What will this project emit, and what will it avoid?

Method version 1.2Factor set 2026-09

How the figures are built

A project has two footprints and one comparison. The first footprint is the carbon of delivering it, spent once and largely fixed by decisions taken at design and procurement. The second is the carbon of what the project hands over, which repeats every year of the service life. The comparison is what the handover avoids against a reference scenario you declare, and it is reported on its own. Nothing is netted, because avoided emissions belong to a different accounting system from emissions and the WBCSD Guidance on Avoided Emissions v2.0 requires them to be kept apart.

The structure uses the capital, operational and user carbon terminology of PAS 2080:2023 for built assets. Lines are organised so an organization can allocate them to scopes under the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, including scope 3 category 2, capital goods. The boundary and reference scenario concepts are informed by ISO 14064-2:2019 and the GHG Protocol for Project Accounting; the tool produces an ex ante estimate and does not include the baseline candidate analysis, monitoring plan or independent verification those standards require for a claimable reduction.

Results can inform an entity\'s actions and resources disclosure under ESRS E1-3 (E1-5 from FY2027) and its consideration of IF-EN-160a.2 and IF-EN-410a.2 (Engineering and Construction Services: construction phase risks including emissions to air, and operational phase energy efficiency in project planning and design) or TC-SI-130a.3 (Software and IT Services: environmental considerations in strategic planning for data center needs), metrics in the SASB Standards version 2023-12 maintained by the ISSB, which entities applying IFRS S2 are required to refer to and consider. They are not for the gross scope 1, 2 and 3 disclosure, not for EU Taxonomy alignment and not for assurance. The tool is not affiliated with, licensed by or endorsed by the IFRS Foundation, the SBTi, BSI, ISO or the GHG Protocol.

Confidence is the share of the figures resting on national or standard body factors, weighted by how much each line contributes. A high figure with low confidence is a research task. A low figure with high confidence is a result. Every saved project keeps the factor set it was calculated with, so a run reproduces exactly after the factors are refreshed each year.

Factors in use

The GWP basis column names the IPCC assessment report each publisher used to convert methane and nitrous oxide into carbon dioxide equivalent. This tool applies no global warming potential of its own, so the equivalence is inherited from the factor. Where a publisher states no basis, the column says so rather than assuming one.

Material factors are stated in kilograms of CO₂e per unit and converted to metric tons in the result. Grid factors are applied to every electricity line, including the ones inside the handover phase, so a project delivered in a country with a cleaner grid shows a lower operational figure, which is what happens in practice.