Emissions allows you to view annual building emissions, create custom emissions factors, and use our library of 500+ standard factors to facilitate emissions reporting for your entire organization and its value chain.
👍 This article will help you:
Create custom emission factors for every point type or resource
Generate an annual emissions report for your buildings
Download eGRID factors for every inventory year
To access Emissions, go to Apps on the left side menu, then Emissions.
Building Emissions
This page displays total emissions and emissions factors for all buildings.
Filter to select the emission scope, point type, building, or group of buildings for which you want to view emissions or assign factors.
Change the period to reflect the time range over which these factors should apply.
Change the calendarization method. Learn more about calendarization
Change the unit you wish to display the data. The dropdown allows you to select from different greenhouse gases to display in the stacked breakdown chart, and the unit of each gas is applied to the entire table.
Click on a building name, to expand the table to see a list of points within that building.
Select one or more buildings or points using the checkboxes on the left of the table. To select all buildings in this paginated view, use the first checkbox at the top of the table.
Use the toggle menu to switch between 'Totals' and 'Factors'.
Scope 1, 2, & 3 Emissions
Aggregate Scope 1, 2, 3, and Total Emissions for your building or portfolio. Use our default scope assignments, or overwrite default assignments in the Emissions app at the point level.
Standard factors have scope categories assigned by default that can be used to group and visualize data for emissions reporting. These categories are derived from GHGP guidance and correspond to the Carbon Disclosure Project's reporting categories.
View and report on your aggregate Scope 1, 2, 3, & Total emissions using the Emissions app and on the following cards: Building Trends, Building Year-over-Year, Building Readout, Building Comparisons, Portfolio Trends, Portfolio Year-over-Year, and Portfolio Comparisons.
Add to emissions total
The points displayed in the Building Emissions table can be configured using the Add to emissions total setting.
📘Use the ‘Add to emissions total’ setting to calculate portfolio emissions
From the point profile or via batch actions include Whole building points, Whole building bill points, sub-points, and sub-bills in emissions calculations using the Add to emissions total setting.
Filter the Points or Bills page to see which of your points have the setting turned on.
Yes - Emissions for the selected point are included in the totals displayed in the Emissions app and Dashboards (filters and card fields still apply).
No - The selected point will not be included in emissions totals. Emissions for these points can be viewed by selecting the individual point to display on a card. Any point/bill not ‘Added to emissions total’ uses the building default emission factor.
Setting defaults:
New buildings:
The first Whole building point or bill point of a given point type that is added to the building will be set to Yes.
Any subsequent Whole building point or bill point of the same point type will be set to No.
Sub-bills and sub-points will be set to No.
Assign or edit an emission factor
Many data points will have default emission factors assigned.
Click the drop-down arrow to the right of a building or point to edit or assign an individual factor. To edit, add, or remove emission factors:
With your building(s) or point(s) selected, an Actions menu will appear. Go to Actions, then select
Edit factor overwrites existing assignments and assigns the selected factor, scope, and reporting category configuration to all selected points or buildings
Add factor adds the the selected factor, scope, and reporting category configuration to all selected points or buildings, and does not overwrite existing assignments.
Remove factor removes the the selected factor, scope, and reporting category configuration from all selected points or buildings.
In the dialog window, select an emission factor from the list. The list includes standard emissions factors from EPA, UK DEFRA, GHGP and any custom factors you had previously created.
Assign custom scope and reporting category configurations to each emission factor to group your data for your report.
Batch actions
Select multiple buildings or points of the same point type to perform batch actions.
Select > Actions >
Edit factors: Edit all factors for the selected buildings/points. The factor(s) selected in the modal will replace any existing factors.
Add factors: Add a factor(s) to a set of existing factors. Select the factor, scope, and reporting category in the modal that you would like added in addition to a building or point's existing factors.
Remove factors: Remove a factor(s) from a set of existing factors. Ensure the factor, scope, and reporting category selected are an exact match to the factor you wish to remove.
🚧 Important
By editing a building or point's emissions factor, you will initiate the recalculation of its emissions data. This action cannot be undone.
If fiscal year is defined in Organization Settings, then fiscal year period options will display along with calendar year periods.
