In carbon accounting, data is typically categorized into two types:
Primary Data: This is specific data related to a company’s activities or its value chain. It includes details like the amount of electricity used (shown on utility bills) and the carbon footprint of specific products (like a laptop model calculated by the manufacturer using site-specific data).
Secondary Data: This encompasses any data that is not primary. It covers information from databases, published literature, default emission factors from national inventories, and more. Examples include the average electricity use of an office in Germany or the average emission factor of a laptop from a life cycle assessment (LCA) study.
Primary data is essential for calculating accurate carbon footprints and is preferred by most standards and guidelines. It precisely reflects emissions and captures the effects of behavioral changes, which average data cannot. That's why this calculator allows you to label data as primary.
For instance, a company might estimate vehicle emissions using average emissions per car (secondary data) or actual fuel consumption (primary data). The latter approach enables quantifying the benefits of efficient driving.
However, collecting primary data can be challenging and costly. A practical approach is to prioritize primary data in areas where it's most relevant and gradually increase its use over time.