Resources · Glossary
Waste and ESG jargon, explained.
Every acronym on a waste invoice, a compliance file or an ESG request, in one line each.
Reporting and ESG
- Audit trail
- The record that lets a reported figure be followed back to the individual events that produced it, including who recorded each one and when. Chain of custody#
- Carbon neutral
- A claim that a company’s or product’s carbon footprint has been measured, reduced, and the remainder offset to zero for a defined period.#
- CDPFormerly the Carbon Disclosure Project
- A non-profit disclosure system through which companies and cities report climate, water, forests and plastics data to investors and customers each year.#
- Conversion factor
- The published multiplier that turns an activity, such as a tonne of a waste stream sent to a given treatment, into an emissions figure.#
- CSDDDCorporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive
- The EU law requiring very large companies to identify and address human rights and environmental harms in their operations and chains of activities.#
- CSRDCorporate Sustainability Reporting Directive
- The EU law requiring large companies to publish assured sustainability information inside their management report, using the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. ESG reporting#
- Diversion rate
- The share of a building’s waste, by weight, sent for recycling or recovery rather than for disposal.#
- Double materiality
- The CSRD principle that a topic is reportable if it matters for the company’s finances, for its impact on people and environment, or both.#
- ESGEnvironmental, social and governance
- The label for non-financial factors such as emissions, nature, labour practices and board conduct, used to assess how a company is run.#
- ESOSEnergy Savings Opportunity Scheme
- The mandatory scheme requiring large UK undertakings to audit their energy use across buildings, transport and processes once every four years.#
- ESRSEuropean Sustainability Reporting Standards
- The EU standards setting out exactly what a company reporting under the CSRD must disclose on environmental, social and governance matters.#
- ESRS E5Resource use and circular economy
- The ESRS standard on resource use, covering material inflows, product and service outflows and waste, for companies reporting under the CSRD.#
- EU Taxonomy
- The EU classification system defining which economic activities count as environmentally sustainable, used to report the green share of turnover and investment.#
- GHG ProtocolGreenhouse Gas Protocol
- The most widely used standards for measuring and reporting corporate greenhouse gas emissions, and the origin of the scope 1, 2 and 3 split.#
- Greenwashing
- Making an environmental claim about a product, service or business that is false, unclear, or cannot be backed up by evidence.#
- GRIGlobal Reporting Initiative
- The independent standard setter whose GRI Standards let any organisation report its impacts on the economy, the environment and people.#
- GRI 306GRI 306: Waste
- The GRI standard on waste, requiring an organisation to report waste generated, waste diverted from disposal and waste directed to disposal.#
- IFRS S1General requirements for sustainability-related disclosures
- The ISSB standard requiring a company to disclose sustainability risks and opportunities that could affect its financial prospects, reported alongside its accounts.#
- IFRS S2Climate-related disclosures
- The ISSB standard requiring disclosure of climate risks, opportunities and greenhouse gas emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3, applied together with IFRS S1.#
- ISSBInternational Sustainability Standards Board
- The board inside the IFRS Foundation that writes global sustainability disclosure standards for investors, and now maintains the SASB Standards.#
- Limited assurance
- The lower level of independent checking, where the practitioner states that nothing came to their attention suggesting the report is materially misstated.#
- Mass balance
- The check that the weight of waste leaving a site equals the weight recorded as received, treated and sent onward, within a stated tolerance.#
- Materiality assessment
- The structured process a company uses to decide which sustainability topics are significant enough to manage and to report on.#
- Net zero
- A state in which a company has cut its emissions in line with climate science and neutralised the small residual amount using permanent removals.#
- OmnibusThe EU sustainability omnibus package
- The EU package adopted in 2026 that narrowed the scope of the CSRD and the CSDDD and pushed back the dates they apply from.#
- Reasonable assurance
- The higher level of independent checking, where the practitioner gives a positive opinion that the report is free from material misstatement.#
- Recycling rate
- The share of a building’s waste, by weight, sent for recycling, counted before a sorting facility rejects any of it.#
- SASBSustainability Accounting Standards Board
- Industry-specific disclosure standards covering 77 industries, now maintained by the ISSB and used to help apply IFRS S1 and IFRS S2.#
- SBTiScience Based Targets initiative
