Environmental figures tied to their source data

A public figure is only as good as the record behind it

The problem

Environmental numbers get questioned. A regulator queries a reading, a journalist compares this year's figure to last year's, an auditor samples a line in the report, a community group asks about a specific month at a specific site. The question is rarely difficult in itself. Answering it is.

The usual answer

The figure has usually travelled. A meter reading went into a site spreadsheet, was summed into a regional file, was corrected three weeks later when a fault was found, was converted into different units on the way into the report, and was signed off by someone in a meeting. Every step was reasonable and none of it was recorded in a form anybody can retrieve. So answering a question about one number means finding the person who built that spreadsheet, working out which version was used, reconstructing what was corrected and why, and hoping the answer holds. Weeks of work to defend a figure that was probably right all along, and no way to be certain it was.

How we approach it

We keep each figure with its lineage. The source it came from, the readings that make it up, every adjustment applied and the reason for it, the version that was published, and who approved it. Corrections are recorded as corrections rather than overwriting what was there, so the history of a number stays visible. The same record is what the report draws from, which means the published figure and the auditable figure cannot drift apart.

What changes

A challenge is answered by opening the record. Someone can show where a number came from and what happened to it in the time it takes to have the conversation. Audit preparation stops being an annual reconstruction project, and a correction made in good faith stops looking like something that needs explaining.