As sustainability reporting mandates and internal business drivers continue to evolve globally, many companies are finding themselves overwhelmed by a web of varied disclosure requirements across entities and jurisdictions. What has become clear is the need to focus on fundamental systems anchored on robust integrated data, systemized processes, and internal controls that establish the foundation to meet the nuanced requirements of disparate disclosures and management goals. 

This resource is meant to guide companies on how to prepare emissions inventory for the next reporting cycle--focusing on the core steps that facilitate data integrity, mitigate risk, deliver decision-useful insights, and instill confidence in your results. Let’s get ready for 2026.

Phase 1: Establish your data integrity framework

Before gathering a single data point, ensure your foundational structure is ready for the year, whether for internal decision-making or external reporting with assurance. 

Confirm Organizational Boundaries

The scope of your reporting is the absolute starting point. Even if your boundaries seem consistent with the previous year’s effort, the start of a new cycle is the time to validate and make sure any changes are reflected. Similarly, this is the time to confirm your selected consolidation approach. While consistency is important year over year, adjustments are sometimes deemed necessary to better reflect corporate operations or alignment with financial disclosure.

• Review for changes: Have you had any acquisitions, divestitures, or any other changes in corporate structure? In addition to your current inventory boundaries, consider how these changes might impact progress towards targets or the need to rebaseline. 

• Action in Workiva: This step directly relates to your configuration and can be adjusted under your Company Profile. Ensuring these are accurate impacts every subsequent calculation.

Confirm Operational Boundaries

A Greenhouse Gas Protocol-aligned inventory requires comprehensive reporting across all relevant emissions sources and categories, including Scope 1, Scope 2, and upstream/downstream Scope 3. Now is the time to confirm your operational boundaries, and which emissions sources are relevant to include in your inventory.  

• Review Scope 1 & 2: Confirm that all direct (Scope 1) and energy-related indirect (Scope 2) sources are included. While these may not change significantly year-over-year, ensure you account for any additions or removals from changes in facilities, regional operations, or equipment.

• Scrutinize Scope 3: Are you adding new Scope 3 categories to enhance relevance and completeness? 

• Action in Workiva: Use the platform to review different categories supported and ensure your data collection templates are in place to be uploaded.

Establish and review team permissions and controls

Data integrity begins with process control. Assurance readiness requires clear roles, responsibilities, and access levels.

• Team permissions: Are users assigned appropriate roles (e.g., Data Collector, Reviewer, Approver) for the data they handle? Are there any new team members who will need access? Or do you need to remove access from some members?

• Action in Workiva: Leverage Workiva’s advanced permissioning for users in your workspace, and in the carbon platform itself for custom permissioning.

Phase 2: Optimize your calculation and collection process

Once the 'what' and 'who' are defined, focus on the 'how' - optimizing your data collection and calculation methodologies for consistency and efficiency.

Review your Inventory Management Plan (IMP) & roll forward your Leadsheet (if applicable)

By reviewing your IMP, you should have a general guide for what you’ll need to update and prepare for the year ahead. For Workiva Carbon & Sustainability Reporting customers, the leadsheet will be a key component of this preparation process. Rolling it forward correctly ensures continuity and efficiency.

• Transition to Leadsheet V2 for roll forward: If you are migrating or beginning a new implementation, utilizing Leadsheet V2 offers enhanced configuration support. (Carbon + Sustainability Reporting Customers)

• Action in Workiva: For assistance with the annual roll-forward process, especially for complex configurations, utilize the guidance within the Support Center or reach out to your dedicated Customer Success contact.

Confirm your emission factor library version

The quality of your factors directly determines the quality of your results. Consistent use of reputable, versioned factors is crucial for comparability. As a best practice, organizations should update to the most recent, reputable version of their chosen library version for the new reporting year.

• Best practice for version selection: As a general rule, use the most recent, reputable library version available to reflect the latest scientific data. If you need detailed guidance on selecting the right library versions for your company’s specific context, visit our Help Guide.