- The body that validates company emissions reduction targets against what climate science says is needed to limit global warming.#
- Scope 1
- Direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources a company owns or controls, such as its own boilers, furnaces, process plant and vehicles.#
- Scope 2
- Indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity, steam, heat and cooling a company buys and consumes.#
- Scope 3
- Indirect greenhouse gas emissions across a company’s value chain, split into fifteen categories covering purchased goods, transport, waste, travel and use of sold products.#
- Scope 3 category 5Waste generated in operations
- The scope 3 category covering emissions from third-party treatment and disposal of the waste a company’s own operations produce. ESG reporting#
- SECRStreamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting
- The UK regulation requiring large and quoted UK companies and LLPs to report energy use, emissions and an intensity ratio in their annual report. ESG reporting#
- TCFDTask Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures
- The disbanded task force whose four-pillar climate reporting framework, covering governance, strategy, risk management and metrics, now sits inside IFRS S2.#
- tCO2eTonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent
- The unit expressing the warming effect of a quantity of greenhouse gas as the equivalent quantity of carbon dioxide.#
- TNFDTaskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
- A voluntary reporting framework for organisations to assess and disclose their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities.#
- UK SRSUK Sustainability Reporting Standards
- The UK versions of IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, currently available for voluntary use by any UK entity that chooses to apply them.#
- VSMEVoluntary standard for small and medium-sized undertakings
- The EU’s voluntary reporting standard for smaller companies, and the ceiling on what large customers may ask smaller suppliers to provide.#
Standards and certifications
- Accredited certification
- Certification issued by a body that has itself been assessed as competent and impartial, which is a stronger claim than certification alone.#
- B Corp
- A certification awarded by the non-profit B Lab to companies meeting its verified standards on social and environmental performance, governance and transparency.#
- B Impact Assessment
- The free online tool from B Lab with which a company measures its own social and environmental impact before independent verification.#
- Carbon Reduction PlanCRP
- A document in a fixed government format setting out an organisation’s emissions, its commitment to net zero by 2050 and the measures it is taking.#
- Carbon Trust Standard
- A Carbon Trust certification that independently verifies an organisation’s carbon or waste performance against the Carbon Trust’s published criteria.#
- Chain of custody certification
- Certification that a business can trace and account for certified material through purchasing, production and sale, so claims about the finished product hold up.#
- Circular economy
- An economic model in which materials never become waste, products and materials are kept in use, and natural systems are regenerated.#
- EcoVadis
- A supplier sustainability rating, not a certification, scoring a company from 0 to 100 on environment, labour and human rights, ethics and procurement.#
- Environmental management systemEMS
- The part of an organisation’s management arrangements used to set environmental policy, identify significant impacts and control and improve performance.#
- FSCForest Stewardship Council
- A global forest certification scheme whose chain of custody certification traces wood, paper and other forest materials from certified forests to the finished product.#
- ISO 14001
- The international standard for an environmental management system, setting out how an organisation identifies, controls and improves its environmental impacts.#
- ISO 27001ISO/IEC 27001
- The international standard for an information security management system, setting out how an organisation manages risks to the data it holds.#
- ISO 45001
- The international standard for an occupational health and safety management system, setting out how an organisation prevents work-related injury and ill health.#
- ISO 50001
- The international standard for an energy management system, setting out how an organisation measures, manages and improves its energy use and performance.#
- ISO 9001
- The international standard for a quality management system, setting out how an organisation consistently meets customer and regulatory requirements and improves its processes.#
- Modern slavery statement
- An annual statement required of UK commercial organisations with turnover of 36 million pounds or more, setting out steps taken to address modern slavery risks.#
- PEFCProgramme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification
- A global forest certification scheme that endorses national standards and certifies the supply chains handling wood, paper and other tree-based materials.#
- Planet Mark
