How ClubCarbon works
ClubCarbon turns the invoices your club already receives into a GHG-Protocol-aligned carbon footprint. No spreadsheets, nothing to outsource, drop a bill in, check what was read, and the emissions maths is done for you.
Those same invoices also show what you spent. So alongside your carbon footprint, you also get a clear picture of where the club's money is going, category by category. The two don't always line up: your biggest bill isn't always your biggest source of emissions. Seeing both side by side helps you decide what to tackle first.
Watch it in 30 seconds
Add a bill
1. Pick the type of bill. 2. Choose how to add it.
Add a bill
1. Pick the type of bill. 2. Choose how to add it.
Add a bill
1. Pick the type of bill. 2. Choose how to add it.
| Month | Source | Quantity | Unit | Est. | kgCO₂e | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2025 | Electricity (grid) | 1,346 | kWh | 301.7 | ✕ | |
| Feb 2025 | Electricity (grid) | 1,249 | kWh | 279.9 | ✕ | |
| Mar 2025 | Electricity (grid) | 1,073 | kWh | 240.5 | ✕ | |
| … 9 more months | ||||||
| Total | 2,550.4 | |||||
Cloonvarna GAA's total carbon footprint and spend for 2025, worked out from every invoice uploaded so far.
Bills in. Footprint, usage and costs out.
Thirty seconds, start to finish
Start free with the bills you already have.
clubcarbon.ie
Bills in. Footprint, usage and costs out.
0:00 / 0:29A scripted walkthrough of the real flow. Pause it, or click the progress bar to jump to any step.
Using the app
- 1Add your sports club
Each sports club gets its own space. Everything you upload sits under the club, and it gets its own dashboard and reports.
- 2Gather your invoices
Electricity and gas bills, heating-oil deliveries, water bills, waste collection invoices, fuel receipts for mowers and minibuses, coach-hire invoices for away games. Annual statements are ideal, one file can fill a whole year. You'll upload these as files in the next step, ClubCarbon reads the figures off them for you rather than you typing anything in by hand. PDFs, photos and CSVs all work.
- 3Drop each document into its category
Drag the file onto the matching card on your dashboard (or click the card to browse). The engine reads it and breaks the consumption into monthly records.
- 4Review before anything is saved
You always see what was extracted (supplier, months, quantities, and the emissions each row would add) before confirming, usually well under a minute to check for a typical bill. Edit quantities, fix months, or discard entirely. Nothing enters your records without your say-so.
- 5Watch the dashboard build up
Scope 1/2/3 totals, a month-by-month chart of emissions and spend, and a document list where every figure can be traced back to (or deleted along with) its source invoice. Seeing carbon and cost side by side makes inefficiencies and price changes easier to identify. All of this updates automatically once you confirm a document, no extra admin work needed.
- 6Generate your report
The annual report includes monthly tables per category, what you spent alongside the carbon, the exact emission factors used with their sources, data-coverage notes, and the Scope 3 exclusions statement, all generated automatically in one click. Print it or save as PDF from your browser.
- 7Act on what you find
The figures are the starting point, not the finish. Next Steps ranks where to focus first, from quick savings to grant-supported upgrades, and points to funding worth exploring. Upload your bills again after a change and the before-and-after shows whether it worked. Ongoing support is available if you would like help turning the results into a plan.
Behind the scenes: what happens when you drop an invoice
Answers to exactly what happens, step by step, once you drop in a file.
▸What happens to my file the moment I drop it in?
- We keep the original document exactly as you uploaded it.
- Every figure in your report can always be traced back to the invoice it came from.
▸How does ClubCarbon actually read the invoice?
- We send the file to Claude, an AI model.
- It reads the document and picks out the supplier, the billing period, and how much was used.
▸How does one bill become 12 months of data?
- A year-long bill becomes twelve monthly rows.
- If one bill covers two months, we split it between them based on how many days fall in each, and mark it as an estimate.
- All the different units (kWh, litres, m³, tonnes, km) are converted so everything can be compared.
▸How is my carbon figure actually calculated?
- Each month's usage is multiplied by a standard conversion number, called an emission factor, to turn it into a carbon figure.
- We use Irish figures first, and only use UK figures when Ireland hasn't published one.
▸What happens after I review the figures?
- Nothing is saved until you've checked it and approved it.
- Once it is, we keep a note of exactly how that figure was worked out, so if our reference numbers change later, your past reports don't change with them.
