Product updates

Since our last release notes we have:

• Released a cloud computing endpoint into alpha. Try it out to estimate emissions incurred by your cloud computing usage.
• Improved the flights endpoint logic to cascade through a greater range of emission factors based on the region, flight class and distance supplied in the query.
• Enabled querying our emission factor endpoint by LCA activity. We’ve also made some changes to how we provide LCA values to better represent the underlying data. If you were querying on the old values explicitly, you might need to update your queries - see our how-to guide on LCA here.
• Added a bunch of great new data data (taking us past 3,500 emission factors!) including:
  - Our first ingress of EXIOBASE spend-based emission factors - for Germany! There will be lots more coming, covering 44 economies and 5 “rest of world” regions.
  - The full set of EPA 2021 and eGrid 2022 (our first set of 2022 factors), with constituent gases.
  - Global electricity factors used by the GHG Protocol scope 3 evaluator
• Improved error messages to provide more information when there is an issue with a query.
• The data explorer has had an upgrade, with search accuracy and response times  improved, as well as some improvements in display of emission factor details.
• Updated the dashboard to reflect more clearly your activity and to pave the way for more improvements (coming soon!)
• Fixed a bug whereby our alpha endpoints weren’t recording data to the dashboard

Only rarely do we ship "versioned" releases, preferring to release continuously to prioritise getting our data and tools into your hands. However in this instance we have a range of exciting updates which involved the potential to break or interfere with existing implementations. Before we get to the details of the release, it's worth mentioning that we have published a handy migration guide to step you through switching from v2 to v3 - and don't worry, v2 will remain supported while you do. We intend for this to be the last beta release before we go into full production.

On to the release details (available in full with more info in the release blog). In Beta v3 we have:

• Added support for individual GHGs as well as total CO₂e. Responses from the ´/estimate´ endpoint now returns a ´constituent_gases´ object, which provides - where available - both the total CO₂e as well as each of the constituent GHGs that an activity emits.
• Added support for multiple methods of CO₂e calculation, based on different conversion methodologies provided by the IPCC in their 4th and 5th Assessment Reports. The ´/estimate endpoint´ will return ´co2e_calculation_origin´ that will either be Climatiq or the source depending on whether the source provided a ´co2e´ or Climatiq has calculated it. Learn more about the provision of CO₂e and specific greenhouse gases here.
• Added the full set of emission factors used by the GHG Protocol in their GHG Emissions Calculation Tool are now available via the Climatiq API, including CO₂e expressed in 4th or 5th assessment report equivalencies as well as raw CO₂, CH₄ and NO₂ emission factors.
• Alongside this the latest spend-based emission factors from the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Evaluator are available (CO₂e), joining existing US EPA and UK BEIS spend-based factors to provide a set of global metrics that can be used for supply chain assessment.
• Added UK BEIS/Defra electricity transmission & distribution and both electricity and fuel well-to-tank-transfer (WTT) factors (CO₂e)
• Added two flights endpoints: ´travel/flights´ and ´freight/flights´. These intelligently calculate emissions for passenger or cargo transport, given an origin and destination - these replace the ´FlightDistance´ and ´WeightOverFlightDistance´ units which have been removed from the ´/estimate´ endpoint.
• A number of updates have been made to units for accuracy and future-proofing - full details in the docs and in the blog.
• Added full documentation of sources represented in the OEFDB, including licensing details.

There's a lot there, so plenty of additions have been made to the docs page to help take advantage of the new functionality, including as mentioned the handy migration guide (note you can switch back to the v2 docs page using the selector in the sidebar).

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We hope you had a chance to take some time to reflect on the past 12 months and to revive as we go into a huge year for tackling the climate crisis - 2022 feels make-or-break.

Here at Climatiq, while we’ve relished the chance to take stock, we haven’t slowed; we’re starting 2022 with a bang by announcing the addition of almost 400 spend-based EPA emission factors to the API. Having a dry January? Why not find out how much carbon you’re saving - now according to data release by either the UK or the US government.

There’s a very serious side to this of course - assessing supply chain emissions is a huge problem for companies, and while spend-based data isn’t perfect, in many cases it’s the only viable way of reporting. As such, the UK and US data will soon be joined by the high-level global numbers used by the GHG Protocol scope 3 calculator.

Want to make sure these numbers are comparable? We’ve got you covered: the Climatiq API provides currency conversion on the fly, based on the average rate of the year the emission factor was reported.

That’s not all of course - as ever, there’s a range of data and functionality additions since our last release communication, which you may already be using. In case you missed them:

Open Emission Factor Database (OEFDB) and data explorer:

• 94 new building-related EFs from UK BEIS/Defra, including water, heat & steam refrigerants & fugitive gases
• 394 spend-based EFs from the US EPA
• An array of new sectors and categories to choose emission factors from - see our data explorer to discover more
• Each factor in the database has been qualified with the lifecycle activity it applies to, based on the source methodology - this data is now available via the API (available in the data explorer soon!)
• Speaking of the data explorer, you may have noticed you can now filter by unit type, that results are paginated and that if you right-click on an emission factor you can open a page which provides a view of just that emission factor.

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API functionality and documentation:

• Enabled CORS - meaning the API can now be used in client-side applications like WebApps.
• Dynamic currency conversion has been added, meaning spend-based emissions can be calculated in any currency, based on the average conversion rate from the year the emission factor was calculated.
• We’ve improved error handling and API responses to improve understanding of any issues encountered when making calls.
• Our docs page now is more user-friendly, which more understandable headings and a better mobile experience

Led by feedback from you, our beta community, this release includes a bundle of exciting updates. There's lots of detail on what has been updated and why in our release blog post, but here are the key things to know. We've:

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• Launched the Data Explorer, a brand new application to explore and filter emission factors available in the API by any criteria.
• Added batch processing to the API, allowing for parallel estimations.
• Added querying of sources, years, categories, sectors and regions fields, allowing the determination of available values based on a given emission factor query.
• Added Unit Types as API parameters, providing a modular approach to unit conversion per emission factor.
• All responses now include factor and unit.
• Launched a whole new API documentation page providing details as to how to take advantage of these features.
• Performed a root-and-branch data review - led by our data and science team - of the underlying open database (the OEFDB), to provide standardised, machine-readable IDs, improved naming conventions and clearer descriptions and categorisation.

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These updates represent a significant improvement in both technical usability and in data quality and robustness. Above all, it sets us up for fast iteration in both including new emission factor data (look out for spend-based scope 3 factors soon) and rapid development of features in the API.

To take advantage of the new features and dataset you will need to update your queries based on the new version of the implementation docs available at docs.climatiq.io (but don't worry we still support the old version, so nothing will break).

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