Purchases and services - how are calculated my emissions?

SUMMARY:

• Equipment and supplies - direct access
  • Office supplies - direct access
  • Electronic equipment - direct access
• Services - direct access
• Upstream delivery/suppliers - direct access
• Industrial equipment - direct access
• Materials and products - direct access
  • Raw materials - direct access
  • Use of products sold - direct access
  • End of life of products sold - direct access
• Add an emission factor - direct access

Equipment and supplies

Office supplies

With regard to office supplies, given their composition and the large number of items, we apply a monetary emission factor directly: CO₂e emissions are thus estimated based on the amount of your expenditure.

This is a monetary emission factor. To understand what this means and how they are calculated, click here. You will also have access to ADEME's complete methodology.

Electronic equipment

Our calculator is based on nearly a thousand different emission factors for electronic equipment, sourced from the ADEME Footprint Database and directly from suppliers (Apple, Asus, Dell, Lenovo).

Where possible, we use data from electronics manufacturers who have carried out life cycle analyses on their product ranges (e.g. Apple, Dell and HP) and who provide carbon footprints for each product.

This manufacturer data also allows us to construct average emission factors per product family (laptop, telephone, screen, etc.) which we apply to products and references for which the LCA is not known.

It is estimated that refurbished equipment will last 50% less time. To measure the CO2e emissions of a refurbished device, we apply 33% of the emission factor for new equipment.

Depreciation of electronic equipment: the CO2e impact of your electronic equipment is smoothed over time. If you keep a device for 10 years, its CO2e emissions will be spread over 10 years.

We do not display here the 75 EFs from ADEME's Carbon Database v21.1 used by our calculator. 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.

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.
🔍 For more information on sources, click directly on the table. 

Scope: all of these emission factors have been measured by manufacturers using life cycle analyses. The scope varies as follows:

• Apple, Huawei: raw materials, production, transport, use and end of life.
• Dell, Fairphone, Asus, Google, HP, Jabra, Lenovo: production, transport, use and end of life.

Le FE "Petit électroménager - moyenne" est utilisé pour les équipements suivant : batteur, blender, centrale vapeur, fer à repasser, fer vapeur, fontaine à eau, hotte murale et mixeur plongeur.

Sources: in addition to the sources already mentioned above for manufacturers' EAs, here are the studies on which our Data team relied to produce these estimates: Anne Grzywa - LCA Speaker, 2016, Western Digital ESG Report, Eco-Efficiency of a Lithium-Ion Battery for Electric Vehicles, 2019

Methodology and scope: The above EAs sourced from ‘Carbo’ are estimates based on the main material and weight of the equipment. For these EAs, the scope is limited by default to ‘production’ only. As examples, we assume that a phone case consists of 26g of new plastic, and that a steel laptop stand contains 1000g of steel and 200g of cardboard.

🔍 For more information on sources, click directly on the table. Our Data team has performed calculations to convert certain data from studies into emission factors. For transparency purposes, you can export the emission factors used in calculating your carbon footprint from the export page of the Analyse tab.

Services

We use monetary ratios provided by ADEME to calculate the impact of different services. In the near future, we hope to be able to use data from carbon assessments of companies in the sector to refine our calculation assumptions.

Upstream delivery/suppliers

The methodology and emission factors used to estimate the impact of your supplier deliveries are exactly the same as for customer deliveries. You will find answers to your questions by following this link:

Industrial equipment

Industrial equipment includes large machines, engines, devices or tools used in your production process. Cutting machines, assembly machines, handling trolleys, lifting devices, pallet trucks, etc. If you lease equipment over a long period, the same applies.

In this sub-category, we estimate the impact of the manufacture of your industrial equipment. Not its use, nor the energy consumed to operate it.

The CO2e emissions generated are estimated based on the weight of the equipment.

Only the impact of equipment manufacturing was taken into account in the development of these EmissionsFactors.

Carbon depreciation

The impact of manufacturing equipment is spread over several years. For simplicity's sake, we use the accounting depreciation period. If you buy a new machine and depreciate it over 10 years, the CO2e impact of its manufacture will be spread over 10 years.

An example to clarify this - new purchase

You purchase a new industrial vehicle in 2024.

