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Climate strategy & accounting
Innovation & transformation

Companies in Transition: Understanding Emissions, Developing Strategies, Securing the Future.

Why the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is crucial for small and medium-sized enterprises & Fokus Zukunft as your partner for accounting and decarbonization.

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Author
Christina Schäferkord
Article from
08.07.2025
Updated on
08.12.2025
Approximate reading time
minutes
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Why carbon footprint accounting is important for companies

Climate protection is now a key challenge for companies in all industries—especially for SMEs. To remain successful and sustainable, emissions must be recorded transparently and effective reduction strategies must be developed. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the world’s leading standard for greenhouse gas accounting.

At Fokus Zukunft, we support you in understanding, accounting for, and sustainably reducing your CO₂ emissions along the entire value chain. With our services in the development of our product carbon footprint (PCF), corporate carbon footprint (CCF), and holistic decarbonization strategies, we assist you on your journey to a climate-friendly future.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol – the international standard

The GHG Protocol divides emissions into three categories, known as scopes:

  • Scope 1: Emissions coming directly from your own sources, such as company-owned vehicles or heating systems
  • Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased energy such as electricity or heat
  • Scope 3: All other indirect emissions along the supply chain, e.g., from business travel or purchased materials

This classification creates a clear methodological basis for systematically identifying the main drivers of emissions—a crucial prerequisite for developing effective climate protection measures in a targeted manner, and making success measurable.

Why is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol important for your company?

  • Regulatory requirements: Climate laws are becoming stricter and transparency increasingly more mandatory
  • Investor expectations: Investors prefer sustainable companies
  • Competitive advantages: Early engagement opens up new market opportunities
  • Risk management: Preparing for CO₂ costs and future market changes
  • Innovation: Promoting more efficient products and business processes

Our services: PCF & CCF with Fokus Zukunft

As a specialized partner, we help you comprehensively assess your emissions and develop customized decarbonization strategies based on these assessments:

  • Product Carbon Footprint (PCF): We analyze the CO₂ emissions of your products throughout their entire life cycle—from raw material extraction to disposal. This allows you to identify emission hotspots, make targeted reductions, and design more sustainable products.
  • Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF): We record your company’s total emissions across all three scopes. The CCF balance sheet forms the basis for your corporate sustainability strategy.

Decarbonization strategy – the path to long-term sustainable corporate management

Accounting is only the first step. Together, we will develop a customized transition plan that prioritizes concrete measures and addresses the biggest emission levers. The goal is to reduce your emissions in the long term, increase energy efficiency, and promote climate protection, all while reducing costs and strengthen your market position through sustainable innovations. We accompany you from analysis to implementation – always with a practical approach tailored to your individual needs.

To summarize

A deep understanding of your emissions is essential for small and medium-sized businesses. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides the framework for making your carbon footprint transparent and taking targeted measures to reduce it. With us as your partner, you will be well equipped to meet regulatory requirements, secure competitive advantages, and shape your future sustainably.

For many of our medium-sized customers, climate accounting is the first step toward a systematic and effective sustainability strategy. Our task is to make this first step practical, comprehensible, and transparent—so that the measures derived from it don’t just exist on paper, but have a real impact. Based on the internationally recognized GHG Protocol, our standards support companies in recording, understanding, and reducing their emissions in a targetted manner.”

– Rebekka Schweizer, sustainability consultant at Fokus Zukunft

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