Carbon footprint
 
Carbon footprint refers to the climatic effect of a service or activity, that is, how much greenhouse gases the product or process releases throughout its lifecycle. The carbon footprint is often presented in the form of Equivalent Carbon Dioxide. It converts the different greenhouse gases into the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide causing the same climatic impact. The carbon footprint was developed to measure the effect of various activities and consumer choices on the warming of the climate.
 
Carbon offset
 
Carbon offset essentially means a settlement a company can choose to pay to compensate for the greenhouse gases it produces. Monies collected from the purchase of carbon offsets are used for financing projects that reduce greenhouse gases, such as construction of wind farms and forestation projects.
 
Carbon sink
 
A carbon sink is a reservoir that accumulates and stores carbon. The most important natural carbon sinks are plants and other organisms using photosynthesis (a process in which carbon is transferred into biomass from the atmosphere where it exists in the form of carbon dioxide). Mosses and forests also absorb carbon, which is why for example the paper used in a newspaper contains a small amount of carbon.
 
Climate change
 
The changes in climate caused by the rising average temperature of the globe through the increased content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These can be, for example, increased heavy rain, storms, heat waves and droughts, as well as other extreme climatic phenomena.
 
Corporate responsibility
 
The terminology for social responsibility has not yet taken established forms. Therefore, the responsibility of companies is described as, for example, social responsibility, corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship and responsible business. The term CSR (corporate social responsibility) is the most established international term. The reference to sustainable development at an organisational level is the common denominator between all these terms. Thus, corporate responsibility stands for the implementation of ecologically, economically, socially and culturally sustainable practices at a corporate level. There are wide differences in how corporate responsibility is understood in different businesses, but usually it includes at least reducing the negative environmental impact of the organisation, promoting good corporate governance and taking care of employee wellbeing.
 
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) report
 
More and more privately and publicly owned organisations publish annual social or corporate responsibility reports explaining the organisations' effects on their environment and the society they operate in. In doing this, many companies use the GRI reporting guidelines, which has introduced conformity in the reporting practices and made the companies' social and environmental performance more easily comparable.
 
Global Compact
 
Global Compact is a United Nations initiative directed to companies. When joining the initiative, the company commits to compliance with Global Compact's ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Global Compact is based on voluntary participation and its principles are not legally binding. At the moment, approximately 6,700 companies from around the world are committed to the Global Compact principles.
 
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
 
GRI is an organisation developing the internationally best-known and most widely used guidelines for CSR reporting. Almost all of the world's largest companies report on their corporate responsibility using the framework and the indicators developed by GRI. The sectors of GRI reporting include economy, environment, personnel practices and working conditions, human rights, effects on the community and society, and product responsibility.
 
Greenhouse gas
 
Greenhouse gases are gases that absorb and emit the heat radiation of the Sun and the planet's surface while in the atmosphere, thus causing the greenhouse effect. The most important greenhouse gases are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone and nitrous oxide.

Equivalent Carbon Dioxide
 
The Equivalent Carbon Dioxide is a unit describing the climatic effect of human-produced greenhouse gases or the accumulated effect of the greenhouse gases on global warming (Global Warming Potential). The ECD is calculated by converting the warming effect of other greenhouse gases into how much carbon dioxide would produce the same effect.
 
Life cycle analysis
 
A life cycle analysis (LCA) means a method of evaluating the environmental effects of a product, process or activity throughout its life cycle. In addition to environmental effects, life cycle analyses can also be made, for example, from an economic or social viewpoint. Recently, life cycle analyses have become common in calculating the carbon footprint.
 
Renewable and non-renewable energy
 
Energy is considered renewable if it is obtained from resources that are replaced by natural processes at a rate comparable or faster than its rate of consumption by humans. For example, coal and oil are categorised as non-renewable resources, because they are renewed extremely slowly. The production of renewable energy utilises continuous natural processes such as sunshine, wind, the flow of water, the heat stored within air or the earth, or uses biologically created resources, such as wood.
 
Sustainable development
 
Sustainable development is development that satisfies the needs of the world’s present-day population without endangering the possibilities of future generations to satisfy theirs. This definition is based on the report Our Common Future by the Brundtland Commission (1987). It is the most established international definition of sustainable development. Sustainable development is usually divided into ecologically, economically and socially sustainable development, but the Brundtland Commission originally defined culturally sustainable development as a fourth dimension.