Introduction

What is the Base Carbone^®?

The Base Carbone^® is a public database of emission factors as required for carrying out carbon accounting exercises. It is administered by ADEME, but its governance involves many stakeholders and it can be added to freely.

Online consultation of the data and documentation requires the creation of an account, and is free of charge! Downloading data requires additional subscription to a user license.

The broad principles

*Features planned for February 2015

The articulation and convergence of environmental regulations requires data homogenization. The Base Carbone^® proposes to be this centralized data source. Today, it is the reference database for article 75 of the Grenelle II Act. It is also entirely consistent with article L1341-3 of the French Transport Code and the default values of the European emission quotas exchange system.

The data of the Base Carbone^® can be freely consulted by all. Furthermore, the originality of this tool is that it enables third parties to propose their own data (feature scheduled for February 2015). These data are then assessed for their quality and transparency, then validated or refused for incorporation in the Base Carbone^®. Lastly, a forum (planned for February 2015) will enable users to ask questions about the data, or to contest the data. 

The administration of the Base Carbone^® is handled by ADEME. However, its orientation and the data that it contains are validated by a governance committee incorporating various public and private stakeholders.

Lastly, transparency is one of the keystones of the Base Carbone^®. Documentation details the hypotheses underlying the construction of all the data in the base, and refers to the studies that have enabled their construction.