Operational carbon emissions
Operational carbon emissions are the amount of carbon emitted during the active stage of your buildings, including usage, management, and maintenance. You can access your buildings' operational carbon emissions information in the Resources and emissions dashboard under Sustainability.
We base the operational carbon emission calculations on the Resource consumption dashboard's Net energy demand. The carbon emission calculation depends on the available data on energy, water, waste, and fugitive gases. Under Data coverage, you can see the shares of available, missing, and estimated data to interpret the displayed information better. For details on which energy resource is factored in the carbon emission calculation, see Resource consumption. For more information on the carbon emissions calculation and the data foundation, see Operational carbon emissions calculation and Data foundation.
We use the decimal point as a separator for numbers in dashboards (e.g., 10.356). We group numbers with many digits with commas as delimiters (e.g., 28,867,46.56).
CO2 equivalents
You can view all emissions in CO2 equivalents (kgCO2e or tCO2e) considering the Global warming potential of non-CO2 Greenhouse gases over 100 years. The conversion of resource consumption data to carbon emissions is based on emission factors from various official sources.
Carbon intensity
You can display carbon emissions as an absolute value or as intensity figures per floor area m2 to better compare buildings with each other. You can select under Controls in the right-side panel Gross internal area and Net rentable area as reference areas. If the provided data does not support the chosen reference area, it is automatically estimated based on available area measurements and other building characteristics. The calculation of intensity figures considers which buildings are powered by the respective energy resource and which are not.
Location or market-based
You can display the information using the location or market-based reporting approach affecting the number of emissions related to 100% renewable electricity contracts. Select Location-based or Market-based under Controls. The location-based approach applies the national average electricity emission factor (kgCO2e/kWh) and is mandatory in all reporting standards. Optionally, reporting can be based on the specific energy mix and emission factor of your 100% renewable electricity contract.
Dashboard information
Information | Description |
|---|---|
Total operational carbon | Overview of total operational carbon and split by resource type for the selected year and year-over-year change. |
Carbon to energy ratio | The carbon-to-energy ratio allows you to compare buildings in your portfolio based on their energy consumption and corresponding carbon emissions. The graph indicates how much carbon each building emits to meet its energy demands. For example, two buildings with the same energy demands but different heating methods will have other carbon emissions. The analysis allows you to identify the buildings with below-average performance and take action. By hovering over each circle representing a building in the diagram, you can see the building's name and the exact values of carbon intensity, energy intensity, and gross area. |
Share of the emission scopes | According to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard (operational control approach), the emissions can be classified into Scope 1, 2, and 3 based on provided information on energy type and procurement (self-procured vs. procured by a third party). |
Development of operational carbon emissions | View the development of operational carbon emissions through the entire period for which data is available in total and by resource type. You can view the data in absolute values, the share for each resource type, or the total year-over-year comparison. |
Detailed breakdown | The detailed breakdown table lets you get more granular information on the building level, sort by different parameters, or aggregate data on a geographical level. For more information about a particular building, click the Go to Digital Twin button. |
Filter
Filter | Description |
|---|---|
Left-side menu | Select on which level you want to display data (building, site, region, country, continent, or portfolio in the geographic view and according to your custom view). The custom view depends on individual setup during the onboarding. |
Dashboard filter | Filter your dashboard data by the following elements. |
Time filter | Select a year from the right-side menu inside the dashboard for which you want to display data. |
Starting month | Select the starting month for the period to see the data coverage (e.g. fiscal year). |
Data source | Select the data source to visualize in the dashboard (e.g. only metered data). |
Building type | Select the building use type, e.g. 'Office'. |
Buildings by heating type | This filter will display the data for the buildings with the heating type selected. E.g. buildings that use district heating. |
Building status | Select the status of the portfolio for which you want to visualize the data. E.g. 'Previously in portfolio'. |
Scopes | Select the scope (1, 2, 3, or unspecified) of the carbon emissions you want to visualize. |
Emission factors | Select the BM-Default or Custom emission factors (when available). |
It's also possible to apply weather or vacancy normalization to the data. For more information on this, refer to the section Perform weather and vacancy data normalization.