Climatiq’s API was launched in July of 2021 in beta, and within the last 6 months alone, we’ve powered over 1 billion emission calculations.
Since the launch, our team has made countless improvements that enable our customers and partners to easily embed carbon insights into their tools – empowering better decision-making and climate action worldwide.
Based on the valuable feedback we’ve received from our users, we are thrilled to graduate our beta4 to a stable version so you can build with confidence and scalability. This milestone marks a significant achievement in our platform's growth and maturity. Going forward, we are rolling out a structured endpoint versioning to ensure backward compatibility.
Existing integrations will continue to function and beta4 users will not experience any changes. We will provide ample time over the next 12 months for you to migrate to the newest version.
Check out the full GA release notes and migration guide
With this release, we are also launching API Versioning alongside our existing Data Versioning. API Versioning enables rapid iterations so you can access and test new features faster.
We now group and version endpoint URLs supporting the same feature or domain, such as data/v1/estimate and /data/v1/search, which provides a simple overview of which endpoints work together. This facilitates speedy updates and releases without impacting the URL for everyone.
We're also introducing preview URLs for endpoints under development, providing early access to new features, with a structured transition during newer version releases.
Learn more about API Versioning
Our free Google Sheets add-on offers an easy, no-code solution for using Climatiq’s carbon estimation API – increasing the accessibility of our technology and empowering teams to build solutions faster.
This add-on helps you get started with emission calculations in your spreadsheets, try out Climatiq’s carbon calculations, build proof of concepts, and evaluate feasibility with your team before fully integrating the API.
The add-on offers pre-built custom formulas for all of our API endpoints, including travel, cloud computing, fuel and electricity consumption, shipping and freight logistics, and purchased goods and services. Users can also search Climatiq's emission factor database to find the right factor for a specific use case.
The Google Sheets add-on can be used across all endpoints for non-commercial use free of charge for up to 500 emission estimations per month.
Follow these steps to get started:
Please get in touch with us to share your feedback so we can continue to improve this add-on. For questions, reach out to our support team.
New data version 9.9, including:
We’ve updated:
Intermodal Freight:
Autopilot:
Search and Data Explorer:
API Docs:
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a cross-border carbon tax designed to support the EU’s objective of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. It adjusts EU import prices for selected materials based on their production-related CO2 emissions, aiming to prevent carbon leakage by discouraging the shift of emissions to countries with more lenient regulations. According to CBAM, companies importing goods like iron, cement, and electricity into the EU must now measure and report indirect emissions generated overseas, and ultimately pay an emission tax.
Climatiq's CBAM calculation feature automates carbon emission and certificate price estimates, empowering you to lower your carbon tax exposure and remain compliant with CBAM regulations. By utilizing CN (Combined Nomenclature) codes, the production region, and weight for imported goods, you can easily calculate embedded emissions and the approximate cost of carbon certificates for each import – with global coverage across CBAM categories: Iron & Steel, Aluminum, Cement, and Fertilizer. These calculations are achieved using EU-published benchmark emission factors and the 2023 average auction price from the EU-ETS.
Following CBAM requirements, our solution provides both the direct and indirect emissions that occurred during the production of the imported goods. To maintain traceability, it also returns a complete audit trail containing all the calculation details including the matched emission factor and source dataset used, LCA activity, potential quality flags and notices, among others.
Note that this is a paid Calculate feature - please get in touch if you'd like to learn more and try it out.
New data version 8.8, including emission factors from:
We’ve updated:
Our newly launched Autopilot feature combines the power of carbon measurement expertise and machine learning. It automates complex activity- and spend-based emission calculations, making scope 3 insights easily accessible. Leveraging a proprietary natural language processing (NLP) model, Autopilot instantly matches unstructured text from sources like purchase orders or invoices, incorporating information about purchased materials, volumes, and amounts to the correct emission factors, and generates precise and compliant carbon estimates.
Autopilot is a plug & play solution, intelligently adapting to existing data structures and removing the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual mapping.
To ensure accuracy and continuous improvement, it incorporates an expert-in-the-loop framework, where Climatiq’s greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting experts play a crucial role in quality assurance and output validation.
See Autopilot in action: Celonis recently announced the launch of their Material Emissions App. Powered by Climatiq’s Autopilot feature, this solution intelligently maps materials from purchasing systems to the appropriate emission factors, enabling companies to measure, analyze, and mitigate scope 3 emissions. Read about the Material Emissions App.
