Carbon accounting tools Gprnt, SEFR, ESGenome help firms calculate emissions

Whether for audit, accounting or financing purposes, business leaders must no doubt be familiar with their company’s financials. When it comes to counting emissions and other non-financial metrics, however, executives defer to a sustainability-focused employee — or, in the absence of one, shunt the work to a third-party consultant instead.

But even non-listed companies in Singapore will soon be required to report and file annual climate-related disclosures. From FY2027, firms with annual revenue of at least $1 billion and with total assets of at least $500 million will have to disclose their Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Listed issuers, which will begin doing so from the current FY2025, must also disclose their Scope 3 emissions from FY2026 and conduct external limited assurance on Scope 1 and 2 emissions from FY2027. Large private companies have until FY2029 to meet both requirements.

To meet this coming demand for carbon accounting, a handful of digital tools have sprung up to serve Singaporean firms. As they refine their features, these platforms — which are mostly free — are expanding to cover nearly the entire continuum, ranging from small- and medium-sized enterprises to large-cap firms.

Climate reporting is understandably an intimidating task for a business owner, and these digital tools have automated the bulk of the data-gathering process. One “nationwide utility” is enabling companies in Singapore to automatically generate “basic sustainability metrics” by way of their utilities data.

With participation from PUB, the Energy Market Authority and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore’s (GovTech) Myinfo business service, Gprnt draws on companies’ water, town gas and electricity consumption values to generate Scope 1 and 2 emissions “within minutes and without cost”.

Scope 1 refers to direct emissions occurring from sources that are owned or controlled by the company and Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity that is consumed by the company.

Lionel Wong, CEO and executive director of Gprnt, says this data will “eventually be useful” not just to the small businesses, but to their buyers, investors, partners and financial institutions.

Scope 1 and 2 emissions data is the “lowest common denominator” of sustainability reporting, says Wong to The Edge Singapore. “We believe that for any SME in any sector to get started on their sustainability journey, that is their basic climate reporting pack. Different sectors will find different ways of making use of that data.”

For example, Wong says the data reflects whether the company is using renewable energy, and this may be useful to banks when deciding whether to issue loans.

In addition, if an SME supplies products to a larger company, the SME’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions are calculated as the purchaser’s Scope 3 emissions, or emissions arising from the company’s upstream and downstream value chain.

“Larger entities will see that as beneficial from their Scope 3 reporting standpoint,” says Wong. “In the built sector, for instance, a landlord could say: ‘I have my Scope 1 and 2 data for my building, but my Scope 3 is attributable to my downstream leased assets, which are my tenants. And if my tenants cannot even compute their own data [and] they can’t give it to me, then everything is an estimation.’”

Banks, too, have to account for their financed emissions, or the emissions of companies on their loan books.

DBS Group Holdings, for example, singled out seven sectors in September 2022, including power, oil and gas, and steel, and announced 2050 decarbonisation targets for each of them.

“We hope that as this utility’s adoption starts to track upwards, more people will see that this data exists somewhere [and] SMEs are disclosing, and they’ll say: ‘What stops me from accessing this primary data and using that as a hybrid method of calculating my Scope 3, as opposed to complete estimations, which is the case today?’” says Wong.

‘Choose your own adventure’

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Gprnt began as Project Greenprint, an initiative by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to build a platform for streamlined sustainability data access and reporting. After more than three years of incubation, MAS launched Gprnt as a digital platform of the Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN), which is chaired by former MAS managing director Ravi Menon.

“The logic was that if the [sustainability] data exists and the data is verifiable, trusted financial institutions can [then] make calculated, well-informed decisions on the back of this primary data, then capital can flow better,” says Wong, a 15-year policy veteran from MAS.

Wong describes Gprnt as a “choose your own adventure” utility. On Gprnt’s website, SMEs can sign up to receive a free emissions report, while “large enterprises” and financial institutions can “book a demo”.

While Gprnt is free for SMEs, Wong thinks the larger companies and banks that work with them could be open to paying for the service. “Our belief is, in time, as adoption tracks up, the buyers or partners of these SMEs will then say: ‘You know what, I think there is benefit to accessing this data.’”

