Before a company can score with FTSE Russell, answer the S&P Global CSA, or prepare a climate disclosure under IFRS S1–S2, one foundation has to be right: the carbon footprint. Get the boundary and the scopes wrong at the start and every number downstream inherits the error. This short explainer walks through what a carbon footprint measures, the three scopes, and the difference between a CFO and a CFP — in plain English.
What a carbon footprint actually measures
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions associated with an activity, expressed as tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) — a single unit that converts methane, nitrous oxide and the other gases into their warming equivalent in carbon dioxide. Two questions define it before any calculation begins: whose emissions, and which emissions. The first sets the boundary — a whole organisation, or a single product. The second sets the scopes.
Scope 1, 2 and 3 — the three rings
The GHG Protocol and ISO 14064-1 sort an organisation’s emissions into three scopes, moving outward from what you burn to what your value chain emits on your behalf:
- Scope 1 — direct. Emissions from sources you own or control: company vehicles, on-site fuel combustion, boilers, process emissions, refrigerant leaks.
- Scope 2 — energy indirect. Emissions from the electricity, steam, heat or cooling you buy. You do not emit them on site, but you cause them by purchasing the power.
- Scope 3 — other indirect. Everything else across your value chain, split into 15 categories upstream and downstream — purchased goods and services, business travel, use of sold products, investments. For most companies it is the largest share, and the hardest to measure.
You do not always report all fifteen Scope 3 categories. You run a significance screen, report what is material to your business, and — crucially — document why the rest were left out. That rationale becomes a disclosure in its own right.
CFO vs CFP — an organisation or a product
“Carbon footprint” points at two different things depending on the boundary, and Thailand’s TGO runs a certification label for each:
| CFO — Carbon Footprint for Organization | CFP — Carbon Footprint of a Product | |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | A whole organisation over a reporting year | A single product across its life cycle |
| Standard | ISO 14064-1 · GHG Protocol | ISO 14067 · life-cycle assessment (LCA) |
| Boundary | Scopes 1, 2 and 3 of the company | Cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave of the product |
| Used for | Corporate disclosure, FTSE / CSA, IFRS S2 | Product claims, EPDs, customer & export requirements |
They are not interchangeable, and they are not competitors — a manufacturer often needs both. The CFO tells investors and raters how the company performs; the CFP tells customers and export markets how a product performs. And the CFO inventory is the substrate a product footprint and an EPD build on.
Where a carbon footprint fits your disclosure
A carbon footprint is not the finish line — it is the input. Once the inventory is measured and, ideally, third-party verified, it flows into the disclosures your investors and regulators read: an FTSE or CSA submission, a 56-1 One Report, an IFRS S2 climate statement. For a SET-listed company the extra requirement is that this has to work in two languages — the methodology is calculated in Thai, the disclosure is read in English — and the two editions cannot be allowed to drift apart. That is where a disclosure gap audit, a certified organisational inventory and a single bilingual technical-translation workflow do their work.
- A carbon footprint is total GHG emissions in tCO2e — defined first by boundary (whose), then by scope (which).
- Scope 1 is what you burn, Scope 2 is the energy you buy, Scope 3 is your value chain — usually the biggest.
- You report the material Scope 3 categories and document why you excluded the rest.
- CFO footprints an organisation (ISO 14064-1); CFP footprints a product (ISO 14067). Manufacturers often need both.
- The footprint is the input to FTSE, CSA and IFRS S2 disclosure — for SET-listed firms, in Thai and English together.
A Thai-language edition of this explainer is coming soon. Watch the full video on the Othello International YouTube channel.
Measure it once, disclose it in both languages
We build your organisational or product carbon footprint, get it verification-ready, and carry the number through to the English disclosure your investors and raters read — under one ISO 17100 workflow. Start with a disclosure gap audit.
Run the free Gap AuditSee where your English edition is losing FTSE points.
A free Gap Audit maps your published English disclosure against FTSE Russell’s 14 themes — and shows exactly which gaps are quietly costing you points, index inclusion and investor attention.
