Emission Factors

Cogo Emission Factor Database

Our emission factor database, which powers the product, is updated regularly to give businesses confidence that their carbon footprints remain credible over time. We review all emissions data and price inputs for the relevant country and update the database annually. We also review inflationary trends on a 6-monthly basis, and update our spend-based emission factors to account for this. In addition, Cogo may update emission factors more frequently as the need arises. These updates occur in the background, so you are unlikely to notice them.

Aotearoa New Zealand Emission Factors Update – Nov 2025

November 2025 update Inflation adjustments have been applied to emissions factors (EFs) for the NZ dataset. Overall inflation rate for the last 6 months was 1.5%, resulting in a reduction in the emission intensity (emission per dollar) across many of the categories, due to the increasing cost of goods and services. Greengrocer has the most significant decrease in emission intensity as the cost of fruit and vegetables increased over the latest period. Transport, Cinema and Electronic Equipment emissions factors had the most significant increase in emission intensity due to a decrease in prices. May 2025 update A number of updates have been applied to the spend-based and activity-based emissions factors (EFs) for the New Zealand dataset which apply to the New Zealand Business Carbon Model. The update includes some notable changes, including the annual refresh of EEIO (Environmentally Extended Input-Output) Model derived EFs, improvements to some speciality food outlets and simplification of the inflation setup. Emission Factors All EFs have been inflation-adjusted to the March quarter of 2025. Average CPI Inflation was 10.7% since the last update. EEIO Model Update The Thinkstep ANZ EEIO model was updated based on 2022 emissions and economic data, and released to Cogo in late 2024. Significant changes have occurred to the emissions factors for a large proportion of categories due to inflation and new economic data, with the most significant changes explained below. Public Transport There was significant inflation observed for public transport since the last update, resulting in a large decrease in the EFs for the Trains and Buses category. Waste Management Categories Thinkstep have improved the makeup of the EFs for waste, resulting in a large decrease in the EF for Recycling and a large increase in the EF for General Waste. Cogo Model Updates Energy Categories This model has been updated using the latest available emissions and cost data. Significant price inflation for natural gas has occurred since the previous update, which decreases the related EF. The Oil and Fuels category has also seen a significant change. Grocery Categories Changes in the EFs related to Food speciality retail types have occurred. Greengrocer has decreased due to fruit inflation and vegetables deflation. Conversely, Bakery increased due to inflation in the average weekly spend on bread. Clothing Categories The EF for the Clothing and Uniforms category decreased due to updated MR-EEIO (Multi-Regional Environmentally Extended Input-Output) UK data and updated Retail Brand sourcing data. Benchmark Emission Factors Improvements have been made to the EFs used in benchmarking to bring them into alignment with the approach taken for other countries.

Australia Emission Factors Update – May 2025

Update Summary This update contains emission factors based on the latest available data, and price-adjusted to December 2024. Overall Updates We’ve made a number of updates to our emissions factors for Australia. The core spend factors - which we base on 2022 IELab data - have been inflation updated to December 2024. The 2022 IELab data showed a general decrease in emission intensities due to price inflation and ongoing decarbonisation of the Australian electricity network. However there were also increases in some emissions factors, primarily due to COVID19 rebound effects e.g. in transportation, tourism and education sectors. Although inflation rates in Australia are flattening, an inflationary adjustment has still been made to align the spend based factors to prices within the Consumer Price Index for the October-December 2024 quarter. In most cases this reduced the emissions intensity per $ of most of the emissions factors, helping prevent inflation in the footprints where increased spend from higher prices would otherwise result in an assumption of greater consumption and thus emissions. Some notable exceptions which went against the inflationary trends and impacted some categories were a tobacco tax increase, insurance premium inflations, electricity price deflation, and gas price inflation. Energy Categories Our Energy Model has had a significant methodology upgrade to bring it in line with Cogo’s global approach in this area. One major change was switching from EEIO data to using a mix of activity and cost data to derive spend-based emissions factors. Another was switching to a location-based approach for electricity footprinting. In addition, the Energy Model now supports an aligned and efficient approach to footprinting energy for personal, small business, and financed emissions purposes. Additionally: - Our Energy emissions factors are now derived based on activity data e.g. emissions per kWh, and cost data e.g. $/kWh, while still maintaining inclusion of the full combustion and supply chain scope necessary. - The input data into the model has changed, but it is still in line with the scope we measure i.e. Scope 2 & ‘transmission and distribution losses’ approach to carbon footprinting for businesses. The energy model provides more accuracy and granularity for the different fuel sources. This impacts on any spend categories that related to energy and utility footprinting. Grocery and Food Speciality Categories We have made some improvements which have impacted the emission intensity for grocery, and introduced specialty food retail categories. - The model now uses product life cycle analysis (LCA) data collated by Poore & Nemecek, along with grocery cost data collated from supermarket websites primarily. This improves the accuracy of the model. All price data is inflation adjusted to Oct-Dec 2024 if necessary, to align with the overall update. - The model now also includes various specialty food retail store types e.g butcher, fishmonger, greengrocer, which follow the standard grocery model methodology. Overall there is a significant change to food-related categories. Our emissions factors have increased for most of the specialty food retail categories. Clothing The emission factor is now weighted based on the number of factory employees per country for the global brand used as the basis for the supply chain assumptions, rather than the number of clothing factories in use. Improvements were also made to the input emissions factor data; the model now uses input clothing emissions factors per country which can be updated on an annual basis. As a result, the emissions factor is lower than the previous version, which impacts on any categories for spend on clothing and footwear. Industry Benchmarks We have improved the alignment of our industry benchmark emissions factor categories with work done for other countries. This includes consolidation and revision of some categories, in turn leading to the emissions factors changing for some of these categories.

