Areté Sustainability
Academic Roots to Practical Sustainability Solutions

Areté Sustainability is a boutique company that specializes in sustainability analysis and reporting. The company’s approach is steeped in more than 25 years of academic research and measurement, to provide sustainability accounting based on fundamental principles.

“Our core differentiator is our expertise in greenhouse gas emissions, especially in comprehensive Scope 3 accounting, enabling complete carbon footprinting and an extensive range of other full supply chain indicators, including water and waste footprinting, labor practices, safety, biodiversity, and more,” says Christopher Dey, director of Areté Sustainability.

The Areté team leverages its profound understanding of economy-wide supply chains and detailed lifecycle inventories to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and practical application. It does this through user-friendly software, which transforms complex academic and methodological backgrounds into accessible, actionable information.

A Robust Software for Sustainability Reporting

The sophisticated product encapsulates the team’s deep knowledge and makes it tangible for users. The Arete software covers Scope 1 and Scope 2 sources, offering comprehensive emissions measurement for multiple sites, accommodating renewables, electricity offsets, and carbon offsets. It enables Areté to incorporate sustainability indicators into broader organizational reporting frameworks, aligning it with financial reporting. Clients also value its material flow accounting capabilities for circular economy goals, as it gives them flexibility in tracking various material and waste indicators.

The software’s capabilities are augmented by skilled individuals with a background in physical sciences, who can interpret and integrate diverse source data. The highly skilled team at Areté distills economy-wide supply chain understandings, lifecycle assessments, and decades of research into the software’s user-friendly interface. It uses business intelligence tools like Qlik Sense, Power BI, and Tableau to create reporting solutions for sustainability results.

Integration with expenditure and revenue data is a key feature. By mapping expenditure items to emissions categories using advanced models, it achieves detailed Scope 3 and other supply chain reporting efficiently. The software facilitates divisional, sub-entity footprinting for organizations with any number of business activities, allowing for separate or aggregate reporting, down to the individual supplier level.

A distinctive aspect is the software’s tailored emissions factors for specific supply chains through a hybridization process using the most reliable databases complemented with direct supplier or material information, avoiding double counting and ensuring accuracy.

The focus is on obtaining stable, high-quality structured results that can be adapted to various reporting requirements, whether for Science Based Targets, Carbon Disclosure Project reporting (CDP), Global Reporting Initiative reporting (GRI), or other formats. Emphasizing a bottom-up approach completed with top-down model data, Areté prioritizes understanding source data before addressing reporting requirements.

Once organizations have a solid grasp of their energy, greenhouse, material, waste, and water accounts, they can produce reports in diverse formats while maintaining clarity and providence of source data for assurance purposes.

Adapting as Per Individual Client Needs

Progressive organizations in sustainability are only beginning to explore beyond greenhouse gas accounting, and further recognizing the importance of integrating social and economic indicators. Areté, with a flexible strategy rooted in core capabilities, approaches each organization with adaptability, understanding that a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t exist.

Our core differentiator is our expertise in complete greenhouse gas emissions, especially in comprehensive Scope 3 accounting, covering full carbon footprints and an extensive range of other supply chain indicators, including water and waste footprinting, labor practices, safety, biodiversity, and more

Arete adopts a client-agnostic approach, leveraging a fundamental understanding of the supporting economy, allowing its methodology to be applied universally. For example, one client, a major water supplier in Australia, aims to assess its complete carbon footprint, while a top global logistics company seeks assistance with Scope 3 emissions for sustainability rankings. Areté tailors its engagement approach based on their individual needs.

Its unique methodology is based on environmentally extended input-output analysis using standardized emissions factors specific to regional economies. This enables comprehensive and efficient calculation of carbon and other footprints. To address the initial challenge of where to start in an emissions assessment, Areté conducts scoping studies, helping companies of all sizes identify their main emission sources accurately and swiftly.

The approach is versatile and applicable across various sectors, including individual households, local governments, state governments, and diverse industries. Areté guides clients through subsequent steps, such as setting science-based emission reduction targets and tailoring services efficiently to meet specific needs.

Helping Organizations Embrace the Future with Sustainability

Despite its small team, Areté brings a potent blend of expertise to sustainability accounting by integrating academic measurement and supply chain accounting theory with IT capabilities. It operationalizes sustainability practices by advocating for an accessible and digitally structured approach to data management, recognizing the limitations of traditional tools like Excel or applying in an ad-hoc sense unreliable emissions factors.

With a focus on education and collaboration, Areté contributes to the evolution of sustainability accounting. Emphasizing an integrated approach that combines engineering, financial, and IT skills, the company's holistic perspective positions it as a valuable partner for organizations navigating the complexities of measuring and reporting environmental impacts amid a growing emphasis on sustainability.