Modeling Greenhouse Gas Emissions for U.S. Economic Sectors


Project Brief

The Challenge

In the face of demand for significant decarbonization, organizations and businesses alike require the most up-to-date greenhouse gas data to assess the life cycle GHG impacts of their goods and services. Furthermore, federal agencies such as the General Services Administration seek to streamline the assessment of Scope 3 GHG emissions for federal procurement. EPA tasked ERG with conducting the rapid modeling needed to update the national GHG emissions estimates.


ERG's Solution

Leveraging our longstanding expertise of EPA’s Flow Sector Attribution modeling tool (FLOWSA), ERG staff generated an updated accounting of national GHG emissions for over 500 U.S. economic sectors. These data, first published in 2023, and further revised with new data in 2024, provide the latest GHG estimates for use in EPA’s Supply Chain GHG Emission Factors, a key tool businesses and institutions use to perform Scope 3 GHG emissions accounting.


Client

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency