1. Accounting framework
The calculator applies the accounting principles of the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (WRI/WBCSD, revised edition, 2004) and the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance (WRI, 2015). Emissions are classified as Scope 1 (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources), Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchased electricity, heat and steam) and Scope 3 (other indirect emissions in the value chain). Scope 2 is quantified using the location-based method. Greenhouse gases are aggregated as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) using the 100-year global warming potentials (GWP100) of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).
2. Calculation procedure
Each inventory line is quantified as the product of activity data and an emission factor:
where A is the quantity stated in the source document, c is the conversion from the stated unit to the base unit of the emission factor, and EF is the emission factor in kg CO₂e per base unit. Base units include the litre, kilowatt-hour, kilogram, kilometre, passenger-kilometre and tonne-kilometre. Conversion constants are exact or taken from the publisher concerned; for example, 1 US gallon = 3.78541 L, 1 therm = 29.3001 kWh and 1 short ton = 907.185 kg. Natural gas reported in cubic metres is converted with the calorific value published by the authority of the selected jurisdiction (e.g. 38.39 MJ/m³ HHV, ECCC; 39.3 MJ/m³ GCV, DCCEEW), since the energy content of distributed gas varies between networks.
For combustion sources, the emission factor is the sum of its constituent gases weighted by their global warming potentials:
From factor database release R6 onward, the three components are stored separately for each Scope 1 combustion factor, so that each may be checked against the source publication. For example, the Canadian factor for diesel is 2,681 g CO₂, 0.078 g CH₄ and 0.022 g N₂O per litre (ECCC, Emission Factors and Reference Values v4.0, Table 4.3), giving 2.689 kg CO₂e per litre. Fugitive emissions of refrigerants are quantified with the AR5 GWP of the gas or blend concerned; R-410A, a 50:50 blend of HFC-32 (GWP 677) and HFC-125 (GWP 3,170), is assigned a GWP of 1,924.
Biogenic CO₂ from the combustion of biofuels is excluded from the scope totals, consistent with the GHG Protocol and with the UK DESNZ conversion factors, both of which report it separately. AR5 values are applied uniformly, although the GHG Protocol's own tools now default to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), because the national factor sets used by the calculator are published on an AR5 basis and a single inventory should not combine GWP sets.
3. Emission factor selection
The reporting jurisdiction selected by the user determines the factor set for stationary and mobile fuels and the default electricity grid factor:
| Jurisdiction | Fuels (Scope 1) | Electricity (Scope 2) |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | ECCC, Emission Factors and Reference Values v4.0 (9 September 2026); natural gas by province | ECCC, by province and territory, 2026 compliance year |
| United States | US EPA, GHG Emission Factors Hub 2025 (15 January 2025) | US EPA, eGRID2023 revision 2 (12 June 2025): twelve subregions and the national average |
| India | IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Tier 1 defaults; coal by the CEA method using the stated calorific value | CEA, CO₂ Baseline Database v21.0, weighted average |
| Australia | DCCEEW, National Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2026 | NGA Factors 2026, Table 1, by state (location-based) |
| China | IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Tier 1 defaults for liquid and gaseous fuels; coal by the NDRC (2015) guideline | MEE, 2023 electricity CO₂ emission factors (Announcement 2025 No. 47), national and 30 provinces; CO₂ only |
| International | UK DESNZ, GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting 2026, v1.2, which also supplies the library of approximately 900 further activities | |
Where the source data identify a grid region (a Canadian province, a US eGRID subregion or an Australian state), the jurisdiction is set accordingly. Where the selected authority publishes no factor for an activity, the DESNZ value is applied and the substitution is stated on the inventory line.
Each factor carries one of the following provenance classes, displayed alongside the value:
- Published: the value appears in the cited publication.
- Derived: no authority publishes the value directly; it is computed from a published value, and the computation is reproduced in the source field. For example, the Canadian factor for a passenger car per kilometre is 8.9 L/100 km × 2.315 kg CO₂e/L (ECCC gasoline).
- Indicative: a provisional value without a specific source, used only until the user supplies the missing information (at present, solely the Canada-wide average electricity factor, pending selection of a province).
- Self-declared: a factor entered by the user, identified as such in the interface and in every exported report.
