Conversions Tables
The Carbon Conversion tables have been supplied by DEFRA (The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and will be used to evaluate the Carbon content of your transactions.
Emission Group
Each table covers one Emission Group and contains:
An Effective from date.
The Classifications that make up each group.
Different Units that each Classification can be measured in.
Associated Conversion Factors and Uplift percentages.
The Conversion tables are available from Carbon Conversions menu.
Effective From
Each Emission Group table is effective for a certain period of time and an 'Effective from' date must be specified for it.
Initially the tables will take their 'Effective from' dates from the date when you upgrade to this release version. You should change these dates if you wish to enter Carbon usage information for any earlier dates.
GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Scope
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (www.ghgprotocol.org) recommends 3 levels of reporting:
Scope 1 - Direct greenhouse gases produced by assets controlled by the organisation
Scope 2 - Indirect greenhouse gases produced by the consumption of electricity
Scope 3 - Indirect greenhouse gases produced by sources not controlled by the organisation - e.g. choosing to include all employees' mileage, not just company cars/ business miles.
Note: on upgrade and on creation of new databases, conversions for Emissions Groups 1, 4 and 5 are assumed to be Scope 1 unless the emission group is Electricity. The default for Electricity is set to Scope 2. Any remaining Emission Groups are assumed to be Scope 3.
Caution! Scope 1 items can be changed to Scope 3 and vice versa; Scope 2 items cannot be changed.
List grid
When Carbon data is added to a transaction, the Conversion Factor is selected from the correct table using the Emissions Group, Classification and Unit of measurement selected. The Conversion Factor is applied to the quantity entered to calculate the mass of CO2 produced.
To allow for minor changes, the Conversion Factors can be edited. Up to five decimal places are permitted for any factor.
The Uplift column is an extra feature of some Conversion Factors and the Uplift percentage will be applied to the mass of CO2 calculated from the application of the factor.
The tables should contain all the Classifications you will need. However, if the tables do not include a Classification for which you enter Carbon Transactions, you can create additional Classifications in the Sundry Emissions table.
Uplift %
The 'Uplift %' that can be applied to some conversion rates is a multiplying factor.
For example:
If 10% is entered, the rate is multiplied by 10% (5.4210*10% = 0.5421). This effectively decreases the conversion rate.
If you wish to increase the conversion rate by 10%, you must enter 110% as the Uplift %. If 110% is entered, the rate is multiplied by 110% (5.4210*110% = 5.9631).
Please note that this differs from costing uplift which adds 10% to a resource or cost centre rate.
Toolbar
Import new conversion factors
You can check to see whether there any new conversion rates, and download them if required.
Edit
You can edit all the information for the Sundry Emission Group, but only the Conversion Factor and Uplift values for other Emission Groups.
Duplicate
You can duplicate an entire Carbon Conversion table for any Emission Group, but keep in mind that only one table of any Emission Group can be effective at any point in time. Click the Duplicate button on the toolbar: the System copies all the information except the Effective from date for the new record.
Unit of Measure
Each Classification in an Emission Group has to be associated with one or more units of measure to calculate the quantity of Carbon.
Access Accounts includes some common units of measure such as kWh, Therms, Tonnes, Litres, KG, Miles, KM. You can create units depending on your company regulations and needs. This opens a separate pane where you may specify new Units of Measure, e.g. US Gal
All the units of measure are available in the Measure drop-down list when entering Carbon usage information.
Find
First select the values for fields, then click the OK button to activate the Find process. Use Previous/ Next buttons to navigate through all the existing Emission Group tables or enter the values for fields and find the specific table.
Sundry Emissions Group
You can only insert new Conversion records into the Sundry Emissions tables. All the other Emission Group tables are fixed and the values for them are taken from DEFRA.