Methodology · Version 2.0 · Updated October 4, 2026
CarbonKick Methodology
How we calculate, what we cite, and what we don't claim.
In short
- AI reads your documents. Fixed, tested code calculates every number.
- Every emission factor is chosen by rule from a sourced registry and carries its source and edition year.
- The same bill returns the same result, every time.
- A line with no sourced factor is shown as unquantified, never filled with a guess.
- Missing months are listed, never filled silently.
- Every line is labeled Measured, Calculated or Estimated.
What CarbonKick measures
CarbonKick produces a self-reported, GHG Protocol-aligned carbon footprint for small businesses, following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard across three scopes:
- Scope 1: direct emissions from sources the business owns or controls, such as on-site fuel combustion, company vehicles and refrigerant leaks.
- Scope 2: indirect emissions from purchased energy: electricity, steam, heating and cooling.
- Scope 3: all other indirect emissions across the value chain, such as purchased goods and services, transportation and distribution, waste, business travel and employee commuting.
Every line item is assigned to one scope and reported in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO₂e), the standard unit that puts different greenhouse gases on a common warming basis.
The footprint is generated from the business's own bills and invoices. It is intended for internal tracking, sustainability storytelling, supplier disclosure and reduction planning. It is self-reported and not third-party verified.
AI reads, code calculates
CarbonKick uses an AI model for one job: reading documents. The model extracts activity data from each line: what the activity is, how much, in which unit, and for which period.
Not sure what to upload? See which documents to upload and what each one covers.
The model never computes emissions. It does not choose emission factors, assign scopes, convert units or total anything. Every number on a CarbonKick report is calculated by fixed, tested code, and the same inputs always run through the same calculation.
To read a document, CarbonKick sends its contents to an AI model provider for extraction. CarbonKick does not store your files on its servers, and your results are kept in your browser.
How a bill becomes a footprint
- Read. The AI model extracts each line's activity, quantity, unit and billing period.
- Check. Code reconciles the extracted lines against the totals printed on the bill and sets aside delivery and transportation charge lines.
- Classify. Code assigns each line a GHG Protocol scope and category by documented rules.
- Match a factor. Code selects an emission factor from the sourced registry by rule.
- Calculate. Code converts units where needed, multiplies quantity by factor, and totals the lines into scope totals and a footprint.
- Label. Every line carries a confidence label, its factor, and the factor's source and edition year. Estimates and gaps are disclosed.
How a factor is chosen
Factors are chosen by rule, never by the model. For each line, CarbonKick selects from its sourced registry in this order:
- Closest region: a factor for the site's location before a national one, and a national one before a global average.
- Most specific: a factor for the exact activity and unit (natural gas in therms) before a broader one.
- Most recent edition: the latest published edition of that source.
Every factor carries its source and edition year, and both appear on the line where it was used.
Emission factor sources
Every factor comes from a published, citable authority:
- US EPA: eGRID for electricity, and EPA emission factors for fuels, for US sites.
- UK DESNZ/DEFRA Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors, published annually by the UK government: used for transport, freight, waste, water and many Scope 3 categories, and for fuels where no closer regional factor exists.
- IPCC: fundamental values and globally applicable factors.
- National grid factors from government sources for sites outside the US.
When a source publishes a new edition, the registry is updated and the change is versioned.
Same bill, same result
Upload the same file twice and you get the same result: the same lines, the same quantities, the same numbers. Re-uploading a file does not add its lines a second time.
A stored number changes in two cases: when a sourced factor is corrected or replaced by a new edition, which is versioned and noted on the affected lines; and when you correct a line yourself. Nothing else moves it.
When a new upload contains lines that look like lines already stored from a different file (for example, a photo of a bill you already uploaded as a PDF), CarbonKick warns you and lets you skip them or add them. It never drops a line on its own.
Extraction checks
- Reconciled with the bill. Extracted lines are checked against the totals printed on the bill. A mismatch is flagged for your review, not passed through.
