How does Rio calculate carbon emissions?

This article outlines Rio's methodology for calculating the emissions associated with your organisation's activity data

The Rio platform is aligned with guidance from the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (GHGP). 

Developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, GHGP provides widely used international accounting guidelines for governments and businesses to understand, quantify, and manage their GHG emissions. The GHGP is considered the global standard of carbon accounting, adopted by thousands of organisations and governments globally.  

To support users in calculating carbon emissions in real time, Rio automates the application of Emission Factors (EFs) to their respective activity data immediately upon successful upload into the platform. 

Accessing Emission Factors

Users can view emission factors in Rio via Account Configuration.

Navigate to Configuration>Emission Factors. These factors are organised by emission source (Electricity, Fuels, etc.).

Users can also access emission factors at the transaction level, via the hyperlink under the "factors used" column in data transaction tables. 

Please note: Emission factors are visible only to Business Admins and Rio Champions. If you are a contributor, you will not be able to access the Emission Factor configuration tables. If you need to access a factor, please reach out to your Business Admin or Rio consultant for more information. 

Emission Factor Sources

Rio applies the UK Government DEFRA Emission factors to all emission sources with the exception of electricity consumed outside of the UK.

The International Energy Agency's (IEA) country-specific emission factors are utilised to account for differences in the local grid energy mix per country. Rio applies the respective IEA emission factor based on the country indicated for the location as per your organisation's account configuration. 

For example, ensure you have configured the country for your Paris office as France. This is required for Rio to automatically apply the French IEA factor for all Paris electricity upon upload. If your location is in the United Kingdom, Rio will apply the UK DEFRA grid factor. 

Publication Dates

To maintain live reporting of emissions data, Rio utilises a publication date methodology, where factors are applied to data based on when the respective factor set is published and the service period of the activity data .

For example, UK DEFRA update their factors in June of each year. In Rio, the 2022 Factor set is active for data with service periods between 01/07/2022-30/06/2023.

• If a user uploads an electricity transaction for 01/07/2022-31/07/2022 the 2022 emission factor will be applied.
• If a user uploads an electricity transaction for 01/07/2023-31/07/2023, the 2023 emission factor will be applied. 

Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) and Other Gases

Rio also applies the same factor set’s respective emission factors to show the GHG breakdown by common gases (CO2, CH4, and N2O) all of which are converted to CO2e (Carbon Dioxide equivalent) in alignment with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Global Warming Potentials (GWPs).

GWPs measure how much a given amount of a greenhouse gas is estimated to contribute to global warming over a 100 year time period. It compares the warming effect of a gas (N2O, CH4, CO2) to that of carbon dioxide, which is used as a reference. The GWPs utilised for each factor are based on the respective IPCC Assessment Report utilised by DEFRA or IEA for the specified reporting year. 

Please note:

• DEFRA Electricity: For all electricity data consumed from 2023-present, Rio is aligned with IPCC AR5 in alignment with DEFRA reporting guidance. 
• IEA Electricity: For all electricity data consumed from 2024-present, Rio is aligned with IPCC AR5 in alignment with IEA reporting guidance. 
• Refrigerants and other Process Gases: The GWP values for data from 2023 onwards have been updated to those published by the IPCC in the Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2014). There are a small number of refrigerants that are not included in the Fifth Assessment Report. In these cases, DEFRA have adopted values from either IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2023), the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007), or Annex IV of the EU F gas regulation (517/2014). (DEFRA, 2023)
• Hotel Stays: Hotel stay emission factors are sourced from the Hotel sustainability benchmarking index (2021) which are only provided in CO2e. Therefore a breakdown of CH4 and N2O is not available for this activity data. 
• Homeworking: For Homeworking activity data recorded from 2023 onwards, the IPCC GWP values have been updated to AR5, from AR4 applied prior to 2023 .

   

  Accessing GHG Data in Rio Transaction Tables

Users can access a breakdown of the respective GHGs in Rio's transaction tables by selecting the respective columns from the table filters.

Please note:  The other GHGs need to be selected as they are hidden by default. 

• Select the filter from the transactions table column header
• Select the square boxes (this icon enables users to select/deselect columns from tables)
  
  
• Select the GHGs you wish to view
  
• These GHGs will now be visible in the selected columns