- A UK certification under which an organisation measures its carbon and social impact every year, with the data verified by Planet Mark.#
- PPN 006Procurement Policy Note 006, formerly PPN 06/21
- The UK government policy requiring bidders for central government contracts above five million pounds a year to publish a carbon reduction plan.#
- Route to Net Zero Standard
- A Carbon Trust certification assessing an organisation’s emissions reductions, targets and carbon management, awarded as Taking Action, Advancing or Leading.#
- Sedex
- A membership platform on which buyers and suppliers share data about labour standards, health and safety, environment and business ethics at their sites.#
- SMETASedex Members Ethical Trade Audit
- A social audit of a site against four pillars: labour standards, health and safety, environment and business ethics. A two-pillar version covers the first two.#
- Supplier code of conduct
- A document in which a buying organisation sets out the standards it expects of suppliers on human rights, labour, environment and business ethics.#
- UKASUnited Kingdom Accreditation Service
- The national accreditation body for the UK, appointed by government to assess whether certification, testing, inspection and verification bodies are competent and impartial.#
- UN Sustainable Development GoalsSDGs
- The 17 goals adopted by United Nations member states in 2015 covering poverty, health, inequality, climate and environment, to be met by 2030.#
- Verification
- An independent check that a specific claim or dataset, such as a greenhouse gas statement, is accurate and was prepared to a stated method.#
- WRAPThe Waste and Resources Action Programme
- A UK charity and environmental body running voluntary agreements and research programmes on waste reduction, recycling and circular economy practice.#
- Zero waste to disposal
- A certified claim that essentially all of an organisation’s non-hazardous waste goes to re-use, recycling, composting or energy recovery, commonly at least 99 per cent.#
The rules
- Absolute entry
- A List of Waste code that is hazardous or non-hazardous in every case, so no assessment can change the classification.#
- Batteries regulations
- The rules obliging battery producers to fund collection and recycling, and retailers selling above a set weight each year to take used batteries back.#
- By-product
- A substance from a production process that is not waste, because further use is certain, lawful, integral to the process and needs no further processing.#
- Carrier permitting reform
- The change in England making the carrying, broking and dealing of waste a permitted activity rather than a registration, taking effect on 22 July 2027.#
- Compliance notice
- A notice from the regulator requiring a business to put a breach right within a stated period, used where the failing can be corrected.#
- Consignee return
- The quarterly return a receiving site makes to the Environment Agency, and separately to the producer, listing the hazardous waste consignments it received.#
- Controlled waste
- Household, industrial and commercial waste, the categories the duty of care and most other waste law apply to.#
- Digital waste record
- The entry a permitted site makes on the digital waste tracking service for waste it receives, named in the Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026.#
- Digital waste tracking
- The government service for recording waste movements electronically, mandatory for permitted sites receiving waste in England and Wales from 1 October 2026. Digital waste tracking#
- Disposal
- Any operation that is not recovery, even where it has the secondary consequence of reclaiming substances or energy, listed in law as codes D1 to D15.#
- Duty of care
- The duty under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requiring anyone handling controlled waste to transfer it only to authorised persons. Duty of care#
- Duty of care code of practice
- The statutory code issued under section 34(7) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 that courts must take into account, covering England and Wales.#
- End of waste
- The point at which a recovered material stops being waste, once it meets the four conditions on use, demand, technical standards and environmental impact.#
- Environment AgencyEA
- The environmental regulator for England, which issues waste permits, registers carriers and enforces the duty of care.#
- Environmental permit
- The authorisation required under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 to operate a regulated facility such as a waste site.#
- EWC codeEuropean Waste Catalogue code
- The six-digit code from the List of Waste that classifies a waste type, such as 20 03 01 for mixed municipal waste.#
- Fly-tipping
- The illegal deposit of waste on land or in water, prosecuted as an offence under section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.#
- Hazardous waste
- Waste listed as hazardous in the List of Waste, or assessed as displaying a hazardous property, under the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005.#
- Hazardous waste consignment note
