Talktalk Business Direct Limited

How the Mycelium Score is calculated

The Mycelium Score is out of 10. Up to 6.5 points reflect carbon intensity vs peers in the same NACE section (emissions normalised against revenue, log-scaled between the 5th and 95th percentile of each company's latest reporting year in that section; a section needs at least 5 companies to be benchmarked). The band above 6.5 is earned through verified data quality on a claimed profile: declaring every reporting category yourself (up to 2.0), preparation by a carbon accountant (2.0) and independently audited figures (2.0). The total is multiplied by the transparency score and capped at 10. A disclosure with an implausibly large figure (Scope 1 or 2 over 300 million tonnes, a Scope 3 figure over 2 billion tonnes or a total over 2.5 billion tonnes) is not scored until it has been checked.

A higher score means lower carbon intensity than sector peers, backed by data that's third-party verified, claimed by the company, and fully disclosed. Without a revenue figure to measure carbon intensity, or an industry classification to compare it within, a company has no score.

How the Transparency Score is calculated

The Transparency Score is the share of a company's estimated footprint that it reported itself, graded from A (very high) down to F (very low). Where a category is missing, Mycelium models what it would hold for a company of that size and industry and counts it as undisclosed, so an unreported category where the bulk of emissions sit hurts far more than a minor one. Unreported downstream categories (9 to 15) count at a quarter of their modelled size in this share; the carbon intensity behind the score still counts them in full. A Scope 3 total filed without a category breakdown earns very little credit for the part left unattributed, because it does not show which categories are inside it: a company can count business travel, leave purchased goods out entirely, and the total looks the same. Without a revenue figure the footprint cannot be modelled, so the company has no Transparency Score.

For Talktalk Business Direct Limited, the single biggest gap is Employee commuting (Scope 3 Category 7). Mycelium estimates it accounts for around 66% of the company's estimated footprint, yet it hasn't been disclosed. Leaving a bucket this large unreported is what's holding the transparency score down.

Other material categories Talktalk Business Direct Limited hasn't disclosed:

• Business travel (Scope 3 Category 6), around 23% of the estimated footprint
• Waste generated in operations (Scope 3 Category 5), around 3% of the estimated footprint

In total, roughly 92% of Talktalk Business Direct Limited's estimated emissions sit in categories it hasn't reported. Disclosing these would be the fastest way to raise the transparency score.

Read the full scoring methodologyOur white paper covers exactly how the Mycelium Score and Transparency Score are calculated, including the normalisation process and what earns a 10/10.Download the white paper (PDF)