You depreciate it over 12 years for accounting purposes. You also depreciate it over 12 years in terms of carbon accounting. The CO2e emissions associated with its manufacture will be spread over your next 12 carbon footprints.

If you bought it second-hand and it had already been in service for 8 years, its CO2e impact will be spread over 2 years.

An example to clarify this - second-hand purchase

You buy a second-hand machine in 2023, which was originally put into service in 2010.

For accounting purposes, let's imagine that you depreciate its purchase over 10 years (from 2023 to 2033).

Its accounting depreciation is therefore 10 years, and we estimate that it will take 10 years for the machine to be depreciated in terms of carbon accounting as well, but from its original commissioning date. Not from your purchase date.

The machine was therefore depreciated in 2020 in carbon terms, i.e. three years before your purchase. The purchase of this machine has no impact on your carbon footprint.

Materials and products

Raw materials

Thousands of EFs have been integrated into our calculator to enable you to estimate the impact of your materials and manufactured products.

Wood, beverages, rubber and elastomers, animal meat, ink, coatings, groceries, fruit, vegetables, legumes, oilseeds, fat, chemical ingredients, construction materials, metal, eggs and dairy products, paper, plastic, chemicals, resin, fibre, upholstery, textiles, glass, etc.

We use emission factors from several databases: Ecoinvent 3.9.1, ADEME (Agribalyse/Empreinte) and our own analyses. Other emission factors are taken from research papers or carbon studies.

We do not display all the emission factors from the databases 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.

 Emission factor databases are not exhaustive. Sometimes, the data needed for calculations can be found in scientific studies. Here are a few examples.

🔍 For more information on sources, click directly on the table. Our Data team has performed calculations to convert certain data from studies into emission factors. For transparency purposes, you can export the emission factors used in calculating your carbon footprint from the export page of the Analyse tab.

We have produced our own FEs to compensate for gaps in the databases, using several methods:

• Average of several states of the same material to create a simplified factor. For example, the Aubergine FE is an average of the Raw Aubergine and Cooked Aubergine FEs.
• Average of several FEs for materials. For example, we calculated the average mineral water FE. This is useful when you do not have more precise information, or when your material is not available in any database.
• Median value from the database.
• Estimated value based on another EF. For example, we estimate that the EF for Sodium Polyacrylate should be equivalent to the EF for Sodium Bicarbonate, Europe, ex-works manufacturing.

For transparency, you can export the emission factors used in calculating your carbon footprint from the export page of the Analyse tab.

Use of products sold

Beyond their manufacture, we estimate the impact of consumer use of your products. To do this, we want to identify how many products were sold during the reporting period. We attribute the total impact of a product's use to the carbon footprint of the period in which it was sold.

You sell the Génialo2000 product in 2024. The CO2e emissions from electricity use for 10 years (the average lifespan of a Génialo2000) will be accounted for in 2024.

Total resources used over the entire life cycle.

To determine the resources required to use your product, you may need to make some assumptions and intermediate calculations:

• Average lifespan of your product, unless it is single-use,
• Average number of uses per day/month/over its lifespan,
• Use of resources by the end consumer to use the product (over the total storage period, per use).
  
  

Finally, the impact of using your manufactured products is refined by measuring electricity emissions with the appropriate energy mix. If consumers are mainly located in France, using your product will have less impact than if they are in the US. All this, of course, assumes that your product requires electricity 😇.

To stay as close to reality as possible while keeping the estimate simplified, we apply the following ratios. If the majority of end consumers are:

• In France, energy use is calculated as follows: 90% FE France + 10% FE Europe.
• In Europe: 10% FE France + 70% F Europe + 20% FE International.
• In the USA: 5% FE France + 10% FE Europe + 70% FE USA + 15% FE International.
• Internationally: 100% FE International.

End of life of products sold

By convention, end-of-life emissions from products sold during the carbon footprint assessment period are taken into account. This is despite the fact that greenhouse gas emissions associated with the end of life of the products sold will actually be generated in the future.

The methodology for estimating the impact of discarded manufactured products is the same as for waste. We take into account the quantity of each type of waste and estimate its CO2e emissions based on the treatment method it is destined for (incineration, recycling, etc.).

Add an emission factor

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