Capital goods are the durable products used by your company to produce other goods and services. These include machinery, equipment, and buildings. Capital good emissions include all the upstream (i.e., cradle-to-gate) emissions from the production of capital goods purchased or acquired by your organisation.
Choose from the following calculation methods:
Spend-based method uses the gross spend amount per capital good in the selected currency and a capital good category. (Recommended)
Bring Your Own Emissions allows you to upload your own pre-calculated emissions to the Plan A platform. For more information, see here.
Bring Your Own Emission Factors (BYOEF) allows you to upload your own emission factors with your activity to calculate emissions. It is your responsibility to ensure the emission factors align with your reporting needs.
Check out our step-by-step guides to formatting data for all calculation methods.
Step-by-step: Format Spend-based data
Step-by-step: Format Spend-based data
There are several ways to enter your data. Regardless of which method you choose, you must include all required information to ensure accurate emissions calculations. Below, we’ve listed the key data points you need to include.
Format: Your data needs to be uploaded as a CSV or Excel file.
Column A: start_date
The first day of your data period.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
This field is mandatory.
Column B: end_date
The last day of your data period.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
It can be the same as the start date if you are entering data for just one day.
This field is mandatory.
Column C: location
The ISO-3166 alpha-2 code of the country where the emissions occurred (e.g., DE).
This field is mandatory.
Column D: facility_name
The facility that the respective emissions should be allocated to.
Make sure to apply exactly the same names you set in ‘Organisational Data’.
Column E: value
The gross spend amount in the selected currency and for the selected capital good category.
Numbers should be formatted using numeric values only and using a dot as the decimal separator (e.g. 25634.20).
This field is mandatory.
In your spend data, you may notice some negative figures, reflecting refunds. These should still be included in your data upload so that previously reported emissions relating to refunded goods can be deducted from your carbon balance accordingly. Negative spend data will be reflected as negative emissions values in the month the refund was given.
Column F: value.currency
Enter the currency your spend data is in.
Format: Three letter currency code (EUR, USD, GBP, etc).
This field is mandatory
Column G: plana_category
The Plan A category that your capital good falls under. For an overview of all categories, visit the Help Centre article: Plan A Categories for Capital Goods.
This field is mandatory.
Column H: supplier_name
Enter your supplier name here to be able to aggregate your capital goods emissions by supplier.
This is an optional but recommended field.
Column I: product_category
You can add internal category names (and subcategories if applicable) to your data if you wish to use it for reporting and analysis purposes.
This is an optional but recommended field.
Optional tags
As always, you can add optional columns for company specific tags.
Learn more about how tags work: Tag Your Data.
Step-by-step: Format BYOE data
Step-by-step: Format BYOE data
There are several ways to enter your data. Regardless of which method you choose, you must include all required information to ensure accurate emissions calculations. Below, we’ve listed the key data points you need to include.
Column A: start_date
The first day of your data period.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
This field is mandatory.
Column B: end_date
The last day of your data period. It can be the same as the start date if you are entering data for just one day.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
This field is mandatory.
Column C: location
The ISO-3166 alpha-2 code of the country where the emissions occurred (e.g., DE).
This field is mandatory.
Column D: facility_name
The facility that the respective emissions should be allocated to.
Make sure to apply exactly the same names you set here to all the other templates asking for a "facility_name" input.
Column E: value
Your own emissions in kg CO₂e.
Numbers should be formatted using numeric values only and using a dot as the decimal separator (e.g. 25634.20).
This field is mandatory.
Column F: plana_category
The Plan A category that your capital good falls under. For an overview of all categories, visit the Help Centre article: Plan A Categories for Capital Goods.
Optional tags
As always, you can add optional columns for company specific tags.
Learn more about how tags work: Tag Your Data.
Reminder: It is not Plan A’s responsibility to ensure the calculation of those 3rd parties are in accordance with the GHG Protocol. There is no verification or validation of BOYE emissions through Plan A.
Step-by-step: Format BYOEF data
Step-by-step: Format BYOEF data
There are several ways to enter your data. Regardless of which method you choose, you must include all required information to ensure accurate emissions calculations. Below, we’ve listed the key data points you need to include. The column order doesn't matter as long as all required data is included.
Column A: start_date
The first day of your data period.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
This field is mandatory.
Column B: end_date
The last day of your data period. It can be the same as the start date if you are entering data for just one day.
The suggested date format is YYYY-MM-DD, but check the Accepted Formats article to see a full list of formats you can use.
This field is mandatory.
Column C: location
The ISO-3166 alpha-2 code of the country associated with these emissions (e.g., DE).
This field is mandatory.
Column D: facility_name
The facility that the respective emissions should be allocated to.
Make sure to apply exactly the same names you set here to all the other templates asking for a "facility_name" input.
Column E: value
This field is for the data associated with a capital good, such as weight, volume, or any other metric relevant to your emission factor.
Enter data for a single unit of a good.
Format: Numbers using periods as decimal separators.
This field is mandatory.
Column F: value.unit
The measurement unit for your activity data. Choose from:
Mass: kg, t, ton, lb
Volume: l, m³, gal, bbl
Distance: km, mi
Surface: m², ft²
Generic: quantity
The unit must belong to the same unit family as the data in the 'emission_factor.unit' column.
This field is mandatory.
Column G: emission_factor.unit
The measurement unit of the emission factor. Choose from:
Mass: kgCO2e/kg, kgCO2e/t, kgCO2e/ton, kgCO2e/lb
Volume: kgCO2e/l, kgCO2e/m³, kgCO2e/gal, kgCO2e/bbl
Distance: kgCO2e/km, kgCO2e/mi
Surface: kgCO2e/m², kgCO2e/ft²
Generic: kgCO2e/quantity
This field is mandatory.
Column H: emission_factor
The emission factor you want to apply to your activity data in kgCO2e.
Ensure the emission factor is per unit of the good to guarantee accurate calculations.
Please note it is your responsibility to ensure the emission factors align with your reporting needs.
This field is mandatory.
Column I: quantity
As the 'value' column represents a single unit of a good, specify the corresponding quantity here.
Format: Numbers using periods as decimal separators.
This field is mandatory.
Column J: product_category
If you use product categorisation, you can optionally enter the product category in this field.
This is recommended to give you deeper insights into your emissions.
Column K: product_subcategory
If you use product categorisation, you can optionally enter product subcategories in this field.
This is recommended to give you deeper insights into your emissions.
Column L: product_name
The name of the good.
This field is optional but recommended to give you deeper insights into your emissions.
Column M: product_reference
The product reference of the good.
This field is optional but recommended to give you deeper insights into your emissions.
Column N: supplier_name
The name of the supplier where you purchased the good.
This field is optional but recommended as it will offer you more detailed insights into your emissions.
Column O: source_file_name
The source file from which your activity data or emission factor was derived from.
This is recommended as emission factor sources may be requested from auditors.
