The CFO
Handbook
Carbon Footprint for Organization — from an ISO 14064-1 inventory to a TGO label your investors can trust, and how the verified number feeds 56-1, IFRS S2 and FTSE.
A Carbon Footprint for Organization (CFO) is a verified ISO 14064-1 GHG inventory — and it is becoming the price of entry for Thai listed companies. IFRS S2-aligned disclosure is mandatory for SET50 from FY2027 with limited assurance on Scope 1 & 2 (the TGO CFO method is accepted for the first five years), yet only ~32% of listed companies carry SET’s GHG-disclosure flag and ~21% hold a current TGO certification (Othello analysis of the SET and TGO registers, 2026). This handbook is the build method: the six ISO categories mapped to Scopes, current Thai emission factors, the TGO certification pathway, and how the verified number feeds 56-1, IFRS S2 and FTSE.
Why a CFO is now the price of entry
Your organizational carbon footprint is no longer a nice-to-have. It is the evidence base three reporting demands now share.
A Carbon Footprint for Organization — your Scope 1 and 2 inventory at minimum — is the number the market now expects to see. Today it feeds the SET 56-1 One Report on a comply-or-explain basis. From FY2026 it becomes mandatory for SET50 companies under Thailand's IFRS S2 roadmap, with limited assurance on Scope 1 and 2 by a TGO-registered verifier, and a signalled path to reasonable assurance thereafter.
It also protects your rating. FTSE Russell's model ingests Scope 1, 2 and 3 — and where a company does not disclose, it estimates and extrapolates, a downside proxy you cannot influence. A verified, publicly disclosed CFO replaces that estimate with your own reported data. And it is the mandatory precursor to everything downstream: science-based targets, product footprints, and any carbon-neutral claim. No verified footprint, no credible next step.
Two rulebooks, one inventory
The GHG Protocol gives you three scopes; ISO 14064-1:2018 gives you six categories. Thailand's TGO scheme follows ISO 14064-1 with IPCC AR5 warming potentials — and the two frameworks are deliberately compatible.
You do not choose between them. You build a single inventory to ISO 14064-1 using TGO emission factors, then present it as Scope 1/2/3 for CDP, SET and ISSB, and as the six categories for the TGO CFO label. The mapping is clean:
| ISO 14064-1:2018 category | What it covers | GHG Protocol |
|---|---|---|
| Category 1 — Direct | On-site fuel combustion, process emissions, fugitive/refrigerants, company fleet | Scope 1 |
| Category 2 — Imported energy | Purchased electricity, steam, heat, cooling | Scope 2 |
| Category 3 — Transportation | Business travel, employee commuting, upstream/downstream freight | Scope 3 |
| Category 4 — Products used | Purchased goods & services, capital goods, waste, upstream fuel & T&D losses | Scope 3 |
| Category 5 — Use of sold products | Use and end-of-life of sold products, downstream leased assets | Scope 3 |
| Category 6 — Other | Any material indirect source not captured above | Scope 3 |
Rule of thumb: Scope 1 = Category 1, Scope 2 = Category 2, Scope 3 splits across Categories 3–6.
Drawing your boundaries
Boundaries are where most CFOs go wrong — and where a verifier looks first. Two decisions govern everything downstream.
The organizational boundary decides which operations count as yours. Operational control — you account for 100% of the emissions from operations whose policies you set — is the simplest and most common choice for Thai firms, and the TGO default in practice. Financial control and equity share (emissions in proportion to ownership) suit groups and joint ventures. Pick one approach and apply it consistently across every site.
The operational boundary then assigns each source to a scope. Scope 1 is direct — fuel combustion in your boilers, furnaces and fleet, process emissions, and the fugitive refrigerant leaks from air-conditioning and chillers that most Thai offices, hotels and factories forget. Scope 2 is your purchased grid electricity (the dominant line for almost everyone) plus purchased steam or chilled water. Scope 3 is the value chain — travel, commuting, purchased goods, logistics, waste and the use of what you sell.
The build, step by step
Ten steps from a blank page to a report a verifier will sign.
- 01Set the intended use & standard — TGO CFO label, CDP, SET 56-1 or internal — this fixes the factor set and GWP (TGO → IPCC AR5).
- 02Define the organizational boundary — Operational control (the typical Thai default), financial control or equity share — and list every site/entity in scope.
- 03Define the operational boundary — Scope 1 & 2 mandatory; decide which Scope 3 / Category 3–6 sources are significant, and justify every exclusion.
- 04Set the base year — A representative year with verifiable data — it anchors all future reduction tracking and targets.
- 05Identify emission sources — Walk every site: stationary combustion, fleet, refrigerant/fire-suppressant top-ups (fugitive), purchased electricity and steam.
- 06Collect 12 months of activity data — Litres, m³/MJ, kg, kWh, refrigerant recharge, travel, waste — prefer metered/invoice data and keep the evidence.
