Notes on carbon markets and industrial transition
The weekly dispatch is a short read: one corridor note, one method detail, and whatever data problem landed on our desk that week. It is written for people who already work with diesel litres and tonne-kilometres, so we skip the introductions and go straight to the numbers, the assumptions behind them, and where they tend to break.
If you run reporting for a small fleet in Gauteng or the Western Cape without a full-time analyst, tell us what you are stuck on. Corridor tips, factor corrections and blunt disagreements are all welcome, and they shape what gets published next.
Weekly dispatch
One email, sent Thursdays, with the latest corridor note and factor updates.
Corridor tips
Send route observations, load splits or depot notes to the editors.
Method questions
Ask about factor selection, telematics pulls or audit-ready baselines.
These are the recurring ones from hauliers, fleet engineers and sustainability officers working through corridor data. If your situation is not covered here, the editors are reachable and usually reply within a week.
Begin with diesel litres and distance per trip, not with a full carbon model. Pull three months of fuel records and odometer readings for one corridor, convert litres using a published diesel factor, and check the result against a known load. That baseline is enough to spot where your numbers drift before you invest in software.
There is no single mandatory set. Most operators pick a national factor set and apply it consistently across the reporting group. The problems start when two depots use different factors for the same activity, so the first step is agreeing on one source and documenting why it was chosen. Our method notes on the Richards Bay flows cover this in more detail.
Yes, but you need to say so. Missing trip data is common on older units and on routes with poor signal. Flag the coverage percentage, describe how gaps were filled or excluded, and keep the raw pulls. Auditors accept imperfect data far more readily than unexplained numbers.
No. A working spreadsheet with fuel, distance and load columns handles most small fleet reporting. The time cost sits in cleaning the data, not in the calculation. Several Gauteng operators we have spoken to run the whole cycle in a few hours a month once the template is set up.
Send it to the editors with the corridor, the date range and whatever data you can share. We do not publish unverified figures, and we correct method notes when the underlying assumptions change. Reach the team through the contact page.
Reporting practices and factor sets shift over time. For how we handle submitted data and corrections, see our editorial policy.
Corridor tips, method corrections and factor updates all land with the same small team. If you are stuck on a reporting question, start here before you rewrite another spreadsheet.
Calls about an active corridor piece are usually returned the same working day.
Most readers arrive here with a half-finished method note, a telematics export that will not reconcile, or a corridor figure they need to defend. Pick the channel that matches what you actually need, and expect a reply from someone who reads spreadsheets for a living.
If a load split on the N3, a Richards Bay terminal figure or a Johannesburg–Durban rail note looks wrong, send the source. We check against operator data before anything is republished.
Emission factor selection, tonne-kilometre baselines, telematics data quality. Include the factor set you are using and the corridor, and we can usually point to the assumption that is causing the drift.
Interview transcripts, method notes and load charts can be reused with attribution. Write to the editors with the piece you have in mind and how it will be used.
Corridor tips and corrections are read within two working days. Method questions that need a data pull take longer, usually three to five working days. Reprint and editorial requests are answered within a week. Anything sent over a weekend lands on Monday morning.
Still deciding where to start? The getting started path walks through the reporting basics, and our privacy policy explains how submitted corridor data is handled.