Glossary›Emissions accounting and measurement›GHG inventory
Glossary term
Cluster D · D26
Tier 1
GHG inventory
Definition
A greenhouse gas inventory is the complete compiled record of an organisation’s emissions for a reporting period, structured by scope and by source. It lists every activity included, the quantity of each, the emission factor applied and the resulting tonnage of carbon dioxide equivalent. The reported emissions figures in a climate disclosure are extracted from it.
GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (2004)
· chapters 3 to 6 ·
In force
On this page
In practice
The inventory is the artefact; carbon accounting is the process that builds it. The distinction matters operationally because entities routinely produce a number without producing an inventory, and only the inventory is auditable.
A compliant inventory has four properties.
Property
What it means in practice
Complete period coverage
It covers the whole reporting period with no gaps.
A stated boundary
A reader can tell which entities and which sources are in.
Disaggregation to evidence level
Each line ties to source evidence, not just to a scope subtotal.
A named factor edition per line
The factor set applied to each line is identified by source and year.
The common first-year failure is an inventory that exists only as a summary. A spreadsheet reporting Scope 1 at 4,200 tonnes with no line detail is a result, not an inventory. It cannot be sampled, recalculated or reconciled, which means it cannot be assured, which means the engagement stalls at the first request.
Structure by source, not by department. Departmental structures change between years and destroy comparability; source structures survive reorganisations.
What the assurer does with it
The assurer treats the inventory as the population from which everything is sampled, so their first test is whether the inventory footings agree to the disclosed figures. A difference between the inventory total and the report figure (however small) is treated as a control failure rather than a rounding matter, because it means something was adjusted outside the model.
They then test the inventory’s own completeness against an independent population: the site listing, the utility account listing, the lease schedule, the fleet register. They accept an inventory line supported by a source document naming the reporting entity, the quantity and the period. They reject lines with no factor version, lines covering a period that does not reconcile to the financial year, and any inventory that has been rebuilt since the report was drafted without a change log showing what moved.
Where the entity has restated a prior-period inventory, the assurer asks for the reason, the quantified effect and the approval. An unexplained movement in a comparative is one of the fastest routes to a modified conclusion.
Commonly confused with
The sustainability report itself. The inventory is a working artefact that sits behind the report and is not published; the report carries a handful of aggregated figures drawn from it. Also confused with an NGER submission, which is a separate statutory return on a different measurement basis and a different boundary.
Sources
1
Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (2004 revised edition)
GHG Protocol
2
Review status
Review required
Last reviewed
15 September 2026
Editorial pass, unsigned
Reviewer required
Carbon accounting specialist
Next scheduled review
1 July 2027
Part of
Cluster D, Emissions accounting and measurement
49 terms from the head term carbon accounting down to individual Scope 3 categories and the mechanics of factors, boundaries and data quality. The largest cluster in the glossary.
Related terms
The process that builds the inventory
What the inventory’s stated boundary has to reconcile against
The defect the inventory structure exists to make visible
Related questions
Can we use spreadsheets, or will the auditor reject them?
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Spreadsheets are acceptable and no Australian standard requires software. What gets rejected is an unauditable spreadsheet: hard-coded numbers with no source, broken formula chains, no version control and no record of who changed what. A disciplined spreadsheet passes assurance and an undisciplined system does not.
What is the audit trail our auditor expects?
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An unbroken path from every reported number back to a document you did not create for the report, such as an invoice, a meter reading, a fuel card statement or a signed minute. At each step the trail shows the data used, the factor applied, the calculation, and who reviewed it.
What are working papers for a climate report?
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Working papers are the file showing how each reported number was produced: the source document, the activity data taken from it, the emission factor and its published source, the calculation, the judgements made, and who prepared and reviewed it. If someone else cannot rebuild your number from the file, it is not finished.
Other terms in this cluster
GHG inventory