About PlainCarbon

PlainCarbon is a public data portal that makes corporate greenhouse gas emissions data from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) searchable, comparable, and understandable, for investors, journalists, policy researchers, students, and anyone who wants to understand the climate footprint of US industry.

Our Mission

Corporate climate accountability requires accessible data. While EPA makes GHGRP data publicly available through its FLIGHT tool, searching, comparing, and contextualizing that data requires significant technical effort. PlainCarbon removes that friction, making 13 years of industrial emissions data instantly searchable and comparable across companies, industries, and states.

We believe that emissions transparency is the foundation of corporate climate accountability. Investors need it for ESG evaluation, journalists need it for accountability reporting, researchers need it for policy analysis, and communities need it to understand the industrial facilities in their neighborhoods. PlainCarbon is free to use and always will be, because this data was collected at public expense and belongs to the public in a form they can actually use.

Our Data Source

All emissions data on PlainCarbon comes from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), a mandatory reporting program established under the Clean Air Act. Since 2010, the GHGRP has required US facilities emitting 25,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent or more per year to report their emissions to the EPA annually. The program covers approximately 8,737 facilities across all 50 states, representing roughly 85% of total US greenhouse gas emissions. Official source: EPA GHGRP FLIGHT Tool.

We aggregate facility-level data to the company/parent level using EPA's parent company attribution data, which maps facilities to their corporate owners as of the most recent reporting year (2023). The parent company mapping uses the EPA's official XLSB file, which identifies ultimate parent companies through corporate ownership chains. Parent company data may not reflect historical ownership accurately for years prior to 2023.

How We Process the Data

We download EPA GHGRP data files from the FLIGHT tool and process them through the following steps:

• Multi-year emission extraction: We parse the EPA's annual facility-level XLSX exports covering 2011-2023, extracting CO2, CH4, N2O, and total CO2-equivalent figures for each facility-year combination.
• Parent company attribution: Facility records are linked to their ultimate parent companies using EPA's parent company XLSB file. This enables company-level aggregation where one parent may own dozens of reporting facilities.
• Gas breakdown analysis: We decompose total CO2e into constituent gases (CO2, CH4, N2O) for the latest reporting year, enabling analysis of not just how much a company emits but the composition of those emissions.
• Industry classification: Each facility is assigned to an EPA industry sector (power plants, petroleum refining, chemicals, etc.), enabling sector-level comparisons and rankings.
• Trend calculation: Year-over-year and multi-year emission trends are calculated for each company and facility, identifying which emitters are increasing or decreasing their footprint.

Data Coverage

• Time period: 2011–2023 (13 years)
• Facilities: ~8,737 reporting facilities
• Emissions type: Scope 1 direct emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O, and other GHGs)
• Unit: Metric tons CO2-equivalent (MT CO2e)
• Update frequency: Annually (EPA releases data each fall for the prior calendar year)

Important Limitations

PlainCarbon presents EPA GHGRP data as-is and does not independently verify reported emissions. Key limitations include:

• GHGRP captures Scope 1 (direct) emissions only - not Scope 2 (purchased energy) or Scope 3 (value chain)
• Only facilities emitting ≥25,000 MT CO2e/year are required to report; smaller facilities are excluded
• Parent company attribution is based on 2023 ownership and may not reflect historical corporate structure
• Emissions data represents what companies report to EPA, not independently audited values
• Industry classifications follow EPA sector designations, which may differ from other classification systems

Data Currency

PlainCarbon currently displays data from the EPA GHGRP 2023 reporting year, covering emissions from January through December 2023. Historical data spans back to 2011, providing 13 years of emission trends for each facility and company.

The EPA typically releases GHGRP data for the prior calendar year in the fall. Like all federal reporting programs, there is an inherent lag, 2024 emissions data is expected to become available in late 2025. We update PlainCarbon within 30 days of each new EPA data release.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainCarbon is compiled by our editorial team. Raw emissions data from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (FLIGHT/GHGRP), the EIA, and state environmental agencies is transformed into readable facility and company profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, validated against the source before publication. The PlainCarbon editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from regulated facilities, parent companies, industry groups, or any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.