- The multi-part document that must accompany every movement of hazardous waste in England and Wales under the Hazardous Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005.#
- HP codeHazardous property code
- One of the fifteen codes, HP1 explosive through HP15 capable of exhibiting a hazardous property, describing why a waste is hazardous.#
- List of WasteLoW
- The catalogue of twenty chapters of six-digit codes that classifies every waste type, with hazardous entries marked by an asterisk.#
- Lower tier registration
- The free, indefinite registration for businesses carrying only their own waste, other than construction and demolition waste, and for charities and councils.#
- Materials facility reporting
- The duty on a permitted sorting facility receiving 1,000 tonnes or more of recyclable waste a year to sample its inputs and outputs and report quarterly.#
- Micro-firm exemption
- The Simpler Recycling exemption for businesses with fewer than ten full-time equivalent employees, which runs until 31 March 2027 and needs no application.#
- Mirror entry
- A pair of linked List of Waste codes, one hazardous and one not, where the producer must assess the waste to decide which applies.#
- Natural Resources WalesStatutory name: Natural Resources Body for Wales
- The environmental regulator for Wales, which permits and regulates waste activities there.#
- pEPRExtended producer responsibility for packaging
- The scheme making large packaging producers pay the cost of managing household packaging waste, under the Producer Responsibility Obligations Regulations 2024.#
- Permit exemption
- A registered low-risk waste activity described in Schedule 3 to the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016, valid for three years without a permit.#
- PERNPackaging waste export recycling note
- The evidence note issued by an accredited exporter confirming a tonne of packaging waste was exported for recycling, counting towards a producer’s obligation.#
- Pre-treatment
- The treatment most waste must undergo before a permitted disposal site may accept it, demonstrated by meeting the three point test.#
- PRNPackaging waste recycling note
- The evidence note issued by an accredited UK reprocessor confirming a tonne of packaging waste was recycled, bought by producers to meet recycling obligations.#
- Recovery
- Any operation whose principal result is waste serving a useful purpose by replacing other materials, listed in law as codes R1 to R13.#
- Recycling
- Any recovery operation that reprocesses waste into products, materials or substances, excluding energy recovery and reprocessing into fuels.#
- SEPAScottish Environment Protection Agency
- The environmental regulator for Scotland, which licenses and regulates waste activities there.#
- Simpler Recycling
- The England rules requiring workplaces to collect glass, metal, plastic, paper and card, and food waste separately from residual waste. Simpler Recycling#
- Three point test
- The test for valid pre-treatment: a physical, thermal, chemical or biological process, that changes the waste, and reduces its volume or hazardous nature.#
- Transfrontier shipment
- The movement of waste between countries, controlled in Great Britain by the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007, with export for disposal generally prohibited.#
- Upper tier registration
- The waste carrier, broker or dealer registration needed by anyone handling other people’s waste, or construction and demolition waste, renewable every three years.#
- Waste carrier registration
- The registration required before transporting, arranging or trading in controlled waste, held with the Environment Agency and renewed every three years at upper tier. Contractor verification#
- Waste classification
- The process by which a waste producer assigns a List of Waste code to a waste and determines whether it is hazardous.#
- Waste crime
- The umbrella term for illegal waste activity, covering fly-tipping, unpermitted sites, illegal exports and tax fraud.#
- Waste hierarchy
- The priority order of prevention, preparing for re-use, recycling, other recovery and disposal, applied under regulation 12 of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011.#
- Waste producer
- The person or business whose activity produced the waste, or who changed its nature or composition, and who holds the duty of care for it.#
- Waste transfer noteWTN
- The written record of each transfer of non-hazardous controlled waste, required by the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 and kept for two years. Chain of custody#
- WEEEWaste electrical and electronic equipment
- Waste electricals regulated by the WEEE Regulations 2013, which place collection, treatment and financing obligations on producers, distributors and online marketplaces.#
- WM3Waste classification technical guidance
- The joint Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales guidance setting out how to classify waste and assess whether it is hazardous.#
In the waste room
- Baler
- A machine that compresses a single material, usually cardboard or plastic film, into a bound bale dense enough to transport and sell.#
- Bin store
