How every number is calculated.

Principles

• Collect once, calculate everything else

  The customer enters operational quantities once, from their source records; Yarta verifies them. Every emission, rate, intensity, trend and score is calculated from them, so a figure cannot disagree with the numbers behind it.

• Raw numbers in, no typed percentages

  Litres, kilowatt-hours, gigajoules, kilolitres, tonnes, hectares and counts. Nobody types a rate Yarta can calculate. The only percentages entered are measured ones, such as a bin audit's contamination rate.

• Every factor has an edition

  Each factor is recorded with its source and edition, so any figure can be traced to the factor that produced it.

• Two emissions figures, never netted

  Operational emissions are what the organisation emitted. Avoided emissions are a modelled estimate of what recycling avoided elsewhere. They are reported separately and never subtracted from each other.

Emissions

All emissions are in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO₂-e), calculated each month from the raw quantities entered.

Scope 1: fuels

Scope 1: natural gas

Scope 2: grid electricity

The state comes from the organisation profile. Western Australia uses the factor for the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).

Scope 3: reported categories

These are the Scope 3 categories Yarta reports today, following the category structure of the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard. Business flights are recorded but not yet converted: see Limitations.

Total operational emissions

Avoided emissions, reported separately

An estimate of emissions avoided elsewhere because material was recycled rather than made new. It is shown beside operational emissions, never deducted from them, and never an offset.

Factors

EditionNational Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2024 (DCCEEW), as reproduced in the Commonwealth Emissions Reporting Framework 2024–25

Rates and intensities

Every rate and intensity is calculated from the raw numbers, never typed. Plug-in hybrids count as half an electric vehicle. Recovery, diversion and renewable shares are capped at 100%. In the score, rates are taken over the last 12 months together, except fleet electrification, which uses the current fleet.

The Yindyamarra Environmental Score

One monthly score out of 100. Each of the ten categories is scored from 0 to 100 by the rule below. The overall score is the average of the category scores that have data, rounded to a whole number, with each category counting equally.

Category rules

Bands

Provisional and not reported

• Unverified monthsA month is provisional until Yarta verifies it, and so is any score that includes it.
• Target-based categoriesLand, Nature and Community are scored against annual targets, pro-rated until a full year of data exists. They are provisional until there are 12 months of data.
• Categories with no dataShown as not reported and not scored. The score states how many of the ten categories it covers.

Direction of travel and baseline

Scores are shown month on month, year on year (against the same month a year earlier), over rolling 12 months, and against the baseline year set in the organisation profile. Trend parts of category scores compare the last 12 months with the same calendar months of the baseline year, so comparisons are seasonal. Where a baseline month is missing, the baseline year's monthly average stands in.

Default targets and the eco standards

Targets come from the organisation profile. Where an organisation has not set one, the score uses these defaults. For "at the eco standards", the published standard is the floor: 80% landfill diversion (National Waste Policy Action Plan) and 82% renewable electricity (national target), with the organisation's own target applying where it is tighter. The standards are listed with their sources on the eco standards page.

Targets, potential and recommended help

Each monthly report shows three numbers and a roadmap. Recommendations come from the published rules below, so any organisation with the same figures gets the same recommendations, and can book the help with Yarta or use any provider.

The three numbers

Recommendation rules and assumed effects

The roadmap

Booked items start in the month booked. The others start from next month, two a quarter, weakest category first. Each kind of help has its own lead time before it shows in your figures and its own build-up to full effect: from three months for water leaks and evidence to two years for fleet replacement, at your own rate of retiring vehicles. Estimated changes run from half the assumed effect to the full effect. Everything else is held at the latest 12 months. Work completed in the last 6 months is not recommended again; its effect shows only in later verified figures.

The chart on the roadmap shows the last 12 months of scores, then the projection month by month, with a line at the score your targets would give. A booking marked done changes nothing by itself: the change shows only in the months that follow, as they are entered and verified.

Independence

• Published rulesThe rules and assumptions are published in the Yarta method, and the same rules apply to every organisation.
• Any providerYou can use any provider. Recommendations, your score and the verification of your figures do not depend on who does the work.
• DisclosureWork by a Recycle Group business (The Mattress Recycling Company, Recycle Warehouse or the group's collection business) is disclosed on your monthly report. Yarta is part of Recycle Group.
• Only through the figuresCompleted work changes your score only through the figures entered and verified in later months, like any other change.
• Separate peopleA Yarta analyst who runs a paid session for you does not enter or verify your months.
• EstimatesThe score with Yarta help and the projection are estimates. They are not a promise, a guarantee or a target.

Benchmarks

Yarta benchmarks a score against published industry figures and the eco standards, never against another customer's data. No customer's figures are shared with anyone, and no customer is identifiable in anything Yarta publishes.