Factors are maintained in a versioned database rather than in the application code. The current release is R6 (10 October 2026). Each release is distributed with a SHA-256 checksum, and a file whose checksum does not match is rejected. An inventory prepared under an earlier release may be reopened with the factors originally applied or recalculated with the current release. New editions are incorporated according to the publishers' release cycles: DESNZ (July), DCCEEW (August–September), ECCC (September–October), US EPA (first quarter), and CEA and MEE (December).
4. Treatment of source data
Errors in small-organisation inventories arise more often from the source documents than from the arithmetic. The import function accepts pasted text, spreadsheets, PDF documents and photographed bills in English and French, and assigns each line to an activity. Where a line admits more than one reasonable interpretation, the calculator requests a decision from the user rather than selecting one silently. Typical cases include:
- digit grouping with spaces ("1 850"), which may denote one quantity or two;
- negative fuel quantities, which may represent a credit note or a data-entry error;
- bus travel, which may be expressed per passenger-kilometre or per vehicle-kilometre;
- an unqualified "$" in Canadian data (CAD or USD);
- natural gas in Canada without a stated province, or "New York" without an eGRID subregion;
- coal in India or China without a stated calorific value.
Pending a decision, a stated default is applied (in most cases the reading that yields the higher result) and the line remains flagged. Lines that cannot be interpreted are listed separately with the reason, rather than discarded. Duplicate invoices are removed, returns are netted, missing periods in a series are estimated from the reported periods and labelled as estimates, and a stated annual total is reconciled against a period-by-period table rather than added to it.
5. Scope 3 and spend-based estimation
Scope 3 categories covered include business travel, employee commuting, upstream transportation, waste, water, purchased materials and purchased food. Factors are taken principally from UK DESNZ (2026), with materials from the World Steel Association, the International Aluminium Institute and the International Copper Association, and food from Poore and Nemecek (2018).
Where only expenditure is known, the calculator applies the US EPA Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emission Factors v1.3 (5 July 2024), in 59 categories, each mapped to a NAICS code. These factors are expressed in 2022 US dollars at purchaser prices and represent the US economy; both conditions are stated on every spend-based line. An expenditure line that does not identify a category is referred to the user rather than assigned an average factor.
6. Comparison with GHG Protocol calculation tools
The GHG Protocol publishes cross-sector calculation tools in spreadsheet form. Identical activity data were processed by two of these tools and by the calculator, and the results were compared line by line. Performed 17 October 2026Factor release R6
- GHG Emissions from Stationary Combustion, version 4.2 (30 August 2024), file
Stationary_combustion_tool_Version4-2.xlsx; - GHG Emissions from Transport or Mobile Sources, version 2.7 (10 September 2024),
file
Transport_Tool_v2_7.xlsx.
The workbooks were recalculated without modification; inputs were entered in their designated input cells only. The calculator was run as deployed, from pasted text, using its built-in factor release. Both were set to AR5 GWP values.
6.1 Test 1: identical factors and activity data
This test examines the calculation procedure itself: unit conversion, the summation of individual gases and the GWP weighting. Each factor applied by the calculator was entered in the GHG Protocol tool as a user-defined fuel, separated into its CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O components, and the same quantities were entered in the units stated in the test data (litres, US gallons, therms and tonnes).
