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Our CO2 partner Lune
Lune is our partner of choice for calculating CO2 emissions, the below methodology allows you to dig deeper into how they calculate their emissions data.
💡 Calculations are based on the leading international standard for logistics emissions calculations, the GLEC Framework, and are audited and accredited by Smart Freight Centre.
Accreditation
Lune’s Smart Freight Centre audited & accredited calculations follow the GLEC Framework.
Methodology
Shipping emissions calculations follow both the GHG Protocol and the GLEC Framework.
The calculations are done across a few different steps.
Lune calculates carbon emissions based on 3 inputs
**Route**— distance in km/miles/nm OR point A-B, in which case we calculate distance**Shipment**— cargo weight in kg, metric tonnes, or number of TEUs (with an optional cargo type specified)**Method**— the transport method (see the full list at bottom of this page)
The steps taken to calculate the full Well-to-Wheel CO2e emissions are:
1. Calculating the route
The direct distance will be used if possible. (converting miles or nautical miles to kilometers, if necessary).
If we're given a route between two places, for each place:
We determine two sets of geographic coordinates:
If the place is a seaport, an airport or a railway station we determine its geographic coordinates
If the place is given as an address we determine the address' coordinates via Mapbox
If the place is given as geographic coordinates we don't need to convert
Land: we determine the distance between the two sets of coordinates via Mapbox.
Air: we estimate the distance between the points using Great Circle Distance.
Sea: we use a custom algorithm using data from the Distances Between Ports publication produced by the US government (AKA Pub. 151) and add 15% to the value returned by the algorithm (therefore transforming Shortest Feasible Distance to an actual distance). Adding 15% is aligned with the GLEC Framework.
The algorithm can theoretically fail, although it’s exceedingly unlikely. If it fails we fall back to Great Circle Distance multiplied by 2.0.
2. Converting the shipment information into the appropriate unit
Most of the shipping methods have tonne-based emission intensities (ie.
gCO2e/t*km). If the mass itself is provided, that mass is simply transformed to Tonnes. Otherwise, we convert TEUs into Tonnes based on the optional shipment type specified. If no shipment type is given we default to heavyweight, to follow the framework standards of being conservative.TEU→tonneconversion rates:container_only:2.0lightweight:6.0average:10.0heavyweight:14.5
Container shipping intensities are given in
gCO2e/TEU*km– if the input shipment is given in kilograms or tonnes we convert the mass toTEUs (being conservative in the GLEC Framework since we assume the cargo is lightweight (see the conversion rates above) so that we err on the side of getting highTEUs)
3. Calculating the emissions intensity factor for the method
Methods are categorized into Simple Methods and Advanced Methods. Today, the Simple Method includes most transport methods (trucks, planes, trains etc) while the Advanced Methods include sea transport.
Calculations return the amount of CO2e per Tonne-km.When we use defaults they are Well-To-Wheel CO2e defaults.
Simple methods
Intensity factors for the simple methods are separated into 3 different categories: Direct Emissions, Airplane Emissions, Electricity Emissions.
Direct emissions:
The emissions intensity is constant regardless of the distance and route
Using per Tonne-km emissions factors sourced directly from GLEC Framework and multiple other sources.
diesel_truck,diesel_freight_trainetc.
Airplane emissions
Lune uses emission intensities calculated following the IATA RP1678 methodology.
Plane emissions take into account the gradual transition between ranges of emissions that planes have, this allows us to be a bit more precise than simply using direct values of plane emissions.
We use average emissions for three types of aircrafts:
Short haul – 0-1000 km range
Medium haul – 1000-3700 km range
Long haul – 3700+ km range
To avoid having the customer specify the kind of aircraft we created a function that satisfies the following properties
f(0 km) == short haul aircraft unit emissionsf(1000 km) == medium haul aircraft unit emissionsf(3700 km) == long haul aircraft unit emissionsf(x)values change smoothly between those parameters. Forxhigher than3700remains constant and equalsf(3700)This is done for both
cargoandpassengerplanes.planeis valid for when you don’t know what kind of airplane is used.
Electricity emissions
Calculated using country-specific electricity mix and a set of default emission intensity factors for coal, gas and oil-based electricity production
electric_freight_train: power consumption is constant but electricity-related emissions vary by country
Advanced methods: Ocean transport
Calculated based on vessel type, cargo load type, ship size, and fuel type. Not providing a parameter results in the higher intensity being used.
Sea transport over aggregated trade lanes (grade lane group) or over disaggregated trade lanes (a particular trade lane)
Option to specify if container is refrigerated or dry. The default setting is dry, if not specified.
Sea transport with vessel-specific emissions data (using ship's IMO number or vessel name)
We cover 16,000+ vessels using the EMSA THETIS-MRV database for vessel-specific emission intensity. We have cleaned the data, as the database contains some invalid entries.
If the IMO number or vessel is not in our DB we use the industry-wide default value as a fallback.
Complete carbon emissions calculation
After these steps, we have the total mass, total distance and the intensity factor. We multiply these three values and convert the result into Tonnes of CO2e