- 07Select emission factors — TGO CFO factors first; match the basis (per litre vs per kg vs per MJ NCV/HHV). Confirm the year.
- 08Calculate tCO₂e — Activity data × emission factor × GWP (where not already in CO₂e); sum by scope/category; convert kg → tonnes.
- 09Assess quality & uncertainty — Check completeness, units and double counting; document uncertainty per ISO 14064-1.
- 10Report &, for the label, verify — Produce the GHG report; engage a TGO-registered third-party verifier for the CFO certificate.
The Thai numbers that must be right
Three figures are challenged in almost every verification: the correct-year grid factor, the full-precision fuel factors, and the AR5-vs-AR4 refrigerant choice. Here is the quick reference.
| Activity | Factor | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Grid electricity (Scope 2, current) | 0.4750 | kgCO₂e/kWh |
| Grid electricity — upstream fuel (Scope 3) | 0.0812 | kgCO₂e/kWh |
| Diesel (stationary & mobile) | 2.7087 | kgCO₂e/litre |
| Gasoline / benzine | 2.1816 | kgCO₂e/litre |
| Natural gas (stationary, NCV) | 0.0561 | kgCO₂e/MJ |
| NGV / CNG (vehicle) | 2.1262 | kgCO₂e/kg |
| LPG | 3.1106 /kg (1.6797 /litre) | kgCO₂e |
| Fuel oil A / C | 3.2097 / 3.2353 | kgCO₂e/litre |
| Refrigerant R-410A (GWP, AR5) | 1,924 | × kg leaked |
| Refrigerant R-134a (GWP, AR5) | 1,300 | × kg leaked |
| Refrigerant R-32 (GWP, AR5) | 675 | × kg leaked |
From inventory to TGO label
The CFO label is TGO's national certification of your GHG inventory — an annual, verified cycle, not a one-off badge.
- 01Define boundary & reporting period — Fix the organizational boundary (usually operational control) and a 12-month reporting period.
- 02Build the inventory to ISO 14064-1 — Collect 12 months of activity data and calculate with TGO emission factors; set a base year.
- 03Third-party verification (VVB) — A TGO-registered verifier audits method, boundary and evidence to ISO 14064-3, then issues a verification statement.
- 04Submit to TGO for review — The signed verification report plus your application go to the TGO board for registration.
- 05Certificate & label — renew annually — TGO issues the CFO certificate and label, valid one year; the inventory-and-verification cycle repeats each year.
Verification, not validation. A CFO inventory is verified — a retrospective check of historical emissions to ISO 14064-3 — not validated (a forward-looking check of a projected claim). Verifiers typically apply a ~5% materiality threshold; the incoming IFRS S2 regime starts at limited assurance and may escalate to reasonable. You must engage a TGO-registered Validation/Verification Body (VVB):
VVB register is live and paginated — confirm the body is current and in-scope for your sector before engaging.
How your CFO feeds disclosure
The same verified Scope 1 & 2 number travels from the TGO certificate into your filing and the index-provider's dataset.
56-1 One Report → a TGO-verified Scope 1 & 2 figure is the credible input for the comply-or-explain GHG section today. IFRS S2 / 56-1 One Report-S → from FY2026 (SET50 first), climate disclosure is mandatory, Scope 1 & 2 require limited assurance by a TGO-registered verifier, and Scope 3 is deferred under transition relief. FTSE Russell → a disclosed, verified CFO replaces the estimate the model would otherwise assign you, and strengthens the Climate Change theme score.
The same inventory is also the precursor to the related TGO schemes:
The mistakes that fail a verification
Almost every rejected CFO fails on one of these. Fix them before the verifier arrives.
- 01Boundary errors — Organizational or operational boundary drawn wrong — omitted sites or double counting; not revisited when the business changes.
- 02Missing material Scope 3 — Treating Scope 3 as optional when it is often the largest share — purchased goods, logistics, waste left out.
- 03Wrong or outdated factors — Superseded or mismatched databases (IPCC vs DEFRA vs Ecoinvent) instead of current TGO factors.
- 04No base year — No fixed base year, so reductions can't be tracked and the baseline can't be recalculated after a change.
- 05Estimated where metered exists — Substituting estimates for available metered/invoice data — weakening the assurance a verifier can give.
- 06Unit-conversion / transcription slips — A single mis-converted or transposed figure distorts a whole site's annual total.
- 07No third-party verification — Self-declared numbers carry no TGO label and fail the incoming IFRS S2 assurance requirement.
- 08Incomplete fugitive sources — Refrigerant top-ups and fire-suppression gases omitted — easy to overlook, but material Scope 1.
How Othello does it
We build the inventory, manage the verification, and turn the number into disclosure — in English and Thai. And we teach your team to do it.
Start your carbon footprint before the mandate does.
Tell us your sites and reporting year. We’ll scope your CFO, map the VVB pathway and give you a fixed quote — within the hour, under NDA.