Activity data where you have it

Spend-based calculation exists because most of a supply chain has nothing better. Where a supplier has given you real consumption data, kilowatt hours rather than dollars, calculating on spend throws that away and leaves you defending a proxy you did not need.

Allocation is per line, so one year can carry both. Each line is set to Product or Activity. An Activity line opens a search across the factor library, and each result states what it is, the unit it is expressed in, the geography it applies to, the factor itself and the database and global warming potential basis behind it, for example electricity at medium voltage in kWh with its source named. Choosing on unit and geography rather than on name alone is what stops a plausible-looking factor being the wrong one.

The yearly spend total is optional. A line can be entered with a quantity and no spend at all, which is the case for a supplier who reports consumption but never invoiced you in a way that maps cleanly to a category.

Every line still reports into the same place. The method breakdown counts activity lines separately from industry and product lines, so a baseline can show how much of itself rests on measured quantity rather than on an average.