SmartCarbon Privacy Notice

The purpose of this notice

In this privacy notice we explain how we will process your personal information obtained through your use of our website www.smartcarboncalculator.com and through other interactions with you, for example, when you visit our social media pages, buy our services, or when you interact with us professionally.

It is important that you read this privacy notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data, and what data protection rights you have.

About SmartCarbon

At SmartCarbon we have developed certain software applications and platforms, which we make available to businesses via an online platform, for the purpose of helping these organisations to calculate and report their carbon impact.

Our SmartCarbon Calculator allows you to enter your activity data and calculate your organisation’s carbon footprint. This web-tool uses current UK government approved emissions factors and international energy agency factors (where relevant) to automatically calculate your carbon footprint. These factors are updated annually. This step includes an output of a carbon report in a format that meets SECR requirements and the option to extract all your data into an excel workbook. The results can be added to your Director’s Report.

Who we are and how to contact us

When we say we, us or our in this privacy notice, we mean SmartCarbon Limited, a company incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 10204262 and whose registered office is at 4 Teviotdale Gardens, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom, NE7 7PU.

For the purposes of the Data Protection Legislation, we are the controller of your personal data. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

If you have any questions in regard to any part of this notice or our use of your personal data, please contact us by either:

email at [email protected]
by post to the address above; or
by phone on 07971070434.

Data Protection Legislation

We are committed to protecting your privacy and safeguarding your personal data. Our use of your personal data is subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and other UK privacy laws (together Data Protection Legislation).

Personal data we collect

Personal data means information which relates to an identified or an identifiable individual.

Types of personal data we may collect	Examples
Identity data	First name; surname; title;
Contact data	address; email; telephone number; mobile number;
Financial and transactional data	payment card details; bank account details; details of orders made and processed; details of payment received/made; details of invoices received/issued;
Contract data	details of your contracts with us;
Usage data	how you use and navigate our website; our social media pages; services you signed up to; data you input in to the calculator such as business energy data, travel data and carbon data;
Profile data	information about you that you provide in your profile in your account; your interests and preferences; posts and materials you upload onto our website; feedback, quotes, recommendations and results from your use of the calculator;
Professional data	job title; name of business or organisation; registered office address of business or organisation; professional contact details; customer testimonials.
Communication data	details of enquiries submitted by you through our website or emailed to us; information obtained through networking; newsletter subscription preferences;
IT data	logins and usernames to our website; encrypted passwords;
Technical data	your IP address; your general geographic location based on your IP address; your time zone setting; the type of device you use and its operating system and version; your browser type; the platform you use and other technology on the devices you use to access our website; the pages you view on our website and how you interact with that content; advertising identifiers (such as those on mobile devices, tablets and streaming media devices that include such identifiers).

Anonymised data

We may also collect, use and share anonymised, aggregated data such as statistical data for any purpose. Anonymised data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal information in law as this information does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate information on how you use our website to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature.

How we collect personal data

We collect most of this information from you direct. However, we may also collect information from other sources.

Type of source	Examples
Your use of our website and services	when you register on our website; when you use our website services; when you buy our services; when you submit an enquiry or feedback to us or complete our survey; when you sign up to our mailing list; when you subscribe to our newsletter; when you post any information or materials on our website.
Your use of our social media pages	when you follow, post on, or interact with our post on our LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter page.
Direct interactions with you	when you contact us (e.g. by phone or email); when you participate in our user research activities (e.g. provide us with feedback or respond to our questionnaires); when you network with us (e.g. provide us with your business card or contact us via our social media); when you register your interest in our services; when you use our services;
From publicly accessible sources	your website; your profiles on social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter); professional networking groups and databases; Companies House;
Third parties	from another organisation or professional who told us that you would like to hear from us; or if you visit our website by clicking on our advertisement on social media or another website or app.
Automated technologies or interactions	as you interact with our website and advertisements, we may automatically collect technical data (as described in section The personal data we collect above). We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. For further details, please see our Cookies Notice.

