API Reference
Selector

Selector

A Selector is the model you use if you're selecting an emission factor yourself. A Selector allows you to select a specific emission factor via two distinct methods:

  1. You can use an activity ID for the particular activity you are interested in. As activity IDs can refer to multiple emission factors, you use the other metadata fields that Climatiq provides to filter down to those most suitable for your use case.
  2. You can use a unique ID which will always refer to the same emission factor

Using Activity ID

Emission factors can be queried by specifying a data version, an activity ID and a set of optional attributes. If more than one emission factor match the filtering criteria, the one from most recent year will be selected, followed by the most conservative (e.g. highest) if there is more than one available for the most recent year.

AttributeRequired
data_version string
The required Data Version string for this request.
required
activity_id string
An ID describing the activity that to search for. Multiple emission factors can share the same activity_id, e.g. if they are from a different source or apply to a different region.
required
source string
Emission factor data source name.
optional
source_dataset string
The name of the dataset the source published this emission factor under.
optional
region string
Geographic region to which the emission factor applies.
optional
region_fallback boolean
Set this to true if you're willing to accept a less specific geographical region than the one you've specified. Climatiq will then attempt to fall back to the larger region if it does not find any emission factors with the initial region. Only one fallback can be specified at a time. Default is false
optional
year_fallback boolean
Set this to true if you're willing to accept a less specific year than the one you've specified. Climatiq will then attempt to find an emission factor with a year as close as possible to the one you've provided. Only one fallback can be specified at a time. Default is false
optional
year integer
The year in which the emission factor is considered most relevant, according to the source.
optional
source_lca_activity string
The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) activity to which this factor is associated.
optional
calculation_method "ar4", "ar5" or "ar6"
The calculation method that will be used to calculate the CO2e emission factor.
Learn more about calculation methods here.
optional
allowed_data_quality_flags array of strings
A list of data quality flags that you are willing to allow for this estimate. See the guide on data quality flags for more information and defaults. You can supply an empty list [] if you only want to accept emission factors without detected data quality issues.
optional

A selector for a specific activity, with additional filtering criteria can look like this:

"emission_factor": {
"data_version": "^3",
"activity_id": "electricity-supply_grid-source_production_mix",
"source": "MfE",
"region": "NZ",
"year": 2020
}

Using ID

Every emission factor has a unique ID, and if we update an emission factor in a new data version, it gets a new ID, so by using an ID as your selector, you can assure that you get consistent results. This could be useful for audit purposes.

AttributeRequired
id string
An unique ID for one particular emission factor
required
calculation_method "ar4", "ar5" or "ar6"
The calculation method that will be used to calculate the CO2e emission factor.
Learn more about calculation methods here.
optional

A selector for one specific emission factor, using the unique id for that emission factor can look like this:

"emission_factor": {
"id": "da80d5f9-7fb2-4cd7-aa45-781479499845",
}