These terms are our contract with you
When we refer to ‘we’ (or ‘our’ or ‘us’), that means CarbonInvoice Limited. We are based in New Zealand but we operate in other countries too.
When we say ‘you’ (or ‘your’) we mean both you and any entity or business you’re authorised to represent. We provide a platform for small businesses to take action on climate change and help them win new business.
These terms apply to all websites, services hosted on carboninvoice.com and positive.business, and their sub-domains; any Application Programming Interfaces we provide; and any other services managed by us, now or in the future (”Services”).
We’ve tried to write these terms using plain and simple language, however this is a legal contract. If you can’t agree to these terms, you can’t use our Services.
We may update these terms from time to time, and any changes changes will be shown on this site. Where appropriate we may notify you of changes via email.
You promise to provide true, current and complete information in your dealings with us (including when setting up an account), and are responsible for updating that information as required so that the information remains true, current and complete.
You’re also responsible for keeping your credentials secure and not sharing them with any other person. If you realise they have been comprised, then you need to let us know immediately.
You also promise
a.not act in a way, or use or introduce anything (including any virus, worm, Trojan horse, timebomb, keystroke logger, spyware or other similar feature) that in any way compromises, or may compromise, the Services, or otherwise attempt to damage or interfere with the Services; and
b. to access the Services via standard web browsers only and not by any other method, unless given written approval by us. Other methods include scraping, deep-linking, harvesting, data mining, use of a robot or spider, automation, or any similar data gathering, extraction or monitoring method.
Pricing and Subscription
First Signup
When you first sign up you can access a free carbon measurement based on the information you provide. There is no fee for this part of the Service. You can then choose to become a Paying Subscriber to the Service, or delete your account and any connections.
Subscription
You become a Paying Subscriber through the Service when providing your credit card details and confirming you want to be a paying subscriber. From that point on you will be charged fees for Usage of the Service. Usage is determined by how many trees are to be funded to mitigate your carbon emissions for your business activities in a given month. Fees are calculated in arrears for the prior month. If you become a Paying Subscriber part way through the month, charges would start from that day. You may also notify us in writing to use an earlier date to start charging from if desired.
Your obligations
You agree to pay all applicable, undisputed fees for the Services on the terms set forth on the invoice. You agree to pay us via an automatic and recurring credit card charge set up via our third party payment processor (and authorised by you), or via any other payment method set out on in our Services or agreed with you in writing. You are responsible for reviewing the payment schedule and ensuring there are adequate funds available for processing. To avoid delayed or missed payments, please make sure we have accurate payment information. If after 14 days amounts payable remain overdue, we may suspend or terminate your subscription.
Taxes
You are responsible for paying any Taxes associated with your purchase where levied.
Use of data
When you enter or upload your data into our Services, we don’t own that data but you grant us a licence to use, copy, transmit, store, analyse, and back up all data you submit to us through our Services, including personal data of yourself and others, to:
allow us to improve, develop and protect our Services;
create new Services;
communicate with you about your subscription;
diagnose problems with the Services;
send you information we think may be of interest to you based on your marketing preferences;
and disclose to third party service providers and partners to enable and support such purposes.We use your data to provide our Services to you.
Use of your own personal data
We respect your privacy and take data protection seriously. By using our Services, you agree to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into and forms part of these Terms of Use.
Anonymised statistical data
When you use our Services, we may create anonymised statistical data from your data and usage of our Services, including through aggregation. Once anonymised, we may use it for our own purposes, such as to provide and improve our services, to develop new services or product offerings, to identify business trends, and for other uses we communicate to you.
Data breach notifications
Where there has been unthorised access to personal data that you’ve entered, we’ll let you know and, where possible, give you information about what has happened. Depending on the nature of the unauthorised access, and the location of your affected contacts, you may be required to assess whether the unauthorised access must be reported to the contact and/or a relevant authority. We think you’re best placed to make this decision, because you’ll have the most knowledge about the personal data you have entered into our Service.
Keeping it confidential
While using our Services, you may share confidential information with us, and you may become aware of confidential information about us. You and we both agree to take reasonable steps to protect the other party’s confidential information from being accessed by unauthorised individuals. You or we may share each other’s confidential information with legal or regulatory authorities if required to do so.
We own everything we’ve put into our Services unless otherwise stated, and excluding content owned by others. This includes rights in the design, compilation, and look and feel of our Services. It also includes rights in all copyrighted works, trademarks, designs, inventions, and other intellectual property. You agree not to copy, distribute, modify or make derivative works of any of our content or use any of our intellectual property rights in any way not expressly permitted by us.
You are financially liable for all purchases made with us through your account, as well as any losses we incur if you breach the Terms of Use or misuse our Services. That includes situations where you deliberately allow someone else to use your account to make a purchase.
You indemnify
You indemnify us against all losses, costs (including legal costs), expenses, demands or liability that we incur arising out of, or in connection with, a third-party claim against us relating to your use of our Services or any third-party product (except as far as we’re at fault).
Disclaimer warranties
Our Services are made available to you on an “as is” basis. We disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
Limitation of liability Other than liability that we can’t exclude or limit by law, our liability to you in connection with our Services or these terms, in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, is limited as follows:
We have no liability arising from your use of our Services for any loss of revenue or profit, loss of goodwill, loss of customers, loss of capital, loss of anticipated savings, legal, tax or accounting compliance issues, damage to reputation, loss in connection with any other contract, or indirect, consequential, incidental, punitive, exemplary or special loss, damage or expense.
For loss or corruption of your data, our liability will be limited to taking reasonable steps to try and recover that data from our available backups.
Our total aggregate liability to you in any circumstances is limited to NZD$100.
You can easily terminate your subscription to Services at any point in time We may terminate your subscription as well with the same notice. You will be billed for all usage within that billing period prior to termination.If you violate these terms, we may terminate your subscription immediately. On suspension or termination, you must immediately cease using the Services and must not attempt to gain further access.You must also stop using any collateral provided to you by CarbonInvoice while you were a Paying User, including the Positive Business Certification; the Positive Business badge and any other Positive Business or CarbonInvoice marketing assets and collateral.
Retention of Data
Once a subscription is terminated by you or us, it is archived and the data submitted or created by you is no longer available to you. We retain it for a period of time consistent with our data retention policy, during which, you can reactivate your subscription and once again access your data by paying the relevant subscription fees. We retain data in case you need it as part of your record retention obligations, but you can get in touch with us to have your data removed completely if you wish.
Availability
We really try to minimise any downtime, but sometimes it’s necessary so we can keep our Services updated and secure. Where planned maintenance is being undertaken, we’ll attempt to notify you in advance but can’t guarantee it.
Data loss
Data loss is an unavoidable risk when using any technology. You’re responsible for maintaining copies of your data entered into our Services.No compensation You are not entitled to any compensation for any downtime or data loss.
Maintenance
We are constantly updating the Services with new features, enhancements and bug fixes. We will endeavour to notify you where practical, by email, or within our Services when you log in
Maintenance
For any problems or technical support please reach out to support@carboninvoice.com or use our in-app chat functionality where available.
CarbonInvoice provides a platform for small businesses to take action on climate change and help them win new business.
Measure
Businesses can connect their financial data to CarbonInvoice, along with some extra information about their business, to measure their carbon footprint. Carbon Measurement Methodology describes how this process works.
Act
Businesses can take immediate positive action by funding the planting of new native trees to mitigate their emissions. Carbon Emissions Mitigation describes how the planting of native trees works, and why we have chose to fund new native trees.
Share
Businesses can share their positive impact with their network, clients, prospects and team to win new business and improve their brand. Businesses who use CarbonInvoice are designated Certified Positive Businesses.
Influence
Businesses can influence others in their network to also take positive action.
CarbonInvoice uses a proprietary Multi-Layered Categorisation and Calculation Approach to programatically measure Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions for the business. This is done in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol using cross-industry, and location-based, Emissions Factors. Indirect emissions that result from the use or disposal of a business’s products or services, Scope 3 ‘downstream emission’, are not included at this stage, due to the complexity of calculating these emissions.CarbonInvoice uses a combination of financial spend and operational business data including, location of the business, number of employees, % of employees that work from home, to calculate the businesses carbon footprint.
When categorising spend data, CarbonInvoice considers a number of factors including account-level information, supplier information and transaction level data; as well as materiality of spend. When in doubt, CarbonInvoice takes a conservative approach and categorises spend using the highest relevant emissions factor.