How and why we use personal data

Under the Data Protection Legislation, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so, for example: consent, contact, legitimate interests, or legal obligation.

1. Consent. We may process your data based on your consent to:

place cookies and similar tracking technologies on your device including third-party cookies (please see our Cookies Notice for further details);
send you our marketing communications (e.g. our blogs and newsletters) if you have not previously bought our products or services;
share your details with a third party for marketing purposes;
to send invites to you regarding marketing events or seminars;
publish content which you upload to our website; and
respond to your enquiries.

Where your permission is required, we will ask you for such consent clearly and separately from the body of this Privacy Notice or our Terms and Conditions. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time. For further information, please see the Marketing section of this Privacy Notice.

Right to withdraw consent

You have the right to withdraw consent at any time by:

emailing us at [email protected];
in case of consent to marketing emails, by using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in our marketing emails.

Right to object to the use of your personal data for marketing purposes

Even if we are not required to obtain your consent for marketing purposes, you can still opt-out of receiving marketing communications at any time, so you are still in control.

2. Contract. We will use your personal data if we need to do it to perform our obligations under a contract with you, or if it is necessary for a contract which we are about to enter with you. For example, if we need to:

register you as a new customer and administer your account (e.g. set up your payment profile);
provide our services to you (e.g. assist you in calculating your organisations carbon footprint and meet legal, corporate or voluntary requirements for reporting);
manage our relationship with you (e.g. to respond to your enquiries or to notify you about changes to our services); or
provide after sale care services (e.g. support you with the process of setting a carbon reduction target, Net Zero Goal and developing a carbon reduction strategy).

3. Legitimate interests. We may process your personal data when we (or a third party) have a legitimate reason to use it, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. For example:

to administer and protect our business and our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data);
to manage your account and our relationship with you;
to manage payments, fees, charges, and to collect debts which you may owe to us;
to interact with you professionally (e.g. if you represent our current or prospective customer, supplier or business partner) to manage our relationship with the organisation you represent;
to provide you with a free service (e.g. a free trial or the use of the functionalities of our website);
to deal with your enquiry unrelated to a contract which we may have with you;
to ask you to leave a review or complete a survey;
for marketing purposes (see the Marketing section of this notice for further details);
to increase our business or promote our brand through delivering relevant website content, advertisements, and marketing communications to you;
to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we provide to you;
to improve our website, products, services, marketing, and customer relationships;
for the prevention and detection of fraud and spam; and
for the establishment, exercise or defence of our rights under our contract with you and/or legal claims.

4. Legal obligation. We may process your personal data to comply with our legal obligation. For example, to:

notify you about changes to our terms or privacy notice;
address your complaint; and
comply with a request from a competent authority.

Marketing

Our marketing communication

We may contact you about our services by email, in-platform messages, phone or post. We rely on our legitimate interests to use your personal data in this way, except when your express consent is required by law. If you are not representing a business and are not our existing customer, we will only send marketing emails to you when you expressly agree to that.

Profiling

If you are our existing customer, we may use the information we have about you (such as what service you previously bought from us, where you are based, how you use our website) to make predictions on what other products may be of interest to you. We will use that information to make our marketing emails and offers relevant to you. This type of personal data use is called ‘profiling’. We will do that on the basis of our legitimate interests.

Cookies and similar technologies

We may also use cookies and similar tracking technologies (for example tracking pixels in our marketing emails and website/app advertisements) and analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to collect information about your use of our website, app, services and your interactions with our marketing emails and advertisements.

In addition, third party advertising platforms (for example, Twitter, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn) may also use their advertising pixels and other cookies on our website and in our emails with our permission. Their cookies are used to track visitors across websites in order to deliver adverts more relevant to them and their interests. The advertisers may use information about your visit to our website to target advertising to you on other websites.