| t CO₂e: calculator GHG Protocol tool difference | Canada ECCC | US EPA | India IPCC/CEA | Australia DCCEEW | China IPCC/NDRC | Intl. DESNZ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diesel, 10,000 L | 26.89 26.89 0.000% | 27.06 27.06 0.000% | 26.60 26.60 0.000% | 27.10 27.10 0.000% | 26.60 26.60 0.000% | 25.84 25.84 0.000% |
| Gasoline, 2,000 US gal | 17.53 17.52 -0.011% | 17.62 17.62 -0.011% | 17.41 17.41 -0.011% | 17.56 17.55 -0.011% | 17.41 17.41 -0.011% | 15.71 15.71 -0.011% |
| Natural gas, 5,000 therms | 27.15 27.16 +0.027% | 26.55 26.55 +0.027% | 26.90 26.91 +0.027% | 27.18 27.18 +0.027% | 29.59 29.60 +0.027% | 26.71 26.72 +0.027% |
| LPG, 4,000 L | 6.18 6.18 0.000% | 6.07 6.07 0.000% | 6.32 6.32 0.000% | 6.23 6.23 0.000% | 6.32 6.32 0.000% | 6.23 6.23 0.000% |
| Heating oil, 3,000 L | 8.28 8.28 0.000% | 8.12 8.12 0.000% | 7.98 7.98 0.000% | 7.80 7.80 0.000% | 7.98 7.98 0.000% | 7.62 7.62 0.000% |
| Coal, 50 t | 120.75 120.75 0.000% | 117.53 117.53 0.000% | 122.90 122.90 0.000% | 121.80 121.80 0.000% | 122.90 122.90 0.000% | 120.75 120.75 0.000% |
Result: all 36 lines agree to within 0.027%. The residual differences are attributable to rounded constants in the GHG Protocol workbook, which uses 3.785 L per US gallon (exact value 3.78541) and 105.5 MJ per therm (exact value 105.4804).
This test establishes that the calculator converts units and aggregates gases in the same manner as the GHG Protocol tool, and that the stored CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O components of each factor sum to the factor applied. It does not establish the correctness of the factors themselves, which is addressed by the source citations and by Test 2.
6.2 Test 2: default factors of each tool
In this test the GHG Protocol stationary tool applied its built-in IPCC 2006 Tier 1 defaults (commercial sector, heating values as set by the tool), and the calculator applied the published factors of each jurisdiction. Differences are expected; the objective is to establish that each has an identifiable cause.
Results are in tonnes CO₂e. The GHG Protocol figure is the corrected value described in the note below. A negative difference means the calculator's result is lower than the GHG Protocol tool's.
| Fuel and quantity | GHG Protocol tool | Calculator, six jurisdictions | Difference | Principal reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diesel, 10,000 L | 29.27 | 25.84 – 27.10 | -11.7% to -7.4% | The GHG Protocol tool assumes a diesel density of 0.913 kg/L; national factors imply 0.84–0.85 kg/L. |
| Gasoline, 2,000 US gal | 17.43 | 15.71 – 17.62 | -9.9% to +1.1% | Agreement within about 1%; the DESNZ value is lower because UK petrol contains biofuel. |
| Natural gas, 5,000 therms | 26.71 | 26.55 – 29.59 | -0.6% to +10.8% | Agreement within 2%, except the China setting (net versus gross calorific basis). |
| LPG, 4,000 L | 5.91 | 6.07 – 6.32 | +2.7% to +7.0% | The GHG Protocol tool assumes an LPG density of 0.494 kg/L; national factors imply 0.51–0.53 kg/L. |
| Heating oil, 3,000 L | 8.78 | 7.62 – 8.28 | -13.2% to -5.7% | The same density assumption as diesel; the DESNZ value refers to kerosene. |
| Coal, 50 t | 122.91 | 117.53 – 122.90 | -4.4% to 0.0% | Each jurisdiction applies the coal type it publishes. |
Difference by jurisdiction
| Canada ECCC | US EPA | India IPCC/CEA | Australia DCCEEW | China IPCC/NDRC | Intl. DESNZ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diesel, 10,000 L | -8.1% | -7.6% | -9.1% | -7.4% | -9.1% | -11.7% |
| Gasoline, 2,000 US gal | +0.5% | +1.1% | -0.1% | +0.7% | -0.1% | -9.9% |
| Natural gas, 5,000 therms | +1.6% | -0.6% | +0.7% | +1.7% | +10.8% | 0.0% |
| LPG, 4,000 L | +4.5% | +2.7% | +7.0% | +5.4% | +7.0% | +5.4% |
| Heating oil, 3,000 L | -5.7% | -7.6% | -9.1% | -11.1% | -9.1% | -13.2% |
| Coal, 50 t | -1.8% | -4.4% | 0.0% | -0.9% | 0.0% | -1.8% |
Each cell is the calculator's result relative to the GHG Protocol tool. Differences of 5% or more are shown in amber.
The differences are explained as follows.