For example, a bank with SME clients could want them to report accurate, verifiable emissions data before they issue green or sustainability-linked loans, says Wong. “What is the price point that I would be willing to pay for access to their primary data? Of course, this is with [the SME’s] consent.”

According to Wong, Gprnt is in commercial talks with “a number of banks, corporates, trade associations and even government agencies”.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) is in a “fairly advanced stage” of piloting the use of Gprnt with some of their SME clients, he adds.

Gprnt is supported by US$4.62 million ($5.96 million) in seed funding from Ant International and MUFG Bank.

Wong sees this as a “mutual marriage”, explaining that Ant has partner wallets across various countries with “tremendous access” to micro-SMEs and MUFG has “several partner banks” in Southeast Asia.

“If Gprnt is able to deploy in Singapore and prove itself as a nationwide utility, then it stands to reason that these other partner banks in these countries, and certainly the authorities there as well, are also keen to see how this can also be exported and localised into their respective jurisdictions.”

Singapore Emission Factors Registry

In October 2024, the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) launched the Singapore Emission Factors Registry (SEFR) with over 200 emissions factors over eight categories — building equipment, building materials, fuel, greenhouse gases, land transport, purchased energy, waste and water — calculated with Singapore’s context in mind.

This is a reference list of activities and the pre-determined amount of emissions generated, which firms can use to estimate their emissions based on Singapore’s context.

At a media briefing last year, SBF CEO Kok Ping Soon called the SEFR the “single source of truth” for Singapore’s emissions factors.

SEFR was launched with emissions data from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), four government agencies, the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), Singtel and PwC Singapore.

SBF said then that it would add new emissions factors for information and communications technology services, cleaning services, professional services and security services by end-2025, in time for FY2025 reporting. Work is still ongoing for this.

Some digital solution providers have also committed to making SEFR data available on their own platforms so that their Singapore-based users benefit from using Singapore-specific emission factors data.

SBF has increased the number of these partners from 12 at launch to 23 today, including platforms like the UN Global Compact Network Singapore’s Carbon Emissions Recording Tool (CERT), ESGpedia and Gprnt.

Hu Ching, head of the Net Zero Transition Programme at SBF, says the association has signed agreements with “various carbon calculator platforms”, including Gprnt, to ensure SEFR data is “readily available to their customers”.

“We continue to welcome feedback from these platforms on areas of improvement — for example, including the breakdown of emission factors into constituent greenhouse gases, such as methane,” says Hu.

ESGenome

However, the consumption of SEFR data is “less applicable” to the “core function” of the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) ESGenome reporting platform, adds Hu.

ESGenome is a free digital disclosure portal that helps Singapore-listed companies generate sustainability reports, accessible by SGX-listed companies via SGXNet. It was launched in September 2022 by MAS and SGX as one of four digital platforms under Project Greenprint, and is operated by World Wide Generation, a UK-based ESG solution provider.

At the launch of the portal some three years ago, SGX said listcos can make disclosures across more than 3,000 ESG metrics. The platform automatically maps the data across reporting standards and frameworks, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Speaking to the media then, SGX Group managing director and head of research Chan Kum Kong declined to reveal the cost of the project, but said: “At some point, [ESGenome] needs to have a self-sustaining angle.”

In response to The Edge Singapore, an SGX Group spokesperson side-stepped questions about commercialisation, instead saying: “Since its launch in 2022, ESGenome has continued to evolve in line with global sustainability reporting standards, supporting listed companies in streamlining their ESG disclosures. ESGenome provides companies with structured disclosure capabilities and resources for ISSB alignment, aimed to support their reporting processes.”

They add: “ESGenome forms a key part of the Asean-Interconnected Sustainability Ecosystem (ASEAN-ISE), a collaboration between SGX Group, Bursa Malaysia, PSE, IDX and SET to harmonise ESG data and frameworks across the region. As part of this effort, the exchanges have aligned on a set of common ESG metrics and aim to develop an Asean-level centralised ESG Data Infrastructure.”

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