Refer to our API documentation for specification details.
Note that this feature is a paid add-on - please get in touch if you'd like to join our waiting list to try it out.
We’re excited to announce the integration of over 1,500 IEA emission factors into our dataset, powering more accurate and comprehensive emission estimates for electricity generation and consumption across over 150 regions. The IEA database is the foremost source of global energy data, with factors spanning from 1971 to the present, covering 95% of the global energy supply.
Aligned with internationally recognized definitions and methodologies, it’s a reliable resource for comparing, modeling, and tracking energy emissions.
Through this data partnership, we are bolstering our solutions to enable more precise emission calculations for energy generation and consumption. This underscores our dedication to providing comprehensive global coverage and granular scientific data.
Note that these factors are only available as a paid add-on through our Energy feature and Estimate feature.
Coming soon - Our CBAM calculation feature is currently in development. CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) is a cross-border tariff for EU imports of selected materials based on their production-related CO2 emissions. This means that starting January 2024, companies importing goods like iron, cement, and electricity into the EU must now measure and report emissions generated overseas. Our CBAM feature will empower businesses to calculate emissions following CBAM regulations and ensure full compliance.
We’re looking for early testers. If you’re interested, please get in touch.
New data version 7.7, including:
We’ve removed:
We’ve updated:
Intermodal Freight:
Travel:
Autopilot:
At Climatiq, we have an unwavering commitment to trust and data transparency. We fully recognize the critical role of third-party verification, not only for our own assurance but also to provide the necessary confidence to our partners and their customers. In line with this commitment, we've successfully completed a comprehensive audit of our calculation APIs. This audit specifically focused on key areas such as Energy, Freight, and Procurement (scope 3.1), among others.
Consequently, our endpoints are now certified to be in conformity with the requirements of the two leading standards for carbon footprint quantification, namely ISO 14064, the international standard for GHG emissions inventories and verification, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
This validation reinforces the robustness and reliability of our carbon intelligence solutions. Check out the certificate on our trust report and stay tuned for further developments in the coming months.
Users of the Energy and Audit Trail features now have enhanced capabilities in their API responses, making it easier to understand the methodology behind emission calculations. We've implemented an advanced audit trail that outlines key information on how the calculation was made to easily review and, if necessary, independently reproduce the results. Responses can be stored and used for future validations such as audits.
See the new response examples and the updated "Response models" section in our docs.
Fallbacks are simple and powerful ways to improve the usability of our APIs. To streamline the processing of large datasets, we are introducing a year_fallback. This feature automatically finds the closest emission factor to the provided activity year, saving users from manual searches when data for their chosen year is unavailable.
You can now specify year_fallback:true for all endpoints that accept a Selector. If you specify e.g. year:2020 and there isn’t an exact match, the API will pick the closest emission factor to that year, e.g. 2021 or 2019. This works with our classification, custom-mapping, estimate, and all other endpoints that accept a selector override, such as cloud computing.
Note that currently region_fallback and year_fallback can’t be used at the same time.
Refer to our API docs for more details.
With our new project management functionalities, teams can streamline collaboration workflows through an intuitive interface while maintaining oversight across their projects.
New Projects Screen
New Collaborative Members Screen
Introducing improved control and insights into your API usage. These improvements are designed to help you monitor and analyze your API usage more effectively.
Autopilot is our new AI-driven calculation endpoint. It uses a proprietary natural language processing (NLP) model paired with Climatiq’s scientific expertise to streamline complex spend- and activity-based emission calculations, making carbon insights accessible to non-experts. It enables users to provide raw text content from, for instance, purchase orders or invoices, automatically matches raw text content to the correct emission factors, and delivers accurate and compliant emission estimates.
See Autopilot in action: Celonis recently announced the launch of their Material Emissions App. Powered by Climatiq’s Autopilot feature, this solution intelligently maps materials from purchasing systems to the correct emission factors, enabling companies to measure, analyze, and mitigate scope 3 emissions.
Read more about the Celonis Material Emissions App and get in touch with us if you'd like to try it out.
New data version 6.6, including:
We’ve removed:
Improvements:
Energy
All API versions prior to beta4 have been retired. Check out our migration guide if you haven’t switched to beta4.
