Frequently Asked Questions

PlainCarbon provides Scope 1 (direct) greenhouse gas emissions data from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for 2011–2023. This covers ~8,737 reporting facilities and their parent companies, with data on CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gas emissions.

The EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) is a mandatory federal program requiring U.S. facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent or more per year to report their emissions annually. Established under the Clean Air Act, it has been collecting data since 2010.

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from a company's own operations, burning fuel, industrial processes, etc. The GHGRP only collects Scope 1 data. Scope 2 (purchased electricity) and Scope 3 (value chain) emissions are not included in this federal reporting program and are not in PlainCarbon's database.

We use EPA's parent company attribution data to map individual facilities to their corporate owners, then sum all facility emissions under each parent company. This gives a total corporate Scope 1 footprint. Attribution is based on 2023 ownership and may not reflect past corporate structures.

Several reasons: PlainCarbon shows only Scope 1 direct emissions, while corporate reports often include Scope 2 and 3 as well. Corporate reports may use market-based accounting methods and include offsets. GHGRP data also may not include all global operations, only U.S. facilities above the 25,000 MT reporting threshold.

PlainCarbon currently includes GHGRP data through 2023. The EPA typically releases prior-year data in the fall. We update our database annually as new EPA data becomes available.

No. PlainCarbon is an independent data portal presenting publicly available EPA GHGRP data. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.