Employee commute emissions refer to the emissions arising from how your employees travel to and from work, whether they use public or private transportation. While travelling on foot or by bike will not produce emissions, the energy used to power private cars or public transport will contribute to your organisation's carbon footprint.
Work-from-home (WFH) emissions are also included as part of your 'Employee commute' emissions, per GHG Protocol guidance. These WFH emissions are automatically calculated through your uploaded Organisational Data.
There are three calculation methods available for calculating Employee commute emissions.
Distance travelled per commuting type uses the total distance travelled to and from work by employees per commuting type, including bike or foot, public transportation, car, motorcycle, electric bike, electric car, electric motorcycle, or electric scooter. (Recommended)
Number of commuters per mode of transport uses the number of (absolute, not FTE) employees commuting by each mode of transportation. Please note that electric and hybrid vehicles are not yet supported by this method.
Bring Your Own Emissions allows you to upload your own pre-calculated emissions to the Plan A platform.
Check out our step-by-step guides to uploading both calculation methods.
Step-by-step: Format Distance travelled per commuting type
Step-by-step: Format Distance travelled per commuting type
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.
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
ISO-3166 alpha-2 code of the workplace's country where your employees are commuting to.
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
Enter the total round-trip distance travelled by an employee during their commute.
If you have a large amount of data you can optionally aggregate the distance data for the following commute types:
Bike or foot
Car
Motorcycle
Electric bike
Electric car
Electric motorcycle
Electric scooter
For public transportation, you must input individual commute distances. However, if multiple employees travel the same distance using public transportation, you only need to enter that distance value once and indicate the number of employees using this commute in the number_of_passengers column.
This field is mandatory.
Column F: value.unit
The unit of the distance travelled.
Choose from:
km (kilometres)
mi (miles)
This field is mandatory.
Column G: commuting_type
The mode of transport used for the commute.
Choose from:
bike or foot
public transportation
car
motorcycle
electric bike
electric car
electric motorcycle (electric larger two- and three-wheeler motorcycles, including mopeds, and step-through scooters)
electric scooter (electric stand-up and kick scooters
This field is mandatory.
Note on commuting with a hybrid vehicle: At this moment, there is not an option to enter commuting for hybrid-electric vehicles. We suggest to account the distance travelled in the hybrid vehicle to the commuting type that it best fits. For this it would be important to track the distance travelled in the e-mode versus in the combustion mode.
Column H: number_of_passengers
The amount of employees who travelled this distance using public transportation.
Numbers should be formatted using numeric values only and represent whole numbers (e.g. 55).
This field is mandatory for the commuting type 'public transportation'.
Leave the column empty for all other commuting types.
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 Number of commuters per mode of transport
Step-by-step: Format Number of commuters per mode of transport
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.
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
ISO-3166 alpha-2 code of the workplace's country where your employees are commuting to.
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 number of commuters using the selected commuting_type during the indicated timeframe.
Ensure data for each commute type and timeframe is aggregated. Multiple entries for the same commute type and timeframe are not permitted.
Enter integers only. Both part-time and full-time employees count as 1 commuter.
This field is mandatory.
Column F: commuting_type
The mode of transport used for the commute.
Choose from:
bike or foot
car
public transportation
This field is mandatory.
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
Step-by-step: Format BYOE
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.
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.