Our new Travel feature makes it easy to understand the carbon impact of journeys worldwide. Fully aligned with the GHG Protocol, the Travel feature provides distance- and spend-based calculations for scope 3.6 emission reporting to enable more sustainable business travel. Our solution maps seamlessly to any form of travel records like tickets, receipts, itineraries, or expense reports.
Get started quickly with automatic distance calculations and emission factor selection, including built-in fallbacks. Benefit from flexible address inputs, be it postal/ZIP codes, street addresses, city names, or IATA codes and calculate precise route-specific emission estimates. When more granular travel data is available, dynamic parameters like cabin class, vehicle size, or engine type provide an additional level of accuracy.
With its new and improved capabilities, the Travel feature replaces our legacy Flight endpoint, which will be deprecated soon. For those who are still using our Flight endpoint, please migrate to the new endpoints.
Read our guide for travel calculation methodologies and refer to our API documentation for implementation details.
Note that this feature is a paid add-on - please get in touch if you'd like to trial or learn more about this feature.
You can now use UNSPSC codes to calculate emissions from spend data. UN Standard Product and Service Codes (UNSPSC) provide a standardized classification system for buyers and sellers to easily communicate product information.
Our Classification and Procurement endpoints now accept UNSPSC codes at the family level, in addition to the existing support for ISIC, NACE, and MCC codes. With this addition, activities categorized using UNSPSC codes can easily map to EXIOBASE emission factors for streamlined emission calculations.
After months of auditing processes, we are excited to announce our ISO 27001 certification, following the international gold standard for information security management. This certification validates our adherence to global information security standards and reiterates our commitment to trust and credibility with our customers and partners.
You can find the Climatiq trust report here - a transparent resource for our certifications, documents, security procedures, and monitoring.
New data versions 4.4 and 5.5, including:
Energy endpoints
Cloud Computing endpoints
Our new Energy feature provides the most comprehensive solution for automating complex carbon calculations for consumed energy - delivered through an easy-to-use API. Covering all three GHG emission scopes in line with the GHG Protocol and SBTi requirements, our solution offers calculation endpoints for used electricity, heat, steam, and fuel combustion. This enables users to understand and report the total impact of their energy consumption through a reliable toolkit and transparent methodology.
The electricity endpoint supports both market- and location-based methodologies, equipping users with everything they need to calculate electricity-related emissions with unmatched accuracy. It incorporates emission factors for over 120 global regions including local factors in the United States and Canada for true worldwide coverage. Moreover, users can leverage provider-specific factors from electric utilities in the UK (and soon the US) in line with the market-based method. Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) can also be specified and automatically allocated for enhanced precision.
Additional support for scope 3.3 Fuel and Energy-Related Activity (FERA) calculations allows users to integrate upstream energy-related emissions, ensuring a thorough capture of indirect carbon footprints beyond just direct operations. This includes Well-to-tank (WTT) emissions originating from the production of fuel used to generate electricity, heat, cooling, or steam. It also accounts for Transportation and Distribution (T&D) emissions, capturing losses from the point of generation to the point of consumption. Finally, the WTT of T&D is integrated as well, considering emissions from the production of fuel associated with T&D losses.
Read our Energy scope 2 and scope 3 guides to learn more about our methodologies, and refer to our API documentation for implementation details.
Note that this feature is a paid add-on - please get in touch if you'd like to trial or learn more about this feature.
We’re excited to announce the integration of Climate TRACE emission factors into our dataset, further enhancing the precision of our carbon calculations. Climate TRACE is a nonprofit that combines AI, data from 300 satellites, and remote sensing sources to construct the world’s first comprehensive record of GHG emissions based mainly on direct observation. Using this approach, Climate TRACE provides critical emission factors that were previously unavailable, filling in data gaps to bolster our solution and empower Climatiq users to achieve unmatched calculation accuracy. This new data covers categories such as fuel, building materials, mined materials, and metals across several countries worldwide.
Also included in our latest data release are over 600 scope 3 food and drink related emission factors sourced from the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). WRAP, a renowned climate action NGO aims to assist Food and Drink businesses in reducing waste, fostering sustainable product development, and optimizing resource efficiency. This addition provides extensive coverage for the UK, complemented by select global factors to enable businesses in the food and drink sector to measure and track progress in reducing supply chain emissions.
