BEE Technical Documentation
Last Updated: March 2024
This methodology document is maintained by members of The Change Climate Project team. Current and past technical advisors include: Gregory Norris, NewEarthB; Maxime Agez, CIRAIG; Pascal Lesage, CIRAIG; Yurika Nishioka, MIT.
This is a living document.
For release notes tracking updates to calculations methodology, please refer to our BEE release notes page here.
The Business Emissions Evaluator (the BEE) simplifies the carbon measurement process for companies. It is built and maintained to support The Change Climate Project’s vision that all companies have the tools they need to be climate neutral. By creating a single online platform, The Change Climate Project has taken carbon accounting from wonky to workable, greatly reducing the time and expertise it requires to complete a carbon inventory.
All companies must measure their cradle-to-customer emissions in order to become Climate Neutral Certified. This includes all product level emissions, plus emissions tied to corporate overhead and operations. A highly credible, and easy-to-use tool is fundamental to The Change Climate Project’s ability to increase the scale of its impact.
A user begins work in the BEE by inputting high-level financial information, then specifying a list of products and services by geography. With these simple initial inputs, the BEE produces an estimate in just minutes.
In the backend, the user’s data goes through an economic input / output (IO) model, which runs on a dataset called EXIOBASE. After estimation, users can refine their initial measurement by replacing the tool’s estimates with real operational data (physical or monetary). This process is known as “refinement.” Calculations during refinement use data from multiple sources including: ecoinvent, EXIOBASE (via Climatiq), IPCC and EPA eGrid.
The initial use of IO modeling begins every inventory process with a comprehensive estimate. The subsequent refinement steps help users add relevance and specificity to their initial estimates. If operational data aren’t yet available, estimated data can suffice until then.
The amount of work conducted during refinement varies based on a user’s goals and access to data. If the brand is pursuing Climate Neutral certification, the certification standards outlines minimum requirements. In general, it is recommended that users refine as much data as possible so that finished inventories have maximum usefulness as a baseline. Estimated data provide a conservatively high approximation that offers good general insights, but is reflective of industry averages rather than firm specifics on one user’s true operations.
The BEE can support carbon inventories for emissions within “cradle to customer” boundaries. Users not seeking certification can choose as many categories to calculate as they wish. Users undergoing certification must meet the requirements of the Climate Neutral Certified Standard.