European carbon platforms and Nigerian operating reality.

Plan A and its peers are well-built European software. The mismatch for a Nigerian filer is not quality — it is that the assumptions underneath the data model describe a different electricity system.

Built for

European reporting

Primary framework

CSRD / ESRS

Check

Grid supply assumptions

Check

Naira invoicing

6 min read

Same rule as our other comparison pages

The assumption that causes the trouble

European carbon accounting software is built on an assumption so basic that it is rarely stated: that a company’s electricity comes from the grid, continuously, and is metered by a utility.

In that world Scope 2 is a clean calculation — consumption multiplied by a published grid factor — and on-site generation is an edge case, typically backup power that runs for a few hours a year and rounds to nothing.

In Nigeria the edge case is the main case. A site may draw grid power for part of the day and run diesel for the rest, which moves a large share of its emissions from Scope 2 to Scope 1 at a materially different factor. A platform that never asks the question produces a number that is internally consistent, cleanly presented, and wrong.

That is not a criticism of the software. It is correct for the market it was designed around. It is simply not a criticism the software can make of itself, which is why the question has to come from you.

What to check

Is generation an input or an adjustment?Can a site record litres of diesel per generator per month, with delivery notes attached, as a normal part of the intake? Or is it a custom field someone has to remember to maintain?
Which African factor sets are maintained?Ask for the list and the update cadence. ‘You can upload your own’ means you own the maintenance and the risk of missing a revision.
Does it output FRC and SEC Nigeria structures?A CSRD-shaped output is a different document. Mapping it to a Nigerian structure is work you will repeat annually.
Does it assume double materiality?CSRD requires double materiality; the ISSB standards Nigeria adopted require financial materiality. A platform whose materiality workflow assumes the European test will lead your assessment in the wrong direction.
Where is the data held, and under what terms?Data residency, sub-processors and the applicable data protection regime. Your own Nigeria Data Protection Act obligations do not disappear because the vendor is elsewhere.
Can it invoice in Naira?Ask before procurement rather than during renewal.

Where a European platform is the better choice

You are in scope for CSRDThrough an EU parent or through EU turnover thresholds. The ESRS datapoint set and double materiality assessment are a substantial, specialised reporting problem and a platform built for it will serve you far better than we will.
Your primary audience is EuropeanIf your customers, investors and regulators are European, reporting in their shape is worth more than reporting in ours.
Your Nigerian operations are a small part of the groupWhere Nigeria is one subsidiary among many, group standardisation usually beats local optimisation. Push for the generation handling and factors to be configured properly instead.

Questions

Our EU parent has already chosen a platform. What do we do?

Configure it properly rather than fight it. Insist that Nigerian grid and fuel factors are loaded with their sources and versions, and that on-site generation is captured per generator rather than buried in a note. If the platform genuinely cannot do the second, that is worth escalating — it is a measurement error, not a preference.

Do you integrate with group platforms?

We export the full dataset — figures, calculation detail, factor versions and evidence references — in formats a group consolidation process can consume. We do not claim pre-built connectors we have not built.

Is CSRD coming to Nigeria?

Not as a Nigerian requirement. It reaches Nigerian companies through EU parents and through the value chains of large EU companies, which is a different route with different timing. Nigeria adopted the ISSB standards, which use a different materiality test.

Check this yourself

A summary of a regulation is not the regulation. These are the primary documents this page is based on.

File with confidence, before the deadline files you.

Companies that start now collect a full clean year before they ever have to file. Companies that start late reconstruct one — and that is the expensive part.

Check your deadline

Four questions, and you get the year you first file, the framework, and what to collect first.

Read the requirement

Plain-language explainers of the FRC and SEC rules, ISSB S1 & S2, and what each asks you to disclose.

Compare the cost

What a consultant-led reporting cycle costs against an annual licence, in Naira.