Most emissions come from burning something. Process emissions do not — they come from a chemical reaction, and they would occur even if the reaction were driven by an entirely clean energy source.
The clearest example is cement. Making clinker requires heating limestone until it decomposes into lime and carbon dioxide. That CO₂ is released by the chemistry, not by the fuel, and in cement production it frequently exceeds the emissions from the fuel used to reach the temperature.
The tell
If your disclosure’s Scope 1 consists entirely of fuel lines and your process chemically releases CO₂, something is missing. This is the first thing a sector-literate reviewer checks, and it is one of the few omissions that is obvious from the outside.
Not from fuel. Process emissions are calculated from production volumes and the chemistry: quantity of raw material consumed, multiplied by a factor derived from the stoichiometry of the reaction, with adjustments for material composition and for any CO₂ recovered rather than released.
The IPCC national inventory guidelines set out the methodology for the main industrial processes, and it is the standard reference for corporate inventories too. It also means you need production and raw material data in the same system as your energy data — which is the same requirement CBAM imposes on exporters of covered goods, so the work serves twice.
A summary of a regulation is not the regulation. These are the primary documents this page is based on.
Four questions, and you get the year you first file, the framework, and what to collect first.
Plain-language explainers of the FRC and SEC rules, ISSB S1 & S2, and what each asks you to disclose.
What a consultant-led reporting cycle costs against an annual licence, in Naira.
