What kinds of ratio indicator does the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard describe for a GHG report?
The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Standard describes three: productivity or efficiency ratios, intensity ratios and percentages. Reporting absolute emissions is required, and ratios are optional. A falling intensity or a rising productivity ratio reads as improvement.
Absolute first, ratios optional
The standard requires reporting absolute emissions. Ratio indicators are optional. It gives reasons to report them: to evaluate performance over time, to compare businesses of different sizes by normalising, and to relate data from different categories, such as the value a tonne of product earns against its emissions.
The three kinds
- Productivity or efficiency ratios express the value or achievement of a business divided by its GHG impact. Examples: sales per unit of GHG, or production volume per amount of GHG. Increasing means improvement.
- Intensity ratios express GHG impact per unit of physical activity or economic output. A physical intensity ratio suits comparing businesses with similar products. An economic intensity ratio suits businesses producing different products. Declining means improvement.
- Percentages compare two things with the same unit, for example current GHG emissions as a percentage of base year emissions.
The warning in the standard
The standard says the diversity of businesses and circumstances can produce misleading indicators, and that apparently minor differences in process, product or location can matter a great deal. It says you need the business context to design and read a ratio. My advice, not the standard's: state the numerator, the denominator and the boundary next to every ratio.
If a ratio would reveal something private
A ratio can be withheld from the public report if it would compromise confidentiality; the linked answer on public report contents has the rule.
Example: one year, three ratios
- Scope 1 and 2: 1,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Output: 9,000 tonnes of product. Base year: 2,000 tonnes.
- Physical intensity: 1,800 / 9,000 = 0.20 tonnes CO2e per tonne of product.
- Productivity: 9,000 / 1,800 = 5 tonnes of product per tonne CO2e. It moves the opposite way to intensity.
- Percentage of base year: 1,800 / 2,000 x 100 = 90%.
All figures are example numbers.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the records behind each ratio's numerator stay on file. It does not choose your denominator or your boundary.
- Which carbon intensity metric to use
- What a public GHG report must contain
- Emissions fell but intensity rose
- CDP 7.45: emissions per unit of revenue
Last reviewed 2026-11-06. Definitions are from chapter 9 of the Corporate Standard. Buyers and lenders may ask for a specific ratio; use the one they name as well.