Carbon project scoping questionnaire
Turn an ambiguous carbon request into a decision about the work to commission. This questionnaire helps a sponsor separate the questions being asked, identify the people who can answer them and record what must be resolved before calculations begin. Its output is a scoped next step, with limitations that remain visible.
The ten-page pack contains instructions, six reusable blank questionnaire sheets and a three-page completed fictional case. Complete it in the editable DOCX or print the matching PDF. The PDF is not an interactive form. There are no formulas, scores, automatic recommendations or emissions calculations. Copy the relevant route sheet when the request contains several objects.
Download the editable carbon project scoping questionnaire (DOCX).
Download the print carbon project scoping questionnaire (PDF).
Keep the request before interpreting it
Begin with the email, portal field or meeting instruction that triggered the work. Record its author, date and version, and identify the eventual reader. Then write the decision the reader expects to make. A board discussion, a customer submission and an investment appraisal may each need a different answer, even when the same person calls all three a carbon project.
Separate the deadline for returning a questionnaire from the deadline for supplying a result. Ask which date is fixed, who can approve a change, and what happens if a prerequisite remains unresolved. Do not quietly promise a completed study because a scoping call has been scheduled. The form records requested dates; it does not commit a provider to them.
Use a specific status beside each response: Supported, Proposed, Unresolved, or Not applicable with a reason. Supported means that the stated response has a named record or authorised confirmation. It does not mean the underlying technical work is correct or independently checked. Proposed identifies a choice awaiting agreement. A blank answer is unfinished, rather than an implicit approval.
Open a separate sheet for each kind of question
Route B collects questions about a named organisation or operation. Route C concerns a specified product or service. Route D concerns a particular change or intervention. Select every relevant route and give each a workstream ID. If the request does not fit, retain its wording and ask the sponsor for a specialist referral rather than forcing it into a convenient category.
EPA’s inventory guidance places method and boundary decisions before data collection. This is useful context for the organisation route; the questionnaire does not reproduce EPA’s process, forms or calculation tools.
The European Commission describes life-cycle environmental assessment extending from raw-material extraction to end of life. Check whether a request concerns carbon alone or wider environmental impacts before choosing its technical study route.
The route sheets deliberately ask questions without deciding the accounting treatment. Record the entity list awaiting a boundary decision, the product specification awaiting confirmation, or the proposed intervention awaiting a comparison design. A person who can supply bills may not be the person authorised to settle any of those choices. Name both roles where necessary.
Ask for evidence that resolves the next decision
Start with a small, relevant sample and an index of what exists. For an organisation request, a site list and reporting instruction may be more useful than a folder of unlabelled invoices. For a product request, the specification revision and requested result unit may be decisive. For an intervention, the proposed change and the records available before and after it need clarification.
The questionnaire asks where the records can be accessed, who controls them and what permission is needed. Reference a restricted agreement without copying its confidential contents into an initial enquiry. Use roles rather than unnecessary personal details. Keep passwords, access tokens, personal records and commercially sensitive attachments out of a freely circulating scoping copy.
Record missing evidence as a question with an owner and a decision date. Also state the consequence: does it prevent defining the task, prevent estimating the effort, or prevent releasing a result? This makes a useful distinction between work that can start now and work that depends on an answer. It avoids treating every unresolved item as either harmless or a reason to stop everything.
Work through a mixed request
All organisations, people, documents, dates and decisions in the downloadable case are fictional. Juniper Pumps asks for an annual company inventory, a customer number for pump P7 and the expected carbon benefit of a planned compressed-air upgrade. The sponsor initially groups these under one request, SC01. No emissions quantities or completed study results are supplied.
The completed intake assigns O01 to the company inventory, P01 to the pump request and D01 to the upgrade assessment. The annual period belongs to O01. P01 has its own specification revision and requested use-stage coverage. D01 concerns a future change and an unresolved comparison period. One workstream’s dates or evidence do not silently become another’s assumptions.
A second customer instruction changes the pump request from a factory-gate description to one including use. The questionnaire retains both versions and marks P01 Unresolved. The customer liaison must confirm the intended service conditions and the exact required method with the recipient. The preparer does not treat the earlier request as current merely because its data would be easier to collect.
For D01, the engineering note describes a possible upgrade but supplies neither a settled without-change comparison nor a monitoring design. The case records a request for technical scoping, not a savings claim. No credit programme has been selected. The sponsor’s question about possible credits therefore goes to a separate specialist decision rather than becoming an implied deliverable of the inventory.
O01 can proceed only to a defined discovery step: reconcile the candidate entity and operation list with the responsible internal owners, then prepare the inventory brief for review. Its consolidation approach and full source coverage remain undecided. The decision does not authorise a final inventory or make the board’s desired completion date achievable by itself.
Make the decision brief useful to the next person
The final sheet records a deliverable, its intended use, the next permitted step, its dependencies and the person who can approve the scope. Give each workstream its own disposition: discovery only, ready for a separately agreed engagement, specialist referral, or deferred. These are manual planning labels. They are not pass marks, eligibility decisions or permission to publish a result.
State the handover format as well as the subject. For example, an editable scope note with a question log is different from a calculated inventory workbook. Describe what the reviewer should be able to inspect, including the request version and unresolved assumptions. Separately specify any independent review, public claim, comparison, certification or credit-related work that the recipient expects.
Preserve the earlier brief when the purpose changes. In the fictional case, the new customer instruction reopens P01 while leaving O01’s discovery task intact. Record which workstream changed, the instruction that caused it and which decisions must be repeated. Do not restart unrelated work or quietly expand an existing assignment without its owner’s agreement.
Before circulating the completed form, try three reader checks. Can someone find the instruction behind each workstream? Can they tell what remains undecided without opening every attachment? Can they name the next action and the person responsible? If not, improve the answer or its reference. A longer response is useful only when it removes a specific ambiguity.
Continue with the appropriate working record
Use the corporate versus product guide for the distinction between those requests, the inventory boundary guide for a subsequent organisation decision, and the adviser brief workbook when comparing proposals against an agreed brief. This questionnaire captures the interview and route decisions that precede those records.
Sources checked 15 October 2026: US EPA, Scopes 1 and 2 Emissions Inventorying and Guidance, Step 1.
European Commission, About the Environmental Footprint Methods, Overview. Limited paraphrase under CC BY 4.0; wording shortened and adapted.
Version 1.0. Original Nitium Advisory questionnaire, diagram and fictional case. This is a scoping aid, not a prescribed accounting method, legal opinion, independent assurance, certification, credit eligibility assessment or promise that a particular service will be provided. No source organisation endorses the pack. Select and review the applicable method separately before technical work proceeds.
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