Abstract

Nowadays, carbon-related disclosures from corporations are crucial for accurately assessing their environmental impact, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and for monitoring their progress towards the 2050 net-zero objectives. Despite the importance of this data, there is still not a single source that provides all the data needed in terms of quality, quantity and transparency. Information can be accessed through numerous sources such as private climate-related data providers (e.g. ISS-ESG or C4F ), public administrative climate-related registries (e.g. E-PRTR or EU ETS ) or directly through information reported in the sustainability reports (derived from regulatory requirements such as the NFRD or the CSRD ) or via voluntarily surveys or questionnaires. Therefore, it is essential to work on understanding, combining, and contrasting these sources of information in order to obtain the best possible data for elaborating carbon statistics and monitoring the carbon-related performance of non-financial corporations.
This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of the current state of carbon disclosures by corporations in Spain. It examines the various sources of information available, highlighting real examples of similarities and discrepancies between these sources. Additionally, it provides a historical perspective on carbon footprint data, derived from the experience of collecting this information from the PDFs sustainability reports of Spanish non-financial corporations during a period where digital data was not available. This paper illustrates the evolution of carbon disclosure in recent years and highlights what data are currently available for elaborating and improving carbon statistics at microdata level.