Thanks to these data partnerships, we are extending our solutions to include more sectors and applications, reaffirming our commitment to comprehensive global coverage and granularity of scientific data.
We’ve released a new data version - 3.3 which includes:
For those who are still using legacy versions of our API, this is a friendly reminder to migrate to Beta4 now to access the latest capabilities. Older versions will be deprecated soon.
We are excited to announce the launch of our Procurement endpoint, specifically designed to provide advanced Scope 3.1 carbon footprint assessments. This new endpoint eliminates the complexity associated with spend-based calculations in accordance with EXIOBASE. It automatically determines basic prices by deducting trade, tax, and transport margins, specific to each country and sector. In addition, the endpoint provides automated currency conversions and inflation adjustments based on sector-specific inflation data from the European Central Bank, and country-specific rates provided by the World Bank to produce reliable calculations with little effort.
With flexible query options, including ISIC and NACE industry codes (support for UNSPSC codes coming soon) and Climatiq activity IDs, users have the ability to analyze data for a wide range of scenarios. In addition, custom margins can be provided to further enhance the accuracy and precision of calculations.
We collaborated with Prof. Richard Wood, a key developer of EXIOBASE, to design this endpoint. Prof. Wood is a member of our Scientific Advisory Board, where he provides important guidance to support the development of our solutions.
Learn how to get started with the Procurement endpoint through our handy guide here, and refer to our API documentation for implementation details.
Note that this feature is a paid add-on - please get in touch if you'd like to trial or learn more about this feature.
New API usage and subscription plan screens have been added to your dashboard. You can now track the number of monthly API calls made, together with a detailed breakdown for each endpoint so that you can monitor your consumption and manage your account limits. Additionally, you can review add-on features activated for your account and request access to additional capabilities.
Added: API version, data versioning, AR6 calculation method, audit_trail feature, ‘year’ logic, add-on endpoints, /unit-types endpoint, construction materials embodied emission factors
Updated: data quality flags, currency rates, data explorer, cloud computing endpoint, selector specification, improved factors, unit_type string categorisation
After a short break for easter egg hunting, we’re back with a major update, including a new API version (Beta4), data versioning capability, new logic for handling years, the AR6 calculation method, and many other changes & improvements. Here are a few of the major highlights.
We are excited to introduce Beta4, our latest API version, featuring improved performance and new capabilities. Upgrade your implementation now to get access to the latest enhancements. More details about the new features can be found below.
We recommend migrating to the new API version promptly, as older versions will no longer be supported and will soon be deprecated. If you are a Developer or Enterprise plan customer, please contact us if you require any assistance.
For all API updates, including breaking changes and specific migration instructions please see our migration guide.
The database underpinning Climatiq is frequently updated. New emission factors are regularly added, and existing factors are modified for various reasons, such as when a source publishes errata, new data quality flags are applied to existing emission factors, or when changes are made to a factor's metadata like activity_id or source_lca_activity value.
Updates like these often necessitate changes in your application. Therefore, we are now introducing the concept of data versioning, which allows you to choose when to opt-in to such changes, providing greater control over emission factors and data quality used in your calculations.
Our data versioning approach ensures that users can maintain stability in their applications while still having the option to access the most recent and accurate data when needed.
Please note that data versioning only applies to /estimate and /batch endpoints that require users to provide an emission selector in the API request. Endpoints like Cloud Computing, Intermodal Freight, Flights, and other advanced calculation endpoints that do not require a selector, will be automatically updated with the latest data version without user involvement.
For a detailed explanation of these changes and their implications, please refer to our data versioning guide.
This past March, the IPCC published their Sixth Assessment Report covering Climate Change in 2023. Throughout almost 8,000 pages, the AR6 goes into detail on the deep impacts we’re seeing as a result of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
They’ve also included an updated calculation method, which we’ve added as a default for sources that provide AR6 data. For information on calculation methods, see our co2e calculation documentation.
This update introduces customisable audit trails for calculations, which are invaluable for audit tracing and reporting compliance. Audit trails are used with our advanced endpoints, such as freight shipping, cloud computing, and classification.
Users can now control the visibility of these trails, enabling them for audit or record-keeping purposes. By default, audit trails will be turned off. If you're a user of these advanced endpoints and would like to access this capability, please contact us for more information.