- The room where a building holds its containers between collections, usually at basement or service yard level. Also called the waste room.#
- Bulking
- Combining waste from several collections into one larger load, usually at a transfer station, before it moves on for treatment.#
- Collection
- One visit by a vehicle to empty a container, and the unit most commercial waste contracts are priced in. Also called a lift.#
- Compactor
- A machine that crushes waste into a sealed container to reduce its volume, so fewer collections remove the same quantity.#
- Contamination
- Material in a recycling stream that does not belong there, such as food in with paper or a coffee cup in with plastics.#
- Contamination rate
- The proportion of a recycling stream, by weight, made up of material that does not belong in it. WasteID#
- Dry mixed recyclingDMR
- A single collected stream of clean, dry recyclables such as plastic, cans, paper and card, sorted later at a materials recovery facility.#
- Estimated data
- Waste figures derived from container size, collection frequency and an assumed fill level and density, rather than from weighing anything. Waste tracking#
- Eurobin
- The wheeled plastic container used for most commercial collections, in sizes from 660 to 1,100 litres.#
- Front end loader binFEL
- A large steel container, typically 4 to 12 cubic yards, lifted and emptied over the cab of a specialist collection vehicle.#
- Net weight
- The weight of the waste alone, once the weight of its container has been deducted.#
- Recoverable waste
- Recyclable material found in the general waste bin, which could have been recycled had it been thrown away in the right one. WasteID#
- Residual waste
- What is left once everything recyclable has been separated out, collected as general waste and sent for recovery or disposal.#
- Segregation
- Separating waste into its streams at the point it is thrown away, rather than sorting it later.#
- Tare weight
- The weight of the empty container, bag or vehicle, deducted from the gross weight to give the weight of the waste itself.#
- Trade waste agreement
- The contract between a business or building and a waste contractor, setting out the containers, streams, collection schedule and charges.#
- Transfer station
- A permitted site where waste is received, sorted and bulked before being sent on to a recycling, recovery or disposal facility.#
- Waste audit
- A structured examination of what is actually in a building’s bins, by stream and by weight, used to find where recyclable material is being lost. Waste data check#
- Waste chute
- A vertical duct carrying waste from the floors of a building down to the bin store, sometimes with a selector routing streams to different containers.#
- Waste stream
- A category of waste collected separately from the others, such as dry mixed recycling, food, glass, cardboard or residual waste.#
- Waste weighed at source
- Waste weighed at the moment and place it is thrown away, rather than weighed as part of a mixed load after collection. Waste tracking#
- Weighbridge
- A large scale that weighs a vehicle before and after loading, the difference being recorded as the weight of the load.#
Where it goes
- Anaerobic digestionAD
- Treatment of food and other organic waste by micro-organisms without oxygen, producing biogas and a digestate used on land.#
- Chain of custody
- The unbroken record of who held a waste, when it changed hands and what happened to it, from production to final treatment. Chain of custody#
- Energy from wasteEfW
- Combustion of residual waste in a facility that recovers the heat as electricity, heat or both. Counts as recovery rather than recycling.#
- In-vessel compostingIVC
- Composting of food and garden waste in an enclosed system at controlled temperature, meeting the sanitisation rules that open composting cannot.#
- Materials recovery facilityMRF
- A plant that sorts mixed dry recycling into separate material grades using screens, magnets, optical sorters and hand picking.#
- Refuse derived fuelRDF
- Residual waste shredded, dried and sorted into a fuel of consistent calorific value, for use in energy recovery plants and industrial kilns.#
- Rejects
- Material a sorting facility cannot recover and sends on as residual waste, either because it was contaminated or was never recyclable there.#
- Reprocessor
- The plant that turns a sorted waste material back into a usable raw material, such as a paper mill taking baled card.#
In the building
- Allocation
- The splitting of service charge costs to assign them to a specific schedule or cost category, before they are apportioned between occupiers.#
- Apportionment
- The division of service charge costs within a schedule between the premises that benefit, based on the availability, benefit and use of the services.#
- Better Buildings PartnershipBBP
- A collaboration of UK commercial property owners producing shared tools, benchmarks and guidance for improving the sustainability of buildings.#
- BREEAMBuilding Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
- The BRE certification scheme rating the sustainability of buildings from Pass to Outstanding, covering new build, refurbishment and existing assets.#
- BREEAM In-Use
