Integrating Continia Sustainability with Business Central Sustainability
Continia Sustainability enhances Business Central Sustainability (BC Sustainability) by adding automation, advanced calculations, and improved data management. It simplifies carbon accounting and reporting by reducing manual effort and providing key advantages, which are outlined in this article.
Automation
Continia Sustainability brings significant advantages through its automation features:
- Multiple emission results from the same transaction or entry – Continia Sustainability automatically calculates and allocates multiple emission results from the same entry into multiple scopes and categories.
- Automatic application of emission factors - emission factors are automatically applied from the Emission Factor Sets repository, whether managed by Continia or customized by the user. In comparison, with BC Sustainability Accounting Subcategories, emission factors need to be manually entered and updated.
- Automatic emission data collection – by linking your G/L accounts, items, and expenses correctly, Continia Sustainability automatically collects emission data and posts it directly to reports. This automation saves time and minimizes the risk of errors.
- Automated calculations – Continia Sustainability guides users by marking mandatory fields, ensuring that accurate data is entered. In BC Sustainability, users must specify the calculation format and manually identify which fields to complete.
- Automated unit conversion – the system automatically converts units of measurement to match the emission factors’ units, eliminating the need for manual conversion. In BC Sustainability, users must perform this conversion themselves.
- Automated scope and category allocation – Continia Sustainability automatically allocates emissions to the correct scope and category, removing the need for users to have deep knowledge of of which activities belong to which scope. In BC Sustainability, this knowledge must be applied by the users.
Market-based calculations
Continia Sustainability supports electricity calculation for both location- and market-based approaches, enabling more precise sustainability reporting and complying with GHG Protocol requirements.
CO₂ equivalents
Continia Sustainability uses CO₂ equivalents results, which are broken down into 6 of the Kyoto Protocol gases (CO₂e of CO₂, CH₄, N20, SF₆, PFCs, HFCs) at Emission Factor level. Instead, BC Sustainability reports results using only 3 of these gases in their standard form and not CO₂e form. Continia automatically converts CO₂e values back to the standard forms used by BC Sustainability. This conversion happens in the background, requiring no manual input or configuration, and ensures accurate, compliant reporting.
Multiple postings per entry
Continia Sustainability allows you to allocate emissions to multiple accounts for a single entry, unlike BC Sustainability, which typically uses a one-to-one mapping. For example, when a company purchases electricity, direct emissions are recorded in the primary environmental account based on location and market, upstream emissions are assigned to a Scope 3 account, and any additional scope emissions are categorized separately. This flexibility ensures accurate tracking and reporting. In contrast, with Business Central Sustainability, you would need to manually duplicate or multiply your entry to achieve the same result.
Continia Sustainability extends the BC Sustainability posting routine by creating a dedicated set up. For more information, refer to the Extending the BC Sustainability posting routine article.