Report scope 2 GHG emissions
Calculate scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity and heat in your organisation, using Ducky's API
Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, heating, cooling and steam, from a utility provider. The GHG standard highlights two approaches to allocate Scope 2 GHG emissions to the end consumer: location-based and market-based. The market-based method reflects emissions from electricity that companies have purposefully chosen (or their lack of choice), while the location-based method reflects the average emissions intensity of grids on which energy consumption occurs.
The four types of purchased energy tracked in scope 2 are as follows:
- Electricity: Used by almost all companies to operate machines, lighting, electric vehicle charging, and heating and cooling systems.
- Steam: Steam is a valuable energy source for industrial processes. It is used for mechanical work, heat or as a process medium.
- Heat: Most commercial or industrial buildings require heat to control interior climates and heat water. Many industrial processes also require heat for specific equipment. Heat may be produced from electricity or through a non-electrical process such as solar thermal heat or thermal combustion processes (as with a boiler or a thermal power plant) outside the company’s operational control.
- Cooling: Similar to heat, cooling may be produced from electricity or through the distribution of cooled air or water.
How to calculate scope 2 emissions with Ducky's API
Ducky currently does not have a separate endpoint dedicated to scope 2 accounting. Several existing endpoints can be used to calculate scope 2 emissions, depending on the data you have available:
| Purchased energy | Covered by | Relevant categories |
| Electricity, in kWh | Convert Energy | electricity |
| Heat from district heating, in kWh | Convert Energy | districtHeating |
| Money spent on electricity or energy | Convert Finance | energyElectricity, energy |
| Steam | Not covered by current endpoints | |
| Cooling | Not covered by current endpoints |
It is always preferable to use energy consumption (kWh) rather than money spent on energy, since it yields more accurate results.
Please note:
- The footprint of electricity is calculated using a European average electricity mix (see our standpoint on the electricity mix). The endpoints do not currently distinguish between location-based and market-based scope 2 emissions, and do not take guarantees of origin into account.
- The Convert endpoints return the full life cycle footprint (including e.g. production of vehicles and infrastructure, and well-to-tank emissions), which is intended for consumer communication and goes beyond what the GHG Protocol requires to be reported. Results may therefore be higher than emissions calculated with the factors prescribed for GHG reporting.
See the linked articles for details on the inputs, outputs, calculations and sources of each endpoint.