About

Traceable greenhouse gas accounting for small and medium-sized organisations

WhatsMyEmissions is an independent, freely available web application for preparing corporate greenhouse gas inventories from primary records, in which every reported figure can be traced to its activity data and to a published emission factor.

Purpose

Small and medium-sized organisations are increasingly asked to quantify their greenhouse gas emissions by customers, lenders and public procurement bodies. The available options are typically either proprietary software whose calculations cannot be inspected, or consulting engagements whose cost is disproportionate to the size of the organisation. WhatsMyEmissions was developed to close this gap: it produces an inventory structured according to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, in which the source of each value is stated and the calculation can be reproduced by a third party.

Author

The application was designed and is maintained by Turja Deb Mitun, an environmental engineer based in Montréal. He holds a Master of Engineering from Concordia University and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, and has worked in infrastructure and the solar energy sector.

Correspondence regarding discrepancies, unsupported document formats or the provenance of a factor may be addressed to support@whatsmyemissions.com or through LinkedIn. User reports directly inform the development of the application.

Approach

Inventory errors in smaller organisations arise more often from source documents (utility bills, fuel-card statements, mixed units and incomplete periods) than from arithmetic. The application therefore accepts records in the form in which they are held and converts them into structured activity data. Where an entry admits more than one reasonable interpretation, the user is asked to resolve it; no interpretation is applied silently.

The application is built on the following principles of traceability:

  • Citation of every factor. Each emission factor states its publishing authority, document, version and date of publication.
  • Disclosure of derived values. Where a factor is computed from a published value, for example a per-kilometre vehicle factor, the computation is shown beside it.
  • Identification of user-supplied values. Factors entered by the user are labelled self-declared in the interface and in every exported report.
  • Version control. Emission factors are held in a versioned database, so that any inventory can be reproduced with the factors originally applied.

The complete factor library is available on the emission factors page, and the calculation procedure, including a comparison with the GHG Protocol's own calculation tools, is documented on the methodology page.

Data handling

Calculations are performed in the user's browser. Data entered without signing in is not transmitted to a server, except where the user chooses to submit a form, such as a report of an unreadable line. For users who sign in, the inventory in progress, including the source data entered, is saved to their account automatically so that it can be resumed; it can be downloaded or deleted at any time from the account page. Full details are given in the Privacy Policy.

Status and intended use

WhatsMyEmissions is intended for screening, internal planning and the preparation of inventories for disclosure. It is not an accredited verification or assurance body and does not issue certificates. Where an organisation requires a third-party verified inventory, the structured and fully referenced records produced by the application are designed to reduce the time and cost of that engagement.

The core functionality of the application is provided free of charge. Any change to this arrangement will be announced in advance.