Glossary

Learn or review common terms that are used in Microsoft Sustainability Manager documentation.

Activity data

An activity is any action that creates emissions. It's anything that your company does, uses, or benefits from that generates greenhouse gas emissions. Activity data is the quantifiable measurement of that activity.

Example: 341 kilowatt-hours (kWh)

Avoided emissions

The measurable quantity of emissions that a company intentionally avoids generating by choosing a different activity or changing a process.

Calculation job

Each time that you run a calculation, you generate a unique calculation job. The calculation job history contains details such as the time when the job ran and its success rate.

Calculation model

An equation in Microsoft Sustainability Manager that generates carbon emissions or water usage data for use in analyses, reports, and scorecards.

Calculation profile

A feature in Microsoft Sustainability Manager that you use to define the timing and structure of a calculation model.

Carbon intensity

Carbon intensity helps you identify how emissions relate to various business operations, such as the square footage or headcount of a facility, or the tons or units of products produced.

Example: Emissions generated per unit of revenue = Revenue ÷ Emissions

Carbon negative

A company is carbon negative when it removes more carbon than it emits each year.

Carbon neutral

A company is carbon neutral when it reduces its emissions or pays other companies not to emit the equivalent of its remaining emissions.

Microsoft Sustainability Manager data model

A core element of Microsoft Sustainability Manager that lets you unify and standardize diverse sets of operational data. You can view and manage data by using standard Dataverse management practices.

Connector

A connector lets you import data from various accounts by using a set of prebuilt actions and triggers.

Examples: Comma-separated values (CSV) or XLSX files, XML or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files, a SQL Server database, Salesforce objects, an Impala database, and other Power Query connectors

Cradle to gate

Accounting for Scope 3 activity only in upstream emissions, that is, everything that occurs before goods and services reach your company.

Cradle to grave

Accounting for Scope 3 activity through the whole lifespan of goods and services.

Data source

What Microsoft Sustainability Manager connects to for accessing activity data. The more closely and directly you can connect to your data source, the better.

Examples: Utility bill, business application, data link, Excel file

Emissions data

An output from the system that results from an emission calculation.

Example: 51 billion tons of carbon dioxide

Emission factor

A value that you use in an emissions calculation to convert a quantity of related activity into emissions values for corresponding gases.

Emissions source

Any of the 23 types of operational activity that the Greenhouse Gas Protocol organizes into predefined groupings.

See also: Activity data, Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3

Energy intensity

Energy intensity helps you identify how energy usage and facility square footage might be related. You can calculate it as kilowatt-hours (kWh) divided by square feet (sq. ft.).

Estimation factor

A value that you use in calculations to convert one type of known transaction data into an approximate calculated value when actual usage information isn't available.

Example: A company that doesn't receive a utility bill for space that it leases can calculate its emissions by using an estimation factor that is based on consumption in that region.

Factor

A value that you use in calculation models to convert one type of data into another type.

Example: One emission factor can convert electricity usage into metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Factor mapping

A method of linking the dynamic attributes of activity data or water usage data to an emission or estimation factor when the calculation job runs. The benefit of using factor mappings is that you don't have to create a separate calculation model for each factor.

False negative

A false negative occurs when a system fails to detect an anomaly.

Example: The system doesn't capture an anomaly when a service outage occurs.

False positive

A false positive occurs when a system incorrectly detects an anomaly even though none occurred.

Global warming potential (GWP)

Each greenhouse gas has a different impact on global warming. To compare different greenhouse gases, each gas has a global warming potential value that's relative to metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (mtCO₂e).

Greenhouse Gas Protocol

The organization (ghgprotocol.org) that establishes comprehensive global standards to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions from public and private sector operations, value chains, and mitigation actions.

Metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (mtCO₂e)

You can convert each measurement of greenhouse gas to metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (mtCO₂e) by using that greenhouse gas's global warming potential (GWP) factor.

Net zero

An organization is net zero when it removes as much carbon from the environment as it emits.

Reference data

Contextual, supplemental information that goes into a calculation or helps provide context for calculation outputs.

Examples: Facilities, locations, industry, equation definitions, activity metadata

Removed emissions

The measurable quantity of carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions that a company intentionally removes from the environment.

Revenue intensity

Revenue intensity helps your company identify how carbon emissions and water relate to revenue. You calculate it by dividing an emissions or water quantity measurement by the related revenue (for example, mtCO₂e ÷ Revenue).

Revenue scale

A setting in Microsoft Sustainability Manager that you use to adjust your monthly revenue scale to simplify your revenue intensity scores. Revenue scale options are limited to one to one (1:1, the default option), thousands, millions, and billions.

Scope

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol organizes all sources of emissions into three types ("scopes") for standard data collection, measurement, and reporting purposes.

Scope 1

Emissions that come from sources that your company owns or controls. This scope includes four sources of direct emissions: stationary combustion, mobile combustion, fugitive emissions, and industrial processes.

Examples: Emissions from combustion in owned or controlled boilers, furnaces, vehicles, and so on; emissions from chemical production in owned or controlled process equipment

Scope 2

Electricity that your company purchases or otherwise brings into its organizational boundary. These emissions physically occur at the facility where electricity is generated. This scope includes four sources of indirect emissions: electricity, steam, heating, and cooling.

Scope 3

These emissions result from your company's activities, but they come from sources that your company doesn't own or control. They're produced both upstream and downstream along your organization's value chain. This scope includes 15 categories across the value chain.

Examples: Business travel, capital goods, transportation

Spend-based accounting

A method that uses the money your company spends on an activity as a proxy for actual usage data.

Example: $10,000,000 airline travel × Emission factor = Scope 3 Category 6 emissions

Value chain partner

A value chain partner is any third party that you do business with, are invested in, or need to collect data from.

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Last updated on 2026-03-24