Validations

What are carbon assessment validations and why are they important?

The best way to describe a carbon assessment validation is as a check-over of the carbon footprint report by an experienced agricultural consultant. There are several things a consultant will do during the validation process:

  • check for missing data
  • sense check on data
  • cross-check on different sections of the report
  • follow-through and follow-up with the client
  • one final check to make sure the numbers make sense, and the customer has got the most accurate result.

This is especially important when the carbon assessment is being used for suppliers in the chain, or with the subsidy schemes – the farmer has the reassurance that the report has been looked over by somebody who knows the tool inside out. It is that final step in the journey to provide a drill-down that will result in the best possible outcome for a client.

The most common mistakes revolve around the livestock section (e.g., annual average livestock numbers, moving animals up and down the age categories), electricity and fuel usage (e.g., including domestic electricity use, or the use of coal and kerosene on some farms) and waste.

  

There are distinct benefits of having your carbon assessment validated:

  • spotting red flags and eliminating mistakes and omissions
  • minimising risk and building trust in the result
  • ensuring the correct numbers through communication and collaboration
  • building a robust benchmark database, which further serves as a useful tool
  • providing a reliable report that has gone through quality assurance and can be used in grants applications and for the supply chain requirements.

Spotting red flags

Sarah Kerr, an experienced consultant and validator with SAC Consulting, says: “The first thing I’ll do when I do a validation is to have a look at the Enterprise reports. That gives me a guide as to what the emissions are. If they look as though they’re too high or too low, then I know there’s a red flag somewhere. I need to have a check down through the data more robustly.”

Mhairi Dalgliesh, also an SAC Consulting experienced validator, adds: “We also check for missing data. That means a box should have been filled, and it hadn’t been. Maybe somewhere a digit has been missed, or an extra digit had been added. Does this figure look sensible for a given category? Have they moved the livestock numbers correctly? There are nuances behind the data the clients have to input.”

Valuable validator help builds trust

A validator’s job is to help you, like an editor would help a writer in publishing. The reassurance that the tool was used correctly comes from a validated report – especially if a user has not had the time to read the Guidance thoroughly, or there were areas not fully understandable from a user’s point of view. A validator has looked through the entire report, and they have filled the pages needed. It means all the standard numbers are in places where they are supposed to be, because another set of eyes has double-checked it.

When it comes to consultants, they need to do a lot in a short space of time, often preparing multiple reports. For them, the benefit lies in the data quality check by someone who knows the tool inside out. Also, a validator comes with no prior knowledge of the farm in question, and can more easily spot inconsistencies – which makes it the most effective use of the consultant’s time. Before they write a report or follow up with a farmer, they get the seal of approval that everything up to this point has been done correctly.

A simple process

Agrecalc provides a button on the system that allows the farmer or consultant to send the report for validation. During the validation process, the report is locked so that no changes can be made until the validation is finished. It is very important that the clients are patient with this process as it helps with the accuracy of data checks.

If there are  issues with the report – e.g., the live weight gain does not match the opening and closing weights, or it doesn’t seem that manures have been handled correctly, the validator will contact the client directly with a query, and re-open the document for edits.

Validators also point the clients towards the correct sections of the User Guidance, before receiving the correct numbers and finishing the validation.

Every validated report builds a better benchmark database

It is important to submit your report for validation as it can keep building the benchmark database in Agrecalc. Benchmarking is one of Agrecalc’s feature that has had a really good feedback from the farmers – they like to know how they compare to other farms in their area, enterprise, or even within a producer group. Consultants too utilise benchmarking and comparison when writing their reports.

But that comparison is only as good as the data that goes into building the database. The more reports that get validations by an experienced consultant, the more correct reports go into the benchmark. Skipping this important step and letting all non-validated data go into benchmarks would not result in a robust and relied-upon database.

Validation closes the quality assurance loop for both the consultants, farmers, and the supply chain, as the consultants’ report will be based on a solid, accurate benchmark.

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