What are Emission Factors?

An emission factor is a coefficient which allows you to transform your activity data into actual Green House Gas emissions. Essentially, it is the average emission rate of a given source, which is relative to the units of activity, or process.

Below is a list of Emission Factor Categories that are utilized and available in the GreenFeet calculators;

Fuels : Gaseous, Liquid, or Solid ( Combustion )
Bio-Energy; Bio-Mass, Bio-Fuel, or Bio-Gas ( Combustion )
Passenger Vehicles: Cars ( Either by size or market segment ), Motorbikes ( Size only )
Delivery Vehicles; Vans ( Class I, II, or III ), Heavy Goods Vehicles ( Rigid or Articulated)
Electric Vehicles; Cars or Vans ( Either Plug-in Hybrid Electric or Battery Electric Vehicle )
Electricity Emissions; Specific international emissions factors can be found below in our sources list
Material Use; Construction, Organic, Electrical Items, Metal, Plastic, Paper, and Other
Waste Disposal; Construction, Refuse, Electrical Items, Metal, Plastic, Paper, and Other
Air Travel; Short vs. Long Haul, Domestic or International
Freighting Goods; Vans, HGV ( Refrigerated ), Freight Flights, Rail, Sea Tanker, or Cargo Ship

Where Can I Find Emission Factors?

All of the emission factors used in our calculations can be found here at GreenFeet! All of our sources are located just below, and they are updated as soon as possible to provide the most up to date and accurate information. Furthermore, there is an abundance of sources required to compute our emission factors due to different international conversions. This is because simply just not a single emission factors encompasses all regions, which is true for a variety of emission factors.
These different sources span across various websites throughout the internet, but our technicians here at GreenFeet brought all of them to your finger tips! The sources that were used to generate your calculations can be found just below!

Sources for Emission Factors

Carbon Footprint Ltd using RADsite CMS (www.radsite.co.uk/). “International Electricity Factors.” International Electricity Factors, www.carbonfootprint.com/international_electricity_factors.html
AIB (2020). 2019 European Residual Mix Factors. Version 1 (29 May 2020) https://www.aib-net.org/facts/european-residual-mix
Australian Government Dept. of Environment & Energy Emissions Factors; Table 5 and Table 44 for regional factors (Aug 2019 report)
https://publications.industry.gov.au/publications/climatechange/system/files/resources/cf1/national-greenhouse-accounts-factors-august-2019.pdf
Climate Transparency (2019) – Country profiles from ‘G20 Brown to Green Report 2019’ (Nov 2019) - https://www.climate-transparency.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/11/Brown-to-Green-Report-2019.pdf
Defra/BEIS 2020 Emissions Factors (June 2020) - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2020
Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) (2018) - page 81
https://www.dewa.gov.ae/~/media/Files/Customer/Sustainability%20Reports/DEWA%20Sustainability%20Report%202018_EN.ashx
Hong Kong; Power generation is managed by two major companies: Hong Kong Electric Company (supplies HK Island and Lamma Island) and CLP Power
Hong Kong Ltd (supplies Kowloon, New Territories and outlying islands except Lamma Island).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Hong_Kong
HK Electric (https://www.hkelectric.com/en/corporate-social-responsibility/sustainability-reports); 2019 sustainability report, page 71 – “CO2e per electricity sold (kg/kWh)”
https://www.hkelectric.com/en/CorporateSocialResponsibility/CorporateSocialResponsibility_CDD/Documents/SR2019E.pdf
CLP Power Hong Kong; 2019 annual report, page 97 – https://www.clpgroup.com/en/Investors-Informationsite/Documents/Financial%20Report%20PDF/e_2019Annual%20Report.pdf; 2020 Grid Electricity Emissions Factors v1.4 – September 2020 www.carbonfootprint.com 11
New Zealand Government Ministry for the Environment; https://www.mfe.govt.nz/node/18670/; 2016 factors (published Dec 2016) – https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/2016-voluntary-ghg-reporting-summary-tablesemissions_0.pdf; 2018 factors (published May 2019) https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/2019-emission-factorssummary.pdf
Singapore - Energy Market Authority (EMA); https://www.ema.gov.sg/statistic.aspx?sta_sid=20140729MPY03nTHx2a1; PDF available for download at the above URL
Thai Government Ministry of Energy – Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO); http://www.eppo.go.th/index.php/en/en-energystatistics/co2-statistic; Table 9.1-15: CO2 Emission per kWh
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/transparency-and-reporting/reporting-and-review-under-the-convention/greenhouse-gasinventories-annex-i-parties/national-inventory-submissions-2019
Canada – download ‘NIR’ (national inventory report) (Published: 15 Apr 2019). Page 60 onwards on ‘Part 3’ document.
United Kingdom's Emission Factors Conversion Database; https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-conversion-factors-for-company-reporting
United States EPA eGrid Database; 2018 factors (Published: Jan 2020. Revised: Mar 2020); https://www.epa.gov/energy/emissions-generation-resource-integrated-database-egrid; EFs converted from lbs/MWh to kg/kWh and calculated T&D factors