Top 10 US Parent Companies by Total CO2e Emissions (EPA GHGRP)
PlainCarbon ranks US parent companies by total CO2-equivalent emissions reported across all their facilities to the EPA GHGRP, updated automatically as new EPA data is published.
Research period:
Every figure on PlainCarbon is rendered directly from EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Research question
Among US parent companies in the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which carry the largest total Scope 1 emissions footprints, and how concentrated are emissions at the top of the distribution?
Methodology
This ranking is generated directly from PlainCarbon's companies dataset at the time you load the page, no figure is hardcoded, and the table updates automatically whenever the underlying U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data is refreshed. Values reflect each company's total reported CO2-equivalent emissions across all its facilities, ranked from highest to lowest and limited to the top 10.
Coverage and exclusions: companies with no reported emissions are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. The EPA occasionally withholds individual facility values for confidentiality or data-quality reasons; those records are left out of this ranking rather than displayed as zero. If the EPA later revises a figure, the revised value appears here automatically the next time PlainCarbon's data is refreshed.
Source and update cadence: this data comes from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), which publishes updated facility-level emissions annually. PlainCarbon pulls each new release, checks it for consistency, and replaces the prior dataset so every page reflects the latest published figures.
Corrections: if you believe a figure here is wrong, please use the contact channels in the site footer. We compare disputed figures against the underlying EPA record before making any change; genuine data errors are corrected at the source so every affected page updates together, not just this one.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US Parent Companies by Total CO2e Emissions (EPA GHGRP)
Updated automatically as new EPA GHGRP data is published
The ranked top 10
These 10 companies update automatically whenever PlainCarbon's underlying EPA data is refreshed.
| # | Parent company | Total CO2e (million metric tons) | Reporting facilities | States with facilities | Primary industry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vistra | 86.32 | 40 | 12 | Power Plants |
| 2 | THE SOUTHERN | 78.4 | 39 | 6 | Natural Gas and Natural Gas Liquids Suppliers |
| 3 | DUKE ENERGY | 65.01 | 39 | 6 | Power Plants |
| 4 | CPN MANAGEMENT | 47.58 | 43 | 14 | Power Plants |
| 5 | NEXTERA ENERGY | 45.57 | 19 | 4 | Power Plants |
| 6 | AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER CO | 44.72 | 22 | 9 | Power Plants |
| 7 | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY | 43.13 | 108 | 23 | Minerals |
| 8 | US GOVERNMENT | 41.44 | 83 | 30 | Other |
| 9 | EXXON MOBIL | 34.3 | 24 | 6 | Other |
| 10 | ENTERGY | 33.92 | 24 | 4 | Power Plants |
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - EPA GHGRP, Subpart-A through Subpart-W annual public facility reports. Values update automatically each time PlainCarbon's EPA data is refreshed. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - EPA GHGRP, Subpart-A through Subpart-W annual public facility reports. Values update automatically each time PlainCarbon's EPA data is refreshed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Vistra, with a value of 86.32 on the Total CO2e (million metric tons) column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (86.32) and the 10th-ranked record (33.92) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), specifically the EPA GHGRP, Subpart-A through Subpart-W annual public facility reports. PlainCarbon pulls each new EPA release and replaces the prior data, so this ranking always reflects the most recently published EPA vintage rather than a stale export. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how we process the data.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Emissions totals reflect Scope 1 direct facility emissions reported to the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) under the 40 CFR Part 98 rule. The GHGRP captures facilities that emit at least 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, facilities below the reporting threshold are excluded. Scope 2 emissions (purchased electricity, steam, heating, cooling) and Scope 3 emissions (value-chain emissions including supply chain, product use, and disposal) are not in the GHGRP frame and are not aggregated in these totals. Parent-company rollups depend on EPA's parent-company linkage and may not fully reflect corporate restructurings, partial-ownership relationships, or joint-venture facilities. Energy utilities and power generators dominate the top of the distribution because the GHGRP frame captures combustion emissions at the point of generation, not at the point of consumption.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 parent companies by number of GHGRP-reporting facilities
Sources
- EPA, Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) - https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting
- EPA FLIGHT, Facility-Level Information on GreenHouse gases Tool - https://ghgdata.epa.gov/ghgp/main.do