- The BREEAM scheme for buildings already in operation, which rates the asset and the way it is managed separately.#
- Circular economy statement
- A planning document setting out how a development will keep materials in use at their highest value and minimise the waste it produces.#
- Common parts
- The shared areas of a multi-let building, such as entrances, lifts, corridors and the bin store, maintained by the landlord through the service charge.#
- Design for Performance
- The NABERS UK process in which a developer commits at design stage to achieve a target energy rating for the finished building in use.#
- Dilapidations
- Breaches of a tenant’s lease covenants relating to the condition of the property, usually claimed by the landlord at the end of the lease.#
- Embodied carbon
- The emissions from making, transporting, maintaining, replacing and disposing of a building’s materials, excluding the energy used to operate it.#
- EPCEnergy Performance Certificate
- The certificate rating a building’s energy efficiency, A+ to G for non-domestic property, required when a building is constructed, sold or let.#
- EPRA sBPREPRA Sustainability Best Practices Recommendations
- The reporting guidelines telling listed European property companies which sustainability measures to disclose and how, so their reports can be compared.#
- Fit-out waste
- The material discarded when commercial space is fitted out or stripped out for a new occupier, including ceilings, lighting and partitions.#
- Green lease
- A lease containing clauses that commit the landlord and the occupier to co-operate on the building’s environmental performance during the term.#
- GRESB
- The investor-led benchmark that scores real estate and infrastructure funds and companies each year on their sustainability management and performance. ESG reporting#
- GRESB Real Estate Assessment
- The annual GRESB submission scoring property funds and companies on Management, Performance and Development, and benchmarking them against comparable portfolios.#
- LEEDLeadership in Energy and Environmental Design
- The US Green Building Council’s green building rating system, certifying projects as Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum on a points basis.#
- Managing agent
- The firm appointed by a landlord to budget, procure, manage and account for the services that make up the service charge.#
- MEESMinimum Energy Efficiency Standard
- The rule preventing landlords in England and Wales from letting a non-domestic property rated below EPC E, unless a valid exemption is registered.#
- Multi-let
- A property occupied by more than one tenant under separate leases, with shared services recovered through a service charge.#
- NABERS UK
- The scheme rating an office building’s measured energy use in operation from one to six stars, administered in the UK by CIBSE Certification.#
- Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard
- The voluntary cross-industry technical standard setting the criteria a UK building must meet to be verified as net zero carbon.#
- Occupier
- The person or business in possession of premises, usually responsible for paying the service charge and, in waste terms, the producer of its own waste.#
- Operational carbon
- The emissions from the energy used to run a building, such as heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation and equipment.#
- Pre-demolition audit
- A survey of a building before demolition that identifies and quantifies the materials present and their potential for reuse or recycling.#
- Recharge
- A cost passed to one specific occupier rather than shared across the building, such as a charge based on that occupier’s own measured waste. Tenant recharging#
- RICS service charge standardService charges in commercial property
- The RICS professional standard setting mandatory requirements for members and regulated firms managing commercial service charges in the UK.#
- RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment
- The RICS standard setting the method for measuring and reporting an asset’s embodied, operational and user carbon, mandatory for RICS members.#
- Service charge
- The sum a landlord recovers from occupiers under their leases for the cost of providing services to the property, waste among them. Tenant recharging#
- Site waste management plan
- A record of a construction project’s expected waste and how each material will be handled, required by clients and planning conditions rather than by law.#
- UKGBCUK Green Building Council
- The membership charity for the UK built environment sector, producing guidance, tools and campaigns to improve the sustainability of buildings and places.#
- Waste contractor
- The company that collects a building’s waste, takes it to an authorised destination and reports back what was collected and where it went. Contractor verification#
- WELL
- The International WELL Building Institute’s certification rating how a building supports occupant health, across air, water, light, comfort and related categories.#
- Whole life carbon
- The total of a building’s embodied and operational emissions across its whole life, from materials production to end of life.#