CSRD & ESG — automated energy and Scope 2 emissions reporting

Under the EU's CSRD, sustainability data now carries the same weight as a financial statement — externally audited, and increasingly decisive for investors, lenders and supply-chain partners. One of its hardest areas to get right is energy use and the related greenhouse-gas emissions — above all Scope 2 emissions from purchased electricity and heat.

The problem? Most companies do not have data of sufficient granularity. Supplier invoices are not enough. The auditor will ask about sources, locations and methodology. Below — exactly what CSRD requires on energy, where to get the data, and how to automate the whole energy-reporting process.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 — the three emission scopes in one sentence

Before going further, a brief clarification of terms. Greenhouse-gas emissions are divided into three scopes:

• Scope 1 — direct emissions from your own sources, e.g. burning gas in your own boiler room or fuel in a fleet.
• Scope 2 — indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heat. These depend directly on energy use.
• Scope 3 — other emissions across the value chain (suppliers, transport, product use).

For companies without their own industrial production or transport fleet, Scope 2 is usually the largest and easiest-to-measure category.

CSRD — what it is and who it covers

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (EU 2022/2464) is an EU directive imposing an obligation to report sustainability data. It is not another voluntary ESG declaration. CSRD requires assurance by a statutory auditor — analogously to financial statements.

The rollout schedule covers three waves:

The reporting standard is ESRS — the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, developed by EFRAG. National rules implementing CSRD vary, but the report is in every case subject to assurance by a statutory auditor. A refusal to issue an opinion, or qualifications regarding environmental data, generate reputational risk and problems with investors, lenders and supply-chain partners.

What CSRD requires on energy and emissions

The central standard in this area is ESRS E1: Climate change. It imposes reporting of emissions across all three scopes (Scope 1–3) described above. In practice, for most commercial companies the reporting burden rests on Scope 2 — emissions from purchased electricity and heat.

Data required under CSRD — energy use and Scope 2 reporting

• Electricity consumption expressed in MWh per year, broken down by location.
• Energy source — national grid, renewable energy (PPA contracts, guarantees of origin), own solar generation.
• Electricity emission factor — expressed in kg CO₂/MWh, published annually for each market by the relevant national authority. The factor falls year over year as the share of renewables in the mix grows, so the report must use the factor for the correct year.
• Energy-intensity indicator (intensity ratio) — energy use per production unit, per square meter of floor area, or per employee.

ESRS distinguishes two methods of calculating Scope 2: location-based (the national grid factor) and market-based (the factor arising from a contract, e.g. a PPA or guarantees of origin). Companies should report both methods.

The most common mistake? Estimating data from energy-supplier invoices. An invoice gives total consumption per connection point — with no breakdown of how much the server room, the air conditioning or the production hall used. The statutory auditor has the right to challenge such estimates if the company cannot document its methodology.

Where companies get CSRD data — and why it is not enough

A typical multi-site company has three sources of energy information: supplier invoices (a monthly aggregate per connection point), distribution-operator meter readings (quarterly or monthly), and possibly BMS data where a building has one. None of these breaks consumption down per building, floor, production line or site within a single connection point.

The consequences are predictable. The ESG manager preparing the CSRD report hears from the technical department: "we don't have data at that granularity." What remains is an estimate — for example a proportional split of consumption by floor area. Such an estimate does not meet the ESRS requirements for reliability and verifiability of data.

The statutory auditor may demand measurement documentation backing the reported values. Without it, the report is qualified — which in practice means going back to square one and the need to implement a measurement system.

The answer is an energy-monitoring system with sub-metering at the level of electrical circuits. This is not about replacing the main meters, but about adding a measurement layer inside the installation — where invoices and operator meters do not reach.

How Percee automates ESG/CSRD data collection

Percee® — an Energy Management and Optimization System (EMOS) — measures energy use in real time, down to a single circuit. In practice this means data split per building, floor, zone, device or production line — depending on the measurement-system configuration. Data reaches the Percee platform automatically, with no manual reading.

Data aggregation. The platform generates consumption reports weekly, monthly and annually — broken down by location. The ESG manager does not have to gather data from a dozen sites by hand. All measurements are in one place, in one format.

Scope 2 calculation. Percee multiplies measured consumption by the current national grid emission factor. The result — kg CO₂ per site, per period — is available on an ongoing basis, not only after the financial year closes.

Market-based Scope 2 for companies with a PPA. If a company has a renewable-energy purchase contract, Percee separates the contracted volume from energy drawn from the national grid. As a result, market-based Scope 2 reporting reflects the real purchasing structure, not an averaged mix.

Export and integration. Data can be exported as CSV, PDF or pulled via API. Companies using SAP, Salesforce Sustainability Cloud or other ESG tools feed them with Percee data without manual re-keying.

Documentation for the auditor. Every measurement has a timestamp, a meter identifier and an assigned location. The statutory auditor sees the full audit trail — where every number in the CSRD report comes from.

Indicators, trends, anomalies — what else Percee delivers for ESG/CSRD

ESRS (the reporting standard for CSRD) requires not only absolute values but also energy-performance indicators. Percee calculates them automatically: kWh/m², kWh/employee, kWh/tonne of output — depending on the facility type and the reference data entered into the system.

Year-over-year trends are another ESRS requirement. The standard expects a company to show the direction of change — whether energy use and emissions are rising or falling — and to explain why. Percee accumulates historical data and presents period comparisons ready to drop into the report.

Anomaly detection and alerts remove surprises. A sudden rise in consumption at a given site — a compressor failure, a change in HVAC operating mode, a leak in the cooling circuit — is flagged automatically. The ESG manager learns of the problem before it reaches the annual report.

Multi-site companies gain an extra perspective: an energy ranking of facilities. Comparing consumption per square meter between sites shows which buildings need intervention — and where emission reductions will have the biggest effect.

ISO 50001 and CSRD — shared data, separate goals

ISO 50001 requires implementing an energy management system: measurement, reduction targets, an energy review and continual improvement. CSRD requires reporting energy use and emissions in the ESRS standard. The requirements overlap — but are not identical.

The difference: ISO 50001 concerns the management process (whether the company systematically measures and optimizes), CSRD concerns disclosure (whether the company reports reliable figures and submits them to external verification). The source data, however, is the same — energy-use measurements, breakdown by location, intensity indicators.

Companies that implemented ISO 50001 with Percee have a ready database for CSRD. They do not need a separate data-collection project. Percee handles both requirements from one platform — measurements for ISO 50001 simultaneously feed the CSRD report.

For companies still planning a deployment, this has budget implications. One measurement system covers two obligations: ISO 50001 certification and CSRD compliance. Instead of two separate projects — one point of investment.

Turn an obligation into an advantage

It is easy to treat CSRD purely as a compliance cost. But a company with reliable energy data gains, in passing, a tool for real cost reduction — and a bargaining argument with investors, banks and partners for whom a carbon footprint is becoming a supplier-selection criterion. And, crucially, some efficiency measures can in certain markets be financed through energy-efficiency ("white") certificate schemes, shortening the payback on metering and control. Regulation then stops being merely a burden and becomes a lever.

Percee does not prepare the CSRD report — that is the job of the company and the statutory auditor. Percee supplies the data: measured, aggregated, documented and audit-ready. A company that must report Scope 2 emissions from twenty sites next year has a choice: months of manually gathering data from invoices and spreadsheets — or a ready measurement set in one platform.

See how Percee will prepare the energy data for your CSRD report →