Frequently Asked Questions

Avarni is the only company focused entirely on helping Australian organisations comply with the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards for the lowest cost. We achieve this by combining expert, hands-on, and locally based support, with our specialised software platform tailored for the needs of Australian organisations.

Our focus is on the needs of mid-market to large enterprise clients, who normally have more complex data & governance requirements. Our experience with clients such as CSL, KPMG and Myer means that we are uniquely positioned to serve these needs.

We are proudly locally owned, locally backed by the CSIRO through Main Sequence Ventures, and locally focused.

No problem! Software only helps once you have understood your organisational boundary, operations, and understood the roles & responsibilities of each person in your organisation involved in the compliance process.

Get in touch with us and we will help you work through understanding the next steps you need to take to get ready for the benefits that a software implementation brings.

We understand that mandatory sustainability reporting doesn’t really add any value to your business or mitigate any risks in the short term. That’s why we will focus on helping you answer these questions & deliver a solution for:
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1. What are all the steps involved in compliance for my organisation?
2. Who needs to be involved & responsible for each step?
3. What do we do next?

Our templates and guidance will help you answer these questions, and our software will help you automate the processes required to manage your data for AASB S2 reporting in each step.

If your goal is to reduce the costs associated with compliance, this is the costliest and riskiest option.
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• Limited expertise – May lack deep AASB S2 specialisation
• Staff turnover risk – Knowledge loss if they or their team leave
• Recruitment costs – Time and expense to find qualified candidates in a sought after market – expect to pay well over $100k base salary
• Software dependencies – Still need to purchase compliance software – would you do your financial accounting on Excel?

Avarni aims to at least halve the costs of compliance with ASRS AASB S2 by up-skilling your existing team to handle it, and implementing data management automation through our software to reduce the time and effort required for reporting. With Avarni, you also get:
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• Hundreds of organisations' experience worldwide – Battle-tested across industries
• On-demand access – 24/7 availability to your data and reports
• Continuous updates – New features monthly at no extra cost, informed by your requirements
• Expert support team – Australian-based client success managers on-call 5 days a week

In today’s market, AI is a big buzzword. We take a pragmatic approach to AI, and only implement it where:
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1. There is a real business need being solved
2. A human can double check its results, and override its choices

Avarni’s AI specifically analyzes your data and predicts which emission factors should be mapped to any spend and activity data that it receives, with a high degree of accuracy. This automates what was previously a manual process. Think of it as a virtual analyst that does all the Excel work you don’t want to do for you.

Our AI uses today’s most powerful language models (LLMs) and a combination of RAG and prompt engineering to provide the most accurate predictions for your data. RAG (Retrieval-augmented generation) is one of the many techniques we use which allows our AI to reference a highly specific and up-to-date knowledge base of information that it can use to provide predictions with a much higher degree of accuracy.

Alongside this we also memorise and manage your manual spend mappings and use this to apply to future mappings in that same organisation. We’ll base this on specific combinations of activity class, supplier name, and description information that we find in your business activity items. This provides a capability for you to override any predicted mappings with your own specific factors and is another layer of control our platform provides to ensure that you get the mappings that you need.

For more information, see our blog article: Enhancing accuracy in ESG reporting with AI — Part I: RAG vs Fine-Tuning

We charge a recurring, yearly subscription based on your Group according to the AASB S2 standards (Group 1, 2 or 3 & below). Your subscription includes implementation, on-demand support based in Australia, and software access for an unlimited number of users in your organisation.

We do not charge based on number of sites, connectors, or on any variable basis – except for the number of suppliers being engaged through Avarni, once you are ready to do so in our Tier 2 subscription (not required for compliance).

This pricing model ensures that the cost associated with Avarni is predictable for your organisation.

Avarni is built on the GHG Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting which AASB S2 is based on.

Avarni puts our tools into the hands of your suppliers, enabling them to measure & report their emissions even if they have never done so before. Your suppliers are empowered to take a step further and begin planning reduction initiatives and tracking their own supply chain emissions to reduce costs. This reflects them as a preferred supplier back to you, motivating suppliers to stand out from competition and providing you with more accurate data that you can use to make better decisions on how to decarbonise.

Avarni sources its emission factors from government agencies such as National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA), EPA, DEFRA, IELab and others from the GHG Protocol. For Scope 3, factors are also sourced from third parties such as EXIOBASE. You may also override any predicted emission factor mappings with your own custom/specific factors. Visit our emissions factors web page to see a full list of the databases we provide.

Avarni’s calculations completely disclose the emission factors that it uses, including the conversion factors themselves, the year, and source of factors. Avarni is unique in the market of carbon accounting in this way, and many other solutions do not offer this level of transparency. This means that all of Avarni’s calculations are fully auditable and exportable from the platform.

Avarni covers all Scope 3 categories 1-15, with specialised features to aid in the automatic calculation of Purchased Goods & Services, Capital Goods, Business Travel, Employee Commuting and Upstream & Downstream Transportation & Distribution.

Yes – Avarni has full capabilities to track Scope 1 & 2 emissions.

Yes, absolutely. Avarni’s software is not built as a “black-box”. All processes, calculations, and results are transparently displayed, available for download to a native Excel workbook, and you can even invite your auditor directly to the platform to check your data.

We are proud to say that our clients have always passed emissions data audits with their Avarni reports.

Yes, all data can be exported out of the platform for use in Excel and other programs.

Avarni provides platform support, as well as implementation support, as part of the subscription. If you require more hands-on support with gap analysis, governance strategy, or carbon reduction strategy, we have a partner network of consultants that we can refer you to.

Avarni is committed to protecting our customers' data. Discover how we secure your information with multiple layers of protection by visiting our security page.

Using a secure, managed API connection to data sources can reduce the risk of unauthorised access, improve data governance and enable more real-time decision making about emissions and business activities. Avarni can integrate with over 1000+ enterprise platforms like AWS Cloud, Coupa, Microsoft Power BI, NetSuite, Oracle, QuickBooks, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Stripe, Workday, Xero, and more. Avarni can also be connected with your existing API gateway. The degree of automation and frequency of data import depends on the flexibility of your existing APIs.

‍Contact us to request technical due diligence and to discuss integration scenarios that address your requirements.