- Delivery and transportation charges. Utility bills often list distribution, delivery or transportation charges in the same unit as the energy used. Counting them would count the same energy twice, so those lines are excluded from totals. They stay visible on the report, marked as excluded.
No sourced factor, no number
If a line has no sourced factor in the registry, CarbonKick does not invent one. The line appears on the report as unquantified, with the reason. For example, a top-up of a refrigerant that has no factor in the registry is shown as a gap, not filled with a guess.
Spend-based estimates
Some documents carry dollars but no activity data. For those, CarbonKick uses a spend-based estimate: the amount spent multiplied by a sourced spend factor (kg CO₂e per dollar) for that category.
- Spend factors come from published sources, with their source and edition year shown.
- Spend factors are tied to a currency and price year. When your spend falls in a different year, the adjustment is dated and shown.
- Every spend-based line is labeled Estimated, and the report shows what share of your footprint is spend-based.
Scope 2: electricity
CarbonKick reports Scope 2 with the location-based method: the emissions of the grid your site draws power from.
- US sites use the EPA eGRID subregion for the site's location.
- Sites outside the US use the national grid factor from a government source.
Market-based inputs, such as your utility or community choice provider and any green tariff, are recorded and disclosed on the report. CarbonKick does not calculate a market-based figure.
Missing months
Gaps are listed on the report by month and document type, and never filled silently.
If you want a full-year figure from partial data, extrapolation is a step you choose. It is labeled, and the extrapolated amount is shown separately from the months you measured.
Corrections
You can correct any line. The original extracted value is kept alongside your correction, and the line is marked as corrected, so anyone reading the report can see what changed.
What AI does and does not do
| Step | Done by |
|---|---|
| Reads documents and extracts each line's activity, quantity, unit and period | AI model |
| Checks extracted lines against the bill's printed totals | Code |
| Excludes delivery and transportation charge lines from totals | Code |
| Assigns scope and category | Code, by documented rules |
| Chooses the emission factor | Code, by rule, from the sourced registry |
| Converts units | Code |
| Calculates kg CO₂e and totals | Code |
| Applies confidence labels | Code |
| Writes summaries and answers questions about your report | AI model, from the calculated numbers. It cannot change them. |
| Fills missing months | Nobody, unless you choose to extrapolate |
| Changes a stored number | A versioned factor correction, or your own correction |
How we classify scopes
Scope classification follows the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. Below is the simplified logic CarbonKick applies to common line item types:
- On-site fuel combustion (natural gas, propane, heating oil burned on the business's premises): Scope 1
- Company-owned vehicle fuel: Scope 1
- Refrigerant top-ups in owned equipment: Scope 1
- Purchased electricity: Scope 2
- Purchased steam, heating, cooling: Scope 2
- Purchased goods and services (raw materials, packaging, ingredients, supplies): Scope 3, Category 1
- Inbound freight and shipping: Scope 3, Category 4
- Outbound freight and distribution: Scope 3, Category 9
- Waste disposal: Scope 3, Category 5
- Business travel (flights, hotels, rental cars): Scope 3, Category 6
- Employee commuting: Scope 3, Category 7
Edge cases are handled by documented rules and surfaced to you when classification is uncertain.
Confidence labels: Measured, Calculated, Estimated
Not all emissions data is equally precise. CarbonKick labels every line item with one of three confidence levels so users can see, and disclose, the quality of each estimate:
- Measured: derived from direct activity data with a clearly authoritative emission factor (e.g., kWh from a utility bill multiplied by a published grid factor). Highest confidence.
- Calculated: derived from activity data using a standard published factor where the activity-to-emission conversion is well-established but involves some assumption (e.g., freight emissions calculated from weight and distance using a category-average factor).
- Estimated: derived from spend-based or proxy data where activity data isn't available (e.g., USD spent on a category multiplied by an industry-average kg CO₂e/USD factor). Lowest confidence within the dataset, and CarbonKick consistently surfaces these as estimates rather than measurements.
This labeling is core to CarbonKick's anti-greenwashing position. A business should know