Sometimes it states that you can use a CO2 emission factor in multiple countries, such as for gasoline and diesel, but sometimes not, as with natural gas. For electricity, it's often clear that this must be a country-specific factor.
For example, the fact that CO2emissiefactoren.nl indicates that the factor applies to the Netherlands doesn't mean you can't use it for emissions in other countries. The following points are the main reasons for organizations to use the same factor within Europe for calculating, in this case, natural gas and biogas.
- Natural gas, and to a lesser extent biogas, is a so-called commodity market. It's a product similar to gasoline and diesel that is traded throughout Europe (the Netherlands itself serves as a gas hub for LNG, for example). It's impossible to say exactly who received each piece of gas or oil. The differences in factors are more likely to stem from slight differences in the calculation methodology than from a more locally determined calculation. Incidentally, the values for natural gas are already very similar for many countries.
- Determining the CO2 footprint involves a reasonable degree of certainty, and it's more important to consider trend effects (assuming the same assumptions) than to fixate on the proverbial decimal point. Therefore, you always consider whether the additional administrative burden or complexity you add to visualize a potentially small difference is proportionate to the additional search required for a more precise figure. Furthermore, if you use a figure based on a different calculation method, you introduce uncertainty, because you no longer have the same starting point from which the emission factor was determined. For this reason, SmartTrackers offers various calculation tables to determine CO2 emissions based on a uniform calculation method.
- The fact that different factors are used for electricity is due to the fact that generation units (solar, wind, gas, coal, hydropower) are accurately tracked per country, allowing you to make a precise location calculation based on that data. This isn't easily possible with commodity products like oil and natural gas.
- There is certainly nuance. It's possible that less N2 (nitrogen) is blended with natural gas in each country, depending on the combustion appliances installed. With more nitrogen, you naturally have a lower CO2 factor per cubic meter of gas. In some countries, natural gas is also billed in MWh, which automatically corrects for this. In the Netherlands, this is often done retroactively with a so-called calorific value.
- Now, it's possible that industry uses high-calorific gas. In that case, it's important to determine the correct factor.
- Many companies therefore choose to simplify, due to the limited materiality implications, by equating CO2 conversion factors for natural gas per cubic meter. It's important to be aware of whether this is not being oversimplified for large users.
The key question is: can you find CO2 conversion factors that are demonstrably more accurate for the specific situation? Is it material to want to track and maintain this?
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