We will ask for your consent to the use of non-essential cookies, including third party cookies. You can find further information about the cookies used on our website and the purposes they are used for by going to https://www.smartcarboncalculator.com/cookie-notice/.

Data from other providers

We may use other sources to obtain additional contact details for our prospective customers (or individuals representing our existing customers) such as press sources and social media profiles. This type of personal data use is also called ‘profiling’. We will use your personal data in this way on the basis of our legitimate interests.

If you click on our advertisement on social media (for example, Facebook or Google) or a website or app or another provider (for example, LinkedIn and Twitter), that provider will share with us information about you (the fact that you came to our website/app from their service).

Right to withdraw consent or to object to processing

You can always ask us to stop using your personal information for marketing purposes by:

emailing us at [email protected];
in case of marketing emails, by using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in our marketing emails; or
in case of cookies, by using the cookie preferences settings on our website.

From time to time, we may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences.

Who we share personal data with

We may share your information with third parties for the purposes set out in this notice.

Service provision

If you are our registered user of our services, we may share your personal data with associates and other affiliated businesses who may deliver services on our behalf.

We may also use Stripe, a payment gateway, to process payments in connection with our services. If you pay us using Stripe or if you receive payments from us through Stripe, you will be providing your personal data (for example, details of your payment card and billing address) to Stripe. Please see their privacy policy.

IT and technology

We also share data with providers and developers of other IT, digital, and technology products and services, which we use to operate our business. For example, providers of website hosting services, website and app analytics services, customer email services, digital marketing services, and social media advertising services. We impose contractual obligations on the above providers to ensure that your personal data is protected.

Other sharing

We may also:

share your personal data with members of our staff;
disclose your personal data to professional advisers (e.g. lawyers, accountants, auditors or insurers) who provide professional services to us;
disclose your personal data to certain third parties if specifically requested or agreed with you (e.g. if you ask us to introduce you to a third party);
disclose and exchange certain information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal obligations; and
share some personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business, potential investors, or group companies if our business undergoes a corporate re-structure.

Such data recipients will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

International data transfers

Transfers of personal data outside the United Kingdom are subject to special rules under the Data Protection Legislation.

If you are based outside the United Kingdom, we may receive and transfer your personal data directly to you to the country where you are based.

We may also transfer your personal data to providers based in the European Economic Area (EEA). The UK Government has recognised the EEA as providing an appropriate level of protection to the data protection rights of individuals.

We may also transfer your personal data to technology providers based in the USA. To protect your information, we have entered into the standard contractual data protection provisions (Standard Contractual Clauses) with the third parties in those territories with whom we share your data. The Standard Contractual Clauses are one of the appropriate data transfer safeguards specified in the UK Data Protection Legislation.

How long we keep personal data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

We may also anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for analytics, research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal data, which allow you to access and control your information in certain circumstances. You can exercise these rights free of charge, unless your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive (in which case we may charge a reasonable administrative fee or refuse to respond to such request).

Your right	Explanation
Access	This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Rectification	The right to require us to correct any inaccuracies in your personal data.
Erasure (to be forgotten)	The right to require us to delete your personal data in certain situations.
Restriction of processing	The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances (e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data we hold).
Data portability	The right to receive, in certain situations, the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party.
To withdraw consent	The right to withdraw your consent, if we rely on your consent to use your information.
To object	The right to object at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling) or, in certain other situations, to our continued processing of your personal data (e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests).
Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making	The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you, or similarly significantly affects you.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email us at [email protected]. Please let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Complaints

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information. You may contact us by using the contact methods set out in the How to contact us section of this privacy notice.

The Data Protection Legislation also gives you a right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in the country where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws has occurred. The supervisory authority in the United Kingdom is the Information Commissioner, who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/, telephone on 0303 123 1113, or by post to: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the supervisory authority, so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to this privacy notice

This privacy notice was last updated on 9 February 2022.

We may change this privacy notice from time to time; when we do, we will publish the new version of the privacy notice on our website. If you are our customer, we may also inform you via email or post.