• Eco standardsThe published national and state targets on the eco standards page: the bar for "at the eco standards" on every report.
• Industry benchmarksPublished figures for the organisation's sector, printed on the report beside the organisation's own figure with the source and the period the figure covers. Three are matched to the bars on page 1 (waste recovery, renewable electricity, fleet electrification); the rest are related published figures printed on page 2 for context. The table below is the current edition; where a sector has no published figure for a metric, the report says so and compares the organisation with its own baseline and target.
• Your own historyEvery category is compared with the same months of the baseline year and with last month and last year.
• What Yarta does not doPool customer data into a peer average, or show one customer where another sits. If a de-identified industry index is published in future, it will be opt-in, aggregated, and described in this method first.

Benchmarks v0.1 · sources checked 29 September 2026

Every benchmark is versioned with this method. When a source publishes a new edition, the benchmark edition changes and the report names the edition it was calculated under.

Providers and accreditation

Every suggestion on a roadmap can be booked. Yarta introduces the provider; the customer can use any provider. Every provider Yarta introduces holds the licence or accreditation the work requires, and the report names who did the work.

Where a Recycle Group business does the work, the report says so. A provider's accreditation is checked before the introduction and recorded against the booking.

Evidence and verification

Customers send the document behind each figure. A Yarta analyst enters the figures and grades each document, and a second Yarta analyst verifies the month.

• Month statusEach month moves from documents received, to entered, to verified. One Yarta analyst enters the figures and attaches the evidence; a different analyst checks every figure against it and marks the month verified. The person who entered a month cannot verify it. Customers see a month in their reports once it is verified.
• Evidence shareThe Governance score counts figures backed by grade A or B evidence. A document attached but not yet graded counts until Yarta grades it.
• What verification meansA check by Yarta of the figures against their evidence. It is not an audit or independent assurance.

Boundary and sectors

Every organisation reports on the same ten categories. The sector profile sets which streams are expected, which intensity the report leads with (per resident, bed, student, site, vehicle or employee), and which benchmarks apply. The eight profiles are on the sectors page. Streams a sector does not report are left out of the score, not scored zero.

The organisation confirms its reporting boundary with Yarta: which sites, facilities, fleets and services are included. For councils, the waste figures include the municipal kerbside service (garbage, recycling, food and garden organics and glass) and transfer stations, as well as waste from council operations and buildings. Landfill emissions from that waste are part of Scope 3.

Limitations

• FlightsRecorded as domestic and international trips, but not converted to emissions until a factor is adopted, so they are not yet in the totals.
• Other fuelsRecorded with their type and quantity, but not converted until a factor is set.
• Avoided-emissions factorsFrom NSW DECCW (2010) and flagged as dated. Avoided emissions are a modelled estimate and are always reported separately.
• Interim factorsDiesel uses a single Scope 1 factor of 70.5 kg CO₂-e/GJ, where the published values range from 70.41 to 70.50 by vehicle type. Scope 3 gas factors are metropolitan values.
• Unit weightsMattresses, tyres and whitegoods reported as counts are converted with default weights unless they are weighed.
• Landfill factorOne default factor per organisation type (and for construction, per sector), not specific to the landfill used or how it manages landfill gas.
• Score rules and weightsA proposal for discussion in method v0.1, together with the default targets. They may change before launch.

Claims we don't make

• No carbon neutral, net zero or offset claimsYarta figures report what an organisation used and emitted. They are not a basis for carbon neutral, net zero or offset claims, and Yarta does not make those claims from them.
• Avoided emissions are not an offsetAvoided emissions are a modelled estimate (NSW DECCW 2010 factors), reported separately. Never deducted from your emissions and never an offset.
• The score is self-declaredSelf-declared under the published Yarta method. Not an accredited rating, certification or third-party verification.

Version history

Every report states the method version it was calculated under. When the method changes, earlier reports are not restated unless the customer asks, and Foundation Members are consulted before a change is published.

Expected next

• Benchmarks v0.2Adds the sector energy and water benchmarks (NABERS public hospital and office data, TEFMA) where they are published, and updates each source to its latest edition.
• FactorsThe NGA factors are updated each year; the factor edition is pinned to every line, so a prior year's figures stay reproducible.
• Avoided-emissions factorsThe NSW DECCW (2010) factors are flagged as dated and will be replaced when a current Australian life-cycle set is adopted.

Sources

1. Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), National Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2024, as reproduced in the Commonwealth Emissions Reporting Framework 2024–25 (Department of Finance, June 2025). Used for energy contents and Scope 1, 2 and 3 emission factors.
2. NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW), Environmental benefits of recycling (2010). Used for avoided-emissions factors.
3. GHG Protocol, Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard. Used for the Scope 3 category structure.