Car: DEFRA 🇬🇧

💡 High-Level Description

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) of the UK has been a stalwart in environmental governance and establishing methodologies across various sectors. Within the car sector, DEFRA's methodology focuses keenly on providing robust and comprehensible metrics for carbon emissions. Recognizing the massive contribution of vehicles to the UK's carbon footprint, DEFRA's guidelines are tailored to encompass the diverse range of vehicles on the roads, from compact cars to SUVs.

DEFRA's approach not only accounts for direct emissions derived from fuel combustion but also considers the broader life-cycle emissions of vehicles, including manufacturing, maintenance, and disposal. Their methodology, backed by extensive research and consultation with automotive industry experts, provides a solid foundation for the UK's policy-making, encouraging sustainable car manufacturing and usage. Through DEFRA's efforts, consumers, manufacturers, and policymakers are better equipped to make environmentally conscious decisions regarding transportation.

Sample API Request

{
  "expand": [
    "items"
  ],
  "items": [
    {
      "type": "car",
      "methodology": "DEFRA",
      "external_reference": "string",
      "origin": "Frankfurt am Main, Germany",
      "destination": "Berlin, Germany",
      "fuel_type": "hev",
      "car_type": "dual_purpose_4x4"
    }
  ]
}

API Request Items

• "type": "car" (required)

• "methodology": "DEFRA" (required)

• "external_reference": A unique identifier that helps you link the resulting emissions to the requested item. Especially useful if multiple items are requested since SQUAKE cannot guarantee to keep the same order. The maximum length is 128 characters.

• "origin": SQUAKE will try to resolve the origin/destination regardless of its format. Ideally, for addresses use the Post standard, for airports use IATA/ICAO code (format: ^[A-Z]{{3,4}}$, e.g., "MUC"), for other locations used in trade and transportation use UN/LOCODE codes (format: ^[A-Z]{{2}}\W?[A-Z2-9]{{3}}$, e.g., "DEHAM"). You can also pass lat/long (format: ^[-+]?\d{{1,3}}\.\d{{1,10}}\s?,\s?[-+]?\d{{1,3}}\.\d{{1,10}}$, e.g., "+40.712,-74.006").

• "destination": SQUAKE will try to resolve the origin/destination regardless of its format. Ideally, for addresses use the Post standard, for airports use IATA/ICAO code (format: ^[A-Z]{{3,4}}$, e.g., "MUC"), for other locations used in trade and transportation use UN/LOCODE codes (format: ^[A-Z]{{2}}\W?[A-Z2-9]{{3}}$, e.g., "DEHAM"). You can also pass lat/long (format: ^[-+]?\d{{1,3}}\.\d{{1,10}}\s?,\s?[-+]?\d{{1,3}}\.\d{{1,10}}$, e.g., "+40.712,-74.006").

• "distance_in_km": Prioritized over origin and destination. If you don't have a distance_in_km, you can use origin and destination and the distance will be automatically resolved. If you pass both distance_in_km and origin/destination, then distance_in_km will be used.

• "fuel_type": ACRISS accepts petrol, diesel, hev, phev or electricity. The default value for ACRISS is petrol.

• "acriss_car_type": Available car types: C: Compact, D: Compact Elite, E: Economy, F: Fullsize, G: Fullsize Elite, H: Economy Elite, I: Intermediate, J: Intermediate Elite, L: Luxury, M: Mini, N: Mini Elite, P: Premium, R: Standard Elite, S: Standard, U: Premium Elite, W: Luxury Elite, X: Special, O: Oversize. Default value is E.

• "sipp_car_type": If acriss_car_type is not passed then SQUAKE will automatically resolve it using the SIPP code; used for ACRISS. Mutually exclusive with pseudo_car_type, only one can be given at the same time.

• "car_type": Available car types: mini (or M and E), supermini (or N, H), lower_medium (or C, I, S), upper_medium (or D, J, R), executive (or P, U), luxury (or L, W), sports (or X), dual_purpose_4x4 (or G), mpv (or F), small, medium, large and average.

• Default values

  • "fuel_type": "average"

  • "car_type": "average"

Sample API Response

{
    "carbon_quantity": 10764,
    "carbon_unit": "gram",
    "items": [
        {
            "carbon_quantity": 10764,
            "carbon_unit": "gram",
            "external_reference": "string",
            "type": "car",
            "methodology": "ACRISS",
            "distance": 110.0,
            "distance_unit": "kilometer"
        }
    ]
}

Bibliography

• Bramwell, R., et al. (2024, July). 2023 Government Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Company Reporting. Methodology Paper for Conversion Factors Final Report. Department for Business, Energy, & Industrial Strategy. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/668408e6a59289f59b840597/2024-greenhouse-gas-conversion-factors-methodology.pdf