Accounting for climate impact and action is just a special case of impact accounting. We aim to make our ontology as generic as possible so that it can be applied to all forms and fields of impact accounting (i.e., to all SDGs).
Ontology
Our ontology currently comprises 15 classes and 15 axioms.
Classes
- thing
- agent
- role
- owner
- operator
- claimant
- auditor
- environment
- parameter
- state
- event
- activity
- claim (v)
- audit
- measure
- instrument
- procedure
- standard
- claim (n)
Axioms
- An agent engages in an activity.
- An activity impacts an environment.
- An environment is defined by (interrelated) parameters.
- A state is the value of a parameter P at time t.
- A procedure guides an activity.
- An activity is performed with an instrument.
- An activity has at least one input.
- An activity has at least one output.
- A claim is a statement about a (some specific) thing.
- A standard guides a claim.
- An agent enacts a role.
- An owner (role) is an agent who owns some specific thing.
- An operator (role) is an agent who operates some specific instrument.
- A claimant (role) is an agent who makes a claim.
- An auditor (role) is an agent who audits a claim.
- An event impacts and environment.
Application of the ontology
TODO: this table is a work in progress and still needs A LOT of work.
Ontology (What are the 'things' that the accounting system should know about? What are the defining properties or characteristics of each 'thing'?) | Epistemology (How will the accounting system get information about these things and their attributes?) | Semiology (How will each of the things be represented in the accounting system?) | |
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Agents |
| An agent asserts their identity though digital signatures Agents provide proofs of their properties through verified credentials Other parties can verify agent properties and make claims about their methods and results | Digital signature Verified credentials Validation claim by third party |
Role | See: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/CHEBI_50906 Definition "A role is particular behaviour which a material entity may exhibit."^^xsd:string | ||
Activities |
* An audit is a special type of activity where the input is a claim and the output is an evaluation of that claim. | Ex ante: An agent asserts their intentions to act in a Projet Design Document (PDD) Ex post: An agent describe their actions in a Projet Design Document (PDD) The activity and its results and impacts are documented by the agent at intervals in a monitoring report (MR) |
Consider a token for an activity that contains all the essential elements in column 1. Such a token must have a time limit and proof of life requirements (e.g. minimum process data feed to confirm it is ongoing) IPCC |
Environments |
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States |
*State as in environmental state (not political state) | Parameters/indicators for states Parameters/indicators delivered by agents via PDDs and MRs |
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Parameters |
(Emission factors are parameters, for example.) |
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Standards |
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Claims |
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Epistemology
We know about things through direct participation in them or through representations.
For things we experience directly we do not need any further assurance that they are true.
Protobuf implementation (example)
UML diagram (hosted on Lucidchart; login required)
Hedera Hashgraph Guardian implementation (example)
(TODO: add files)
Code resources
TODOs and next steps:
- Add a definition and example to each of the classes in Protégé. Also do it on this page.
- For discussion: Where do we list the natural processes that lead to climate change? Should there be an event class? An event is like an activity but without the intention of a HUMAN agent. An accident is an event but it is not an activity.
- Align the ontology with OWL specifications and syntax.
- Expand the second and third… n levels of the ontology, as necessary.
- Embed ontology into BFO and its extensions. Some useful resources: BFO 6-part video series. Perhaps check if we should not rather go with AFO.
- See if we can use any of these ontologies for the spatial classes: W3C, DBpedia
- Can we / should we try to align our ontology with ISDA CDM?
- Develop tools for applying the ontology (see our GitHub repo for what has already been done).
- Get industry entities to test our ontology & tools. Possible testers: