Offices/sites - how are calculated my emissions?

SUMMARY:

• Energy consumption - direct access
• Building construction - direct access
• Water and waste management - direct access
• Cleaning and maintenance - direct access
• Meals at work - direct access
• Add an emission factor - direct access 

 

Energy consumption

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For each office, site or premises, you can enter the amount of energy consumed (in kWh). To convert electricity into CO₂e emissions, we take into account the country's energy mix. We use emission factors from the ADEME database for gas, the CPCU heating networks, Climespace and the Climespace cooling network.

If you do not have data on energy consumption, enter the occupied surface area (in m²) and the address of your offices/premises/sites. We will then estimate your energy consumption using the ADEME Energy Performance Diagnostics API.

 

 

 

Not all of the emission factors from ADEME's Carbon Database v21.1 are shown here. For the sake of transparency, you can export the emission factors used in calculating your carbon footprint from the export page of the Analyse tab.

 

Building construction

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The philosophy is, for an office landlord for example, to take responsibility for the construction of the premises.

We adopt the ADEME philosophy with the emission factor by building type, in this case offices, which is annualised from the date of construction of the building. We amortise its construction over its actual lifespan, or over 40 years for buildings less than 40 years old.

We also retrieve data on the building's surface area and year of construction from the Energy Performance Diagnostics (DPE) database.

Water and waste management

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To calculate the impact of waste, we use the amount of waste and multiply it by the associated emission factor.

Industrial waste

Six categories of industrial waste comprise more than 70 emission factors:

• Basic waste
• Plastics
• Metals
• Electronic waste
• Industrial and construction waste
• Furniture waste

Not all emission factors from ADEME's Carbon Database v23.0 are shown here. For the sake of transparency, you can export the emission factors used in calculating your carbon footprint from the export page of the Analyse tab.

The EFs take into account the type of waste and its end of life. We use an average end of life (average of recycling and incineration) provided by ADEME.

EFs with the source ‘Carbo - ADEME Carbon Database v23.0’ are averages calculated from data in the Carbon Database v23.0.

 

Employee waste and water

Thanks to your employees completing the Employees Questionnaire, we can also take into account food waste, paper usage, water consumption and the use of reusable cutlery.

The number of employees and days of attendance, information on paper, packaging and food consumption cross-referenced with ADEME average data in terms of waste weight per employee enable us to estimate the volume of paper, cardboard and organic waste that must be processed or incinerated.

Similarly, we use average water consumption data per employee (provided by ADEME) to take into account the impact of upstream water treatment to transform it into drinking water and downstream wastewater treatment.

 

Source for average water consumption per employee (20 litres/day): ADEME Guide: eco-responsible in the office. Calculation coefficient in m3/day.

FE A4 sheet: the weight of an A4 sheet is estimated by Carbo, the FE is measured based on the paper processing FE from ADEME's Carbon Database v21.0. Calculation details:

5.25 g/A4 sheet. A4 sheet surface area = 0.062 m². Paper quality: 80 g/m² or 120 g/m². Weight of A4 sheet_80g/m² = 4.96 g ≤ weight_A4 sheet ≤ 7.44 g

 

Cleaning and maintenance

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We use a monetary ratio provided by ADEME to estimate the emissions associated with cleaning and maintenance services for your premises based on your budget.

If you do not know this ratio, for shared offices for example, we apply an average ratio per square metre occupied.

This is a monetary emission factor measured by ADEME. Find out what it means and how it was calculated by clicking here.

 

Meals at work

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We calculate the number of meals based on the number of days employees are present at work. We use emission factors defined by ADEME based on each employee's diet (meat-eater, vegetarian, etc.).

The method of meal preparation (home-cooked, canteen, restaurant) is also taken into account: for example, a meal prepared in a restaurant and taken away generates more emissions than the same meal prepared at home.

The impact is added using a multiplier coefficient:

• Cafeteria: +0%
• Delivery: +50%
• Home-cooked: -20%
• Restaurant: +10%
• Takeaway: +20%

Add an emission factor

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Would you like to request the addition of an emission factor specific to your activity? Please refer to this article.