United Kingdom Factors Update – Nov 2025

November update summary The emission factors were inflation-adjusted to July-September (third quarter) 2025, using the latest CPI data available. Overall inflation has increased by 1.86% (on average) compared to the first quarter in 2025; as such, the majority of emissions factors have been reduced, so that the emissions assigned per pound of spending remain consistent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. This ensures that higher prices due to inflation do not artificially increase the estimated emissions associated with purchases. Some areas experienced more significant changes in inflation than others. For example, the CPI for water supply increased by more than 26%, while liquid fuels decreased by around 11%. Furthermore, the CPI value for passenger transport by air increased by 58% over the last 6 months (due to the continued rise in air travel prices), leading to a reduction in the emissions factor by 36%. The CPI for passenger transport by sea increased by 19%, leading to a reduction in the emissions intensity for transport by ferry by 16%. The majority of the other CPI value changes for the relevant categories are <+/- 5%. The increase in inflation on water supply is due to the increase in water prices in April 2025. The reason for the increase in pricing is, in part, to fund essential infrastructure investment needed to meet new environmental standards. The reduction in UK liquid fuel prices in 2025 is primarily due to a global oil market oversupply, with production growth outpacing demand. May update summary In this annual release, we have made a number of updates to our UK dataset emissions factors (EFs). Cogo’s carbon data partner Small World Consulting (SWC) has completed its annual EEIO (Environmentally Extended Input-Output) model update and provided the resulting spend-based emission factors to Cogo. This is the latest-available data which Cogo has inflation adjusted to January-March 2025. Note that the SWC data incorporated into previous updates was based on pre-Covid data (from 2019, then inflation adjusted) rather than using the latest available data as they were deemed as not being representative of the economy at the time. This resumption of using the latest-available data explains some of the larger than normal year-on-year differences that can be seen in the emissions factors. These include significant (>20%) decreases in the EFs for the following categories: Donations and feesCharitable donations and grantsDonations and feesMembership feesProfessional servicesAdvertising and marketingProfessional servicesAccountingProfessional servicesRecruitment and HRProfessional servicesManagement, consulting and PRConsumables and suppliesPaintProfessional servicesOtherBanking, tax and insuranceMortgagesBanking, tax and insuranceInvestments and loansBanking, tax and insuranceDebt collectionBanking, tax and insuranceOtherProfessional servicesCredit check services Also significant increases (>30%) in the EFs for the following categories: TravelParkingCompany vehiclesTolls and registrationTransport and distributionOtherConsumables and suppliesMedical suppliesConsumables and suppliesOtherConsumables and suppliesOffice suppliesTransport and distributionCouriersTravelBoats and ferriesTravelFlightsPremises and facilitiesRent including utilities Additionally, this update also includes a number of methodology upgrades to Cogo’s Applied Models. Grocery and Specialty Categories Improvements and updates made to more recent source data leads to changes in the carbon intensities for Butcher, Bakery, Fishmonger and Greengrocer, which increased by >30%. Energy Categories - The emissions factor for the category of ‘Utilities, software & waste - Electricity’ decreased by 30% as a result of electricity price changes for small to medium sized businesses (SMEs). We selected the price for the businesses based on the electricity consumption data for SMEs in the UK that can be found in the literature here. - The emissions factor for ‘Utilities, software & waste - Gas’ decreased by 50% as a result of increases in the gas price for SMEs. We also adapted our approach to match the gas price to the consumption data of SMEs found in the literature. as for businesses the price depends on how much gas a business is consuming. - The emissions factor for ‘Utilities, software & waste - Electricity and Gas’ decreased by 38% as a result of the price change in electricity (mentioned above) and gas price changes. In addition, we have adapted our approach on calculating the contribution of electricity and gas to the overall bill based on more recent consumption data for SMEs. Waste Categories The emissions factors for Waste categories increased by more than 100%. This change reflects a shift to using EEIO-based emissions factors, rather than estimating them from waste volumes and prices separately. Since small businesses are unlikely to track general and recycling waste in detail, and the overall waste footprint is typically small, we have simplified the method by applying standard EEIO emissions factors for the categories. Utilities, software and wasteConstruction wasteUtilities, software and wasteGeneral wasteUtilities, software and wasteRecycling New Category Addition We have developed Business EV Charging emissions factors. These relate to public charging of company vehicles. The application of these EFs is via the new category of Company vehicles>EV charging.