Categories and reporting standards
Each upload area has a plain, everyday name. Behind the scenes, it lines up with the official category used in international carbon reporting, so your report meets the recognised standard.
| Category | Official reporting category | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity | Scope 2, Purchased electricity (location-based) | Electricity bills or annual statements: floodlights, clubhouse, gym |
| Gas & Heating | Scope 1, Stationary combustion | Natural gas bills, heating oil or LPG deliveries for the clubhouse |
| Vehicles & Equipment Fuel | Scope 1, Mobile combustion | Fuel receipts for mowers, tractors, club vans and minibuses |
| Refrigerants & Cooling | Scope 1, Fugitive emissions | F-gas service invoices: bar coolers, cold rooms, AC recharges |
| Water | Scope 3, Cat. 1, Water supply & treatment | Water utility bills, pitches, showers, clubhouse |
| Waste | Scope 3, Cat. 5, Waste generated in operations | Waste collection invoices: general, recycling, food waste |
| Team Travel | Scope 3, Cat. 6, Business travel (away fixtures) | Coach hire invoices or mileage logs for away games |
Emission factors reference
Every figure in the app comes from: amount used × one of the numbers below. We use Irish figures wherever they exist, and UK figures only when Ireland hasn't published one. A few are marked "indicative", meaning they should be double-checked before using them outside the app. If we update a number later, reports you've already saved keep the figure they were calculated with, so they never silently change.
| Source | Factor | Unit | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grid electricity (Ireland) | 0.1978 | kgCO₂e / kWh | SEAI 2025 (provisional), electricity consumption factor |
| Natural gas | 0.1835 | kgCO₂e / kWh | SEAI 2025 (provisional), gross calorific value (as billed) |
| Heating oil / kerosene | 2.5404 | kgCO₂e / litres | DEFRA 2026, burning oil (indicative, verify) |
| LPG | 1.5557 | kgCO₂e / litres | DEFRA 2026, LPG (indicative, verify) |
| Diesel (avg biofuel blend) | 2.5835 | kgCO₂e / litres | DEFRA 2026 |
| Petrol (avg biofuel blend) | 2.075 | kgCO₂e / litres | DEFRA 2026 |
| Refrigerant R404A (commercial fridges/cold rooms) | 3943 | kgCO₂e / kg | DEFRA, GWP100 AR5 (indicative, verify) |
| Refrigerant R134a (bottle coolers, vans) | 1300 | kgCO₂e / kg | DEFRA, GWP100 AR5 (indicative, verify) |
| Refrigerant R410A (air conditioning) | 1924 | kgCO₂e / kg | DEFRA, GWP100 AR5 (indicative, verify) |
| Refrigerant R32 (newer air conditioning) | 677 | kgCO₂e / kg | DEFRA, GWP100 AR5 (indicative, verify) |
| Water supply + treatment | 0.3622 | kgCO₂e / m3 | DEFRA 2026, supply 0.1913 + treatment 0.1709 kgCO2e/m3 |
| General waste to landfill | 497.29 | kgCO₂e / tonnes | DEFRA 2026, mixed municipal to landfill |
| Mixed recycling | 4.65 | kgCO₂e / tonnes | DEFRA 2026, mixed recycling (closed-loop) |
| Food waste | 700.33 | kgCO₂e / tonnes | DEFRA 2026, food waste to landfill |
| Car travel (average car) | 0.1731 | kgCO₂e / km | DEFRA 2026, average medium car |
| Coach travel | 0.0272 | kgCO₂e / passenger-km | DEFRA, coach (indicative, verify) |
Making the numbers relatable
The dashboard translates tonnes of CO₂e into everyday comparisons: trees, flights and households. These are deliberately rough, order-of-magnitude aids for committee meetings, not reporting figures. The assumptions behind them are documented here and adjustable in one place (lib/equivalencies.ts):
| Comparison | Assumption | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 🌳 Trees | 25 | kgCO₂e absorbed by one mature tree per year · Commonly used forestry planning estimate (indicative, varies by species, age and site; see Teagasc forestry carbon guidance) |
| ✈️ Flying | 0.15 | kgCO₂e per passenger-km, short-haul economy flight · DEFRA business travel (air), average economy passenger, excluding radiative forcing (indicative) |
| 🏠 Households | 6,000 | kgCO₂e per average Irish household per year · Indicative estimate based on SEAI/CSO residential energy statistics (home energy use; excludes household transport) |
Data quality, in plain terms
- Estimated readings. Bills based on estimated (E) meter reads, and any figures we pro-rated across months, are flagged. The dashboard and report show what share of your total rests on estimates.
- Pro-rating. A bill covering 12 Nov to 9 Jan is split across November, December and January by the number of days in each.
- Gaps. Missing months are never invented. The report states how many of the 12 months have data.
- Scope 3 exclusions.The GHG Protocol's full Scope 3 list includes categories that don't apply to a sports club. The report names them and states they were screened out:
- Cat. 2 Capital goods (immaterial for most clubs, include ad hoc if a major build occurs)
- Cat. 3 Fuel- and energy-related activities (may be added later as an uplift on energy)
- Cat. 4 & 9 Upstream/downstream transportation and distribution
- …and the rest, listed in full on every report.
Ready to try it?
Grab a fictitious invoice from the samples page and drop it into a category. You'll see the whole pipeline run in about twenty seconds.
Get sample invoices