Yes. Your Carbon Report outlines the critical data, footprint completeness, and key methodological assumptions necessary to enable the result to be audited by a third-party. Cogo also has a Methodology document available upon request, which explains the footprinting and reporting approach in much more detail.
In terms of auditability, the spend-based footprint components are easily traced back to spend data in the Carbon Manager, but the activity-based footprint components will need to be traced back by an auditor to the invoices.
Most auditing of small business carbon footprints currently occurs as part of a formal certification process that the business chooses to enter into. It is possible that in future, corporate customers may ask to audit your carbon accounting, however this would only be done to the extent needed for the corporate’s own carbon assurance process i.e. it is unlikely that you would be subjected to a full carbon audit.
Cogo welcomes any efforts to introduce ‘small-business-appropriate’ third-party reviews of carbon footprints, which are less onerous than the existing formal certifications and assurance processes. This could involve footprint tool providers like Cogo enabling small businesses to have their data checked by a third party via the platform without significant effort or expense.