• Custom factors: Ensure any custom emission factors are updated for the year ahead. Ensure any calculations performed outside of the integrated library (e.g., in Workiva sheets) are manually updated and uploaded as Custom emissions for the new reporting year.

• Action in Workiva: Use the integrated emission factor library under your Company Profile to select and version your factors for the year. If you operate in multiple regions, consider how you’ll message factor selection and applicability within your Workiva workspace for transparency. Be sure to reflect these updates in your IMP for the year.

Utilize Workiva data collection templates

Efficient, structured, and standardized data collection accelerates the inventory management process and mitigates risk around missing or inconsistent data.

• Action in Workiva: Leverage the standardized bulk upload data collection templates to distribute standardized templates to new or existing data owners, ensuring consistency across disparate data sources.

Phase 3: Prepare for Progress 

Revisit existing targets and initiatives

To measure progress against your Base Year emissions, take the time now to align your targets with your latest carbon inventory data and assess the effectiveness of current decarbonization initiatives.

• Review performance: How did your actual emissions compare to the targets set against the base year? Understanding the variance (e.g., due to economic growth, initiative success, data quality improvements, or changes in calculation methodology ) is critical. 

• Validate target alignment: Ensure your existing targets (e.g., Science-Based Targets) still align with your operational boundaries and the high-quality data confirmed in Phase 1. If an acquisition occurred, your targets may require re-baselining. 

• Action in Workiva: Use the platform’s Target feature to trend your emissions over time and calculate progress against your confirmed baselines and targets. Additionally, make sure any updated Custom factors are properly aligned with their scope to ensure it is included in your Targets.

Integrate decarbonization planning

Your detailed, auditable inventory from Phase 2 provides the insight needed to prioritize future investment and intervention. Focus your efforts where they will have the greatest material impact.

• Identify hotspots: Use your granular data to identify the largest and most material sources of emissions. This signals where decarbonization efforts - and future data collection improvements - should be focused.

• Forecast decarbonization scenarios: Explore decarbonization initiatives and assess mitigation scenarios against your emissions reduction targets and financial impact.

• Action in Workiva: Leverage the new Decarbonization initiative (available in Advanced accounts only) ability to centralize and visualize your inventory to create data-driven heatmaps, informing your decarbonization roadmap and justifying strategic investment. This allows you to communicate the financial and environmental why behind your strategic choices.

Reassess access to quality data

As carbon accounting programs mature and become more ingrained in corporate operations, data availability and access improves. The beginning of a reporting cycle is a great time to revisit the calculation methodologies and data sources underpinning your calculations, to determine if better quality (ie primary) data can replace proxy data for more precise calculations

• Improve data quality: Once your emissions hotspots are clear, progress towards supplier-specific primary data in your most material categories. Utilizing primary data ensures supplier engagement and decarbonization efforts are reflected in your inventory. Use the beginning of a reporting cycle to develop a plan to transition from spend-based estimates to activity-specific, and eventually supplier and product-specific data throughout the year, identifying where your ERP and source system  operational data might be able to replace proxies.  

• Engage with suppliers: Progressing from proxy data (whether spend-based or industry average) towards supplier-specific primary data improves inventory quality and accuracy. Update supplier lists to reflect your new reporting cycle and distribute emissions data requests.

• Action is Workiva: Update mappings and override data entries if your business has gathered more accurate or primary data compared to the past.  

Your next step: Build confidence now

By tackling these foundational steps in January, you are not just preparing for a 2026 deadline; you are building a carbon accounting foundation that provides decision useful insights,  conveys confidence and trust to stakeholders and proactively mitigates risk. This is the core value Workiva offers: a governed platform that unifies your data and drives the confidence to strategically act, while also meeting compliance requirements. 

Self-Service resources: Remember, detailed guides and videos for these processes are available via the Workiva Support Center and Community.