Carbon accounting8 min read

Emission factors in Intelex: the number that never errors

A wrong emission factor does not throw an error. It returns a number, in the right unit, of roughly the right magnitude, on a dashboard that looks finished. Nothing is red and nobody is notified. The figure gets signed, published, and then queried nine months later by somebody comparing two sites that should not differ by that much.

That is the whole problem with factor configuration, and it is why this part of a sustainability build deserves more scrutiny than the parts that fail loudly. A broken import announces itself. A broken factor waits.

Where factors sit in Sustainability Performance Indicators

Sustainability Performance Indicators, SPI v4, collects, calculates and reports sustainability data through scheduled Data Entry Forms and factor-based conversions. The build order is not optional and it is not obvious.