- Diesel and heating oil. The GHG Protocol tool converts volume to energy using a density of 0.913 kg/L for gas/diesel oil. Road diesel typically has a density of 0.820–0.845 kg/L at 15 °C, and the national per-litre factors (ECCC, 2,681 g CO₂/L; US EPA, 10.21 kg CO₂ per US gallon) imply approximately 0.84–0.85 kg/L. The density assumption alone places the tool's diesel result 7–9% above the national values. The international (DESNZ) result is lower again, because DESNZ prices UK road diesel as the average biofuel blend, the biogenic CO₂ of which is reported outside the scopes; its heating oil factor refers to burning oil (kerosene), a lighter fuel than the gas/diesel oil entered in the GHG Protocol tool.
- Gasoline. ECCC, US EPA, DCCEEW and IPCC agree to within approximately 1%. The DESNZ figure is lower for the biofuel-blend reason given above.
- LPG. The calculator's results are approximately 3–7% higher. The GHG Protocol tool assumes a density of 0.494 kg/L, whereas the national factors correspond to propane-rich LPG of approximately 0.51–0.53 kg/L.
- Natural gas. Five of the six jurisdictions agree to within 2%. The China setting returns a result 10.8% higher because it applies the IPCC default, which is expressed on a net calorific value basis, to a quantity stated in therms, which is conventionally a gross calorific value basis; the difference corresponds to the gross-to-net ratio of natural gas (approximately 1.11).
- Coal. The India and China settings agree with the GHG Protocol tool to within 0.01%, as both apply the IPCC default for bituminous coal until a calorific value is supplied. The Australian and US settings apply their national coal factors; the Canadian and international settings apply the DESNZ factor for UK industrial coal, as no ECCC coal factor is currently included.
* Observation concerning the GHG Protocol stationary combustion tool
When fuel consumption is entered by volume (litres, gallons, barrels, cubic metres or cubic feet), version 4.2 of the stationary combustion tool calculates N₂O emissions using the methane emission factor. The per-volume N₂O tables in the workbook reference the CH₄ factor tables for every sector. The emission factor displayed by the tool is correct (0.6 kg N₂O/TJ for gas/diesel oil), whereas the calculation applies 10 kg/TJ in the commercial sector.
In consequence, 10,000 L of diesel yields 30.25 t CO₂e when entered by volume and 29.27 t CO₂e when the same quantity is entered as energy, an overstatement of 3.3%. Entries on an energy or mass basis are unaffected. The GHG Protocol figures in the table above re-enter each volume-based line as its energy content, using the tool's own density and heating value. The observation has been referred to the GHG Protocol help desk.
6.3 Mobile combustion
The CO₂ factors for fuel use in the mobile combustion tool, read directly from its reference tables, are consistent with those of the calculator: 10.21 kg CO₂ per US gallon for diesel and 8.78 kg CO₂ per US gallon for gasoline (US EPA, as in the calculator's US setting), and 1.55491 kg CO₂/L for LPG (identical to DESNZ 2026). Its UK factors for 100% mineral diesel and petrol lie within 0.4% of the corresponding DESNZ 2026 values. Its diesel factor for "Other" regions, 2.910 kg CO₂/L, reflects the same 0.913 kg/L density as the stationary tool.
6.4 Scope of the comparison
The GHG Protocol no longer publishes international grid emission factors, and its cross-sector tools do not include a Scope 3 emissions calculator. Scope 2 and Scope 3 factors are therefore verified against their source publications rather than against a GHG Protocol tool. Refrigerant emissions were not compared, as the Protocol's refrigeration workbook was not run. Per-kilometre vehicle factors were not compared, as they depend on assumed fuel economy rather than on a published method.
The workbooks, input data, scripts and complete results are retained so that the comparison may be repeated when either tool is revised. They are available on request from support@whatsmyemissions.com.
7. Independent verification of a result
Any line in an inventory may be verified as follows:
- Consult the source field of the line, which states the publisher, document, version and publication date of the factor and, for a derived factor, the computation.
- Locate the value in the cited publication; links are provided on the emission factors page.
- Multiply the stated quantity, converted to the base unit of the factor, by the factor.
Discrepancies may be reported to support@whatsmyemissions.com, identifying the line and the factor concerned; each report is reviewed and either corrected or answered with an explanation.
Prepared by Turja Deb Mitun, M.Eng. (Concordia University), Environmental Engineer. Last revised 21 October 2026.