Finetuning CO2-factors

Via Finetuning > CO2 Factors, you can adjust CO2 factors for the entire organization and/or per barometer. You can add CO2 factors and overwrite default factors for each item that is CO2-relevant. CO2-relevant means that the item is linked to one of the scopes from the GreenHouseGas protocol.

The list contains all CO2-relevant items that are activated in your subscription.
On the right, you can see the CO2 factors for the active barometer in the current year.
Click on the CO2 factor (or the empty grey box) to adjust the CO2 factor for the item.

Changing CO2 Factors

In the CO2 Factors screen, you can change the CO2 factor at two levels:

• For the entire organization: on the second row, directly below the row with default values.
• Per barometer: in the table below that.

How it works:

• Click on a value you want to change. Type the new value and save it with the green checkmark (or enter).
• This value is now applied for all years until a subsequent modified value.
• A change at the organization level applies to all barometers unless it is overridden at the barometer level.
• Black numbers are adjusted values. Grey ones are ‘automatic’ values.
• To remove an adjustment, delete the entered value; the number will then turn grey. Confirm this with the green checkmark. The number will remain grey.

Tips:

• Make sure your CO2 value matches the unit (at the top of the screen), for example, kg CO2/kWh and not tons CO2/kWh.
• If you have many barometers and/or many years: you can limit the number of barometers and years displayed using the ‘label filter’ and the ‘time window’ in the green top bar.
• Note: if you have hidden the oldest years with the time window and you adjust the CO2 factor for the oldest year in your screen, that change will not apply to the older (hidden) years.
• Waste has no default CO2 factors in the Environmental Barometer (because the factor is highly dependent on what is in the waste and what happens to the waste). If you have suitable CO2 factors for your waste streams, you can provide waste with CO2 factors and include it as a scope-3 emission.

How it works if you sum barometers/years with different CO2 factors
If an item has the same CO2 factor in all barometers and years, summing is easy. However, if the CO2 factor varies (for example, between Dutch and German electricity), the question arises as to what happens. There are two ways of summing in the barometer: summing individual years or using a sumbarometer.

• With the sum years function, you paste the sum into an (existing) barometer. The summed year thus uses the CO2 factors of the barometer and year into which it is pasted.
• An (automatic) sumbarometer calculates average CO2 factors. It sums the CO2 emissions and sums the amount per item. With these two numbers, the average CO2 factor is calculated. For instance: if the total electricity consumption in the sumbarometer is 3,000 kWh and the emissions thereof are 1,500 kg CO2, the caculated CO2 factor in the CO2 footprint is 0.5 kg CO2/kWh.