Understanding Data Structure in the Platform
Our platform is designed to make environmental data management as simple as possible. With our zero-configuration approach, you do not need to set up anything manually - the system automatically processes and organises your data as it arrives.
What Are Activities and Activity Sources?
Activities
Activities are the fundamental operations your organisation performs to function. These are the tasks you undertake day-to-day to create and deliver goods and services to your customers. Your organisation might:
Use electricity to power buildings
Consume fuel in vehicles
Generate waste that goes to landfill
Use water in operations
The platform automatically recognises these activities from your data, so you do not need to configure them manually.
Activity Sources: Your Environmental Data Evidence
Activity Sources are the key to understanding your environmental impact. They are the documentary evidence that proves and measures your activities. For example:
Your electricity usage comes from utility bills
Vehicle fuel consumption might be tracked through fuel cards or bulk fuel invoices
Business travel data might come from your corporate travel management system
Waste data could be found in contractor reports
Our data processing workflow automatically identifies and categorises these sources as they are uploaded to the platform, creating a clear audit trail of your environmental data.
Understanding Activity Streams
An activity stream is a collection of activity over time that our platform uses to both calculate disclosed emissions and model projections. Each stream has two important characteristics:
Identifiable: You can easily understand which activity sources contribute to it
Predictable: The collection of activities is representative of future activity
Let's use a real-world example:
Imagine you are tracking electricity usage (the activity) in your organisation. You might have:
Multiple electricity meters (NMIs) across different locations
Each meter gets its own electricity bill (the activity source)
Each meter needs to be tracked separately
In this case, each individual meter becomes its own activity stream. So if you have three meters:
NMI 6382910475 might be one activity stream
NMI 6382910476 would be another
NMI 6382910477 would be a third
The benefit of our zero-configuration approach is that as your bills arrive, the platform automatically:
Identifies each unique meter
Creates the appropriate activity streams
Links them to the correct activity (Purchased Electricity)
Processes and calculates the associated emissions
Attribution and Building Creation
When processing utility bills and similar documents, the platform automatically creates and manages building records:
The platform reads service addresses from incoming bills
Building records are automatically generated for new addresses
As new bills arrive for the same meter, they are automatically linked to the existing building
Multiple utility services at the same location are grouped together
Organising Your Data
While the platform handles all the data processing automatically, you have the flexibility to organise your activity streams in ways that make sense for your reporting needs. The platform offers several organisational structures:
Buildings (for facility-level reporting)
Regions (for geographical reporting)
Business Units (for operational division reporting)
These structures are entirely optional - they are tools to help you organise your data in meaningful ways. Any activity streams that are not assigned to a structure will still be tracked and calculated, appearing in disclosures under "Not attributed to..." headings.
Getting Started
Thanks to the zero-configuration design, getting started is straightforward:
Simply begin uploading data to your collection point
The data will be processed and categorised into the appropriate activities and streams
You can then choose to organise the activity streams using the structural tools that make sense for your reporting needs