppliers submitting primary data, adopting targets, or implementing measures through platform-enabled programs
- Primary data coverage: the share of material emission categories backed by supplier- or facility-specific inputs, not spend-based estimates
These metrics make it structurally difficult to win by signing large emitters and generating reports. A vendor with strong numbers across these dimensions is, almost by definition, doing the hard work.
Beyond vendor selection: Corporations must act on what matters
I work primarily in supply chain decarbonization, where Scope 3 data quality is a genuine challenge and where the gap between what gets reported and what gets reduced can be significant. The carbon management software market’s current metrics don’t help my clients assess whether a platform will actually move the needle for their suppliers.
But this is bigger than buyer-vendor dynamics. Carbon management software sits at the center of how corporations understand and act on their emissions. If the industry’s success metric is decoupled from actual reductions, we risk building a very large, very well-funded infrastructure for measuring a problem rather than solving it.
The vendors who move first to adopt transparent impact reporting will differentiate themselves. More importantly, they will help establish the standard the whole industry needs.
The benchmark for carbon management software should be climate impact, not data volume. It’s time to measure what matters.
For organizations assessing carbon management software, our Technology Advisory Service provides independent guidance to support informed, impact-led decisions. Get in touch here.