Flight: EPA 🇺🇸

💡 High-Level Description:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been a vanguard in environmental preservation and protection in the United States. When it comes to carbon calculations for the flight passenger sector, the EPA's methodology offers a robust framework, bearing in mind the intricate nature of aviation and its environmental implications. As the aviation industry remains a considerable contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it becomes crucial to possess a comprehensive and accurate calculation methodology.

The EPA's approach for carbon emissions from passenger flights emphasizes not just the direct emissions but also factors in relevant elements such as plane type, flight distance, fuel efficiency, and load factors. This multifaceted methodology assists airlines, regulatory bodies, and environmental advocates in gaining a clearer understanding of the sector's carbon footprint. The consistency this approach provides ensures that carbon reduction efforts are based on reliable data, making it possible to chart effective and impactful strategies to combat climate change.

Sample API Request

{
  "expand": [
    "items"
  ],
  "items": [
    {
      "type": "flight",
      "methodology": "US-EPA",
      "external_reference": "test_1",
      "number_of_travelers": 1,
      "origin": "JFK",
      "destination": "ORY"
    }
  ]
}

API Request Items

• "type": "flight" (required)

• "methodology": "US-EPA" (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.

• "number_of_travelers": Minimum value is 1. The default value is 1.

• "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.

• "sustainable_fuels": Indicates the usage of sustainable fuels. This lowers the computed emissions in SQUAKE but is not part of the current official emissions frameworks.

• "carbon_reduction_percentage_of_total": The percentage of emissions reduction through the usage of sustainable fuel. The minimum value is 0, and the maximum value is 1. Default value is 0.

Sample API Response

{
    "carbon_quantity": 625550,
    "carbon_unit": "gram",
    "items": [
        {
            "carbon_quantity": 625550,
            "carbon_unit": "gram",
            "external_reference": "test_1",
            "type": "flight",
            "methodology": "US-EPA",
            "distance": 5964.0,
            "distance_unit": "kilometer"
        }
    ]
}

Bibliography

• Emission Factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories (2025, Jan). EPA. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/ghg-emission-factors-hub