Download building emissions data
Select ‘Download table’ at the top right of the table. A CSV file will be exported with the contents of the respective Totals and Factors tables.
Download building totals: Exports total emissions by building
Download point totals: Exports total emissions by point, including all points that have been added to emissions total
Download building default factors: Exports factors assigned as the building default. These factors are automatically assigned to points within the building, unless specific point-level factors have been assigned.
Download point factors: Exports all points and the emission factor used to calculate total emissions. If no point-level factor has been assigned, the building default factor will be displayed.
Download all factors and totals: Export combined point totals and factors.
Default emission factors
Building default factors will be assigned to your data points automatically if there is a factor available for the given point type.
See what defaults are set and edit your organization's default factors in Organization settings.
Building default factors vs. Point factors
Building default factors are assigned to the building for a given point type. All of our default factors are assigned as building default factors and apply to any point that is added to the building. In the Building Emissions table, select the caret located on the right side of the table for any building row to edit this factor.
To assign and view point-level emission factors, click anywhere on the building row to expand, and view the points in that building. The only points that will display here are those that have been added to the emissions total. Select the caret for any point row to set a point-level emission factor. Any point-level factors will overrule a building-level factor for the specified point.
Audit Trail
View audit entries for settings and assignment changes related to Emissions. Entries are created for the following updates:
Organization Settings emissions settings
Custom factors edits
Emission factor assignments
System-wide changes
Global Warming Potential (GWP)
According to the EPA, the Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. It measures how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), which allows us to come up with emission factors for carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).
Atrius allows users to select from four of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) most widely used reports which define GWPs, and to apply them to emissions data at the organization level. You can view or edit your organization's Global Warming Potential settings under Organization Settings.
For all emissions factors that are broken out into CO2, N2O, and CH4, we use the various GWPs to provide the emissions factors associated with four reports. If the emission factor source provided only CO2e emissions, then we are only able to provide the GWP in which the factor was given.
Supported GWPs
IPCC report | CO2 | CH4 | N2O |
Second Assessment Report (SAR) | 1 | 21 | 310 |
Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) | 1 | 25 | 298 |
Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) | 1 | 28 | 265 |
Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) | 1 | 29.8 (fossil) 27.0 (non-fossil) | 273 |
Methodology
SAR, AR4, and AR5 reports support a single GWP for each greenhouse gas. CO2e emissions are calculated as follows:
Formula:
mt CO2 x GWP +
mt CH4 x GWP +
mt N2O x GWP
= mt CO2e
Ex. (10 mt CO2 x 1) + (10 mt CH4 x 25) + (10 mt N2O x 298) = 3,240 mt CO2e (AR4)
The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) provides two GWPs for CH4, differentiating between methane emissions from fossil fuels vs. non-fossil fuels. When using AR6 GWPs the Fossil composition setting on a point's profile indicates how much of that point is derived from fossil fuel. CO2e emissions are calculated as follows:
Formula:
mt CO2 x GWP +
mt CH4 x (Fossil composition x fossil GWP) +
mt CH4 x (1-Fossil composition x non-fossil GWP) +
mt N2O x GWP
= mt CO2e (AR6)
Ex.
Where Fossil composition is 25%,
(10 mt CO2 x 1) + (10 mt CH4 x .25 x 29.8) + (10 mt CH4 x .75 x 27.0)+ (10 mt N2O x 273) = 3,017 mt CO2e (AR6)
Fossil composition
The Fossil composition field is found on the point profile, and indicates how much of a point is derived from fossil fuel. According to the above methodology, CH4 emissions will be converted into CO2e according to the percent entered in this field. If any year in the Global Warming Potential setting is set to The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the Fossil composition setting will appear on the point profile for all points across your organization.
By default, we've set this field to 0 for all points, indicating that the CH4 (non-fossil) GWP will be used in calculations. To better understand why we set this default, and learn more about fossil vs. non-fossil methane GWPs, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol has published a helpful resource here (see Methane GWP Instructions).
Troubleshooting
Problem | Solution |
Total emissions are not displaying for certain point types, even though they have data and an assigned factor for the selected period. | If you see "Troubleshoot" displayed for a point type in the table, then you need to change the points' Source unit on the Point Profile or Bill Point Profile to a unit that can be converted to therms. For help, please contact Customer Support. |