what do I need to copy from my energy bill for the dossier

Consumption in kWh and m³, not the amount in euros

For the file, energy consumption in physical units is required: the number of kWh of electricity and the number of m³ of gas (or the heat units for district heating) over the past reporting period. This is usually shown on the annual invoice from the energy supplier, not on every monthly statement — which often shows only an advance payment amount. The amount in euros is not relevant for this purpose: the conversion to CO2 emissions is based on an emission factor that applies to consumption in kWh or m³, not to what was paid.

It is also useful to copy over: the address of the connection (with multiple sites, this saves work later) and the period covered by the annual invoice, since it does not always coincide with a calendar year. Those with their own solar panels and who feed back to the grid note the fed-back amount separately — it counts differently in the consumption than it should. This is further comparable with the data from payroll administration needed for the personnel section or with copying over fuel receipts for the vehicle fleet: in each case it is about a physical quantity from an existing document, which the entrepreneur confirms themselves.

Scope 2 in the VSME base module and the GHG Protocol

Energy consumption of electricity, gas and heat falls under what the GHG Protocol calls scope 2: the indirect emissions that arise from generating the energy a company purchases, as opposed to scope 1 (own fuel consumption) and scope 3 (the rest of the value chain). The VSME standard from EFRAG asks in the base module for this consumption broken down by energy source, precisely because the conversion to CO2 per energy source uses its own factor. This is why kWh and m³ are needed separately, not added together as one amount.

The question of which data may be involved here — and which may not — is different from the question of how you fill them in. Those who want to know whether a question about energy consumption is actually allowed to be asked will find that in the explanation of what the capcheck of esgia does. For those who are at the very beginning of completing a questionnaire, there is a summary of the steps in order.