We have implemented a new logic for handling years in emission factors. Previously, the year attribute corresponded to the publication year of the data source. Now, it accurately represents the year the data source deems most valid for the emission factor.
We’ve made changes to how we handle data quality flags in our calculations to align with current best practices and enhance the overall data quality. We kept the old default flags for those who still use them, but we have now introduced a new method.
Going forward, we won’t include emission factors flagged for certain types of data quality issues in calculations unless the user specifies them in the API request. For which data quality flags have been affected, see our beta4 migration guide.
Our Cloud Computing, Classifications and Custom Activities endpoints are now available as add-ons as part of our paid Developer or Enterprise plans, much like our Intermodal Freight endpoint. Please contact us if you are interested in using these features.
We have switched our source for monetary exchange rates to the UN treasury, improving the accuracy and reliability of our currency exchange data. As a result, you will see some changes in the CO2e currency-related endpoints as the new rates are implemented.
We’ve revamped our data explorer homepage to make it easier for you to find relevant emission factors. You can now access emission factors by featured sectors and categories directly from the new homepage, as well as see the most popular factors in our database.
We’ve also added new pages for individual activities and emission factors. These pages display in-depth information about our data at-a-glance.
See the full data release log here.
We are proud to announce that our Freight Transport API endpoint has achieved GLEC (Global Logistics Emissions Council) certification! As a globally recognised standard, GLEC ensures precise and consistent calculations of logistics emissions across supply chains. With this accreditation, you can confidently rely on the results from Climatiq's calculation engine for accurate, reliable results, suitable for audits, reports, and sharing with third parties—increasing their impact both within and beyond your organisation.
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We've also created a video guide to assist you in getting started. Check it out here:
We've enhanced our cloud storage, cpu, and memory endpoints by incorporating location-specific electricity data for more precise calculations. These endpoints now utilise region-specific electricity emission factors for each data centre, instead of basing emissions solely on storage, CPU, or memory consumption. For added customisation, you can also override the power usage effectiveness and the emission factor used, giving you even more control..
We've added new pages for each sector, category, and region on the Data Explorer to make browsing related factors easier and give you a better understanding of the data available. Here are some examples:
As our dataset continues to expand, we'll be introducing additional pages in the coming weeks to cover every aspect of the data.
The new source_dataset field has been added to all emission factors, now available alongside the source field in endpoints. This enhancement simplifies the identification and querying of specific datasets you're interested in, particularly when sources release multiple datasets.
In addition, we've added a new endpoint: emission-factors/source-dataset to help you explore the datasets issued by the sources available in Climatiq.
We have a number of new datasets and updates for you:
Calculate emissions from credit card spend
In addition to industry codes ISIC and NACE, we are now able to provide estimates based on Merchant Category Codes (MCCs), which are used to classify financial transactions globally. Simply hand up the code and the amount spent and a footprint will be provided for anywhere in the world and in most major currencies.
All-new cloud compute endpoint including embodied and dynamic power usage calculations
We’ve released a new computing endpoint, where you can input a specific virtual machine instance you’re renting, and get back a combined estimate for both the emissions and electricity consumption for the memory and cpu used, and also an embodied emissions for the underlying hardware.
GCP, AWS and Azure are supported with default values. If you have more details from your cloud provider, you can provide custom details such as average vCPU utilisation (load), specific power utilization efficiency (PUE) or electricity emissions factor (either from the Climatiq dataset or one uploaded by you).
Note that this feature is in alpha and therefore subject to change. Please do get in touch if you'd like to learn more about the feature.
Automated mapping tool now accepts data by API
Our custom activity mapper can now accept your taxonomy via an API endpoint. This allows you to send your (or your clients') internal categorisation to our activity mapping dashboard, where you can then view suggestions to map these labels to Climatiq activity IDs.
Self-reported emission factors now supported
We have added a "self-reported" flag, both as part of our updated compute endpoint above (for example we have included Google's electricity emission factors for use in estimating cloud emissions), and to pave the way for increasingly granular emission factors provided directly from companies - particularly useful for supply-chain assessment. If there is any particular data you would like to see (or to disclose your company’s data in our database) please get in touch.
Please note that emission factors with this flag will not be used in API responses by default due to their nature of the emission factor; these will need to be explicitly allowed to appear in requests using the allowed_data_quality_flags parameter.
Other improvements and fixes
Data releases
We have released a number of new datasets and updates, including:
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