CarbonInvoice uses emissions factors from government databases, academic research and industry reports published around the world, including New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. They are based on scientific research into greenhouse gas emissions and how they are emitted across different industries. The emissions factors used are regularly updated as new research becomes available. Emissions factors by their nature are estimates - when applied to a specific business, there will be a level of uncertainty as to how accurate they are. This is an accepted risk; they allow CarbonInvoice to estimate a business’ carbon footprint in hours rather than weeks or months through traditional processes greatly reducing the cost for a business to understand their carbon footprint.
Spend-based emissions factors are used rather than activity-based emissions factors as they are better at estimating indirect and Scope 3 emissions, and can be applied against a business' complete spend to give a more complete carbon footprint. Additionally, spend-based emission factors can be useful for organisations with complex supply chains, where it may be difficult to obtain accurate data on all emissions associated with each activity. There is an acknowledged risk of some uncertainty in the estimation, as dollar spend is not always a good proxy for consumption of a particular service.
CarbonInvoice relies on customers to provide complete and accurate financial, and business operation, data to measure greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with its methodology and guidance and does not take responsibility for inaccurate or omitted data.
CarbonInvoice maintains a connection to a business’ accounting software ledger(s) - this allows CarbonInvoice to automatically provide greenhouse gas data at the invoice level; and allows businesses to mitigate their emissions at the invoice level.
CarbonInvoice estimates the greenhouse gas emissions on an ongoing basis using the real-time financial data in the accounting system. It calculates how many native trees are required to be planted to mitigate these emissions. This number of trees required is calculated based on the mitigation of emissions through absorption by these trees over a 50 year period as they grow.
At the end of each month, CarbonInvoice then coordinates the purchase and funding of planting new native trees with with trusted and credible partners in the climate space.
In New Zealand, CarbonInvoice has partnered with Trees That Count, a charity that matches funders with planting projects throughout New Zealand. Carbon sequestration rates are estimated using calculations from Tāne’s Tree Trust Calculator.
In Australia, CarbonInvoice has partnered with Carbon Positive Australia, an Australian charity that has restored over 5,000 ha of land with over 6 million trees & captured almost 650,000 tonnes of carbon, working with landholders, communities & organisations. On average, it takes 8 - 9 trees funded through Carbon Positive Australia to mitigate 1 tonne of CO2e. This varies based on species, soil conditions and rainfall. CarbonInvoice takes a conservative approach and uses 12 trees per tonne as the carbon sequestration rate in its estimations.
CarbonInvoice believes businesses should be committed to climate action and in funding the planting of native trees as a contribution to this. These are new additional trees that would have otherwise not been planted. Not only do they help mitigate carbon emissions but they also help strengthen biodiversity and support local eco-systems to thrive.
Carbon neutral is a term used to mean that any greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from a company's activities during a specified period is balanced by an equivalent amount being removed for that period - this is most commonly done through carbon offsets. Conventional carbon offsets also use avoided emissions where one person or entity pays another not to emit.
CarbonInvoice does not grant any of its customers carbon offsets, and any carbon sequestered happens over the life time of the trees funded (calculations are done on a 50 year absorption period).
Using CarbonInvoice does not make its customers carbon neutral or enable them to claim carbon neutrality.
Instead they are able to take their first positive step on their climate journey.
Certified Positive Businesses are independent businesses who are committed to sustainability leadership and take immediate action on important challenges to make a lasting positive impact in the world. They know that Small & Medium Businesses contribute 30%+ of global greenhouse gas emissions. To address this challenge and show leadership they take climate action which makes a positive impact on the world.
They are proud participants of the Positive Business Movement, they:
Start their journey by measuring. They calculate their carbon footprint using internationally accepted methods, in line with the the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. They continue to do this for the lifetime of their business.
Take action by mitigating. They fund new native trees in one or multiple locations around New Zealand or Australia.
Share their information and actions. They display transparent and accountable actions to clients, suppliers, employees and their network. Sharing their journey is a way for them to inspire other businesses to follow their lead and join this journey.
Positive businesses know that by offering the best service and doing the right things they will be the ones who survive and thrive.
The Positive Business badge is a designation CarbonInvoice awards to a business that has taken positive action with CarbonInvoice™. To receive this badge, businesses have to:
Have their carbon footprint measured through the Multi-Layered Categorisation and Calculation Approach adopted by CarbonInvoice described above.
Communicate they're a positive business through their Positive Business Profile.
Once they stop being a CarbonInvoice customer, they are no longer considered a Certified Positive Business, and are not allowed to use any Positive Business branding or assets, including the Positive Business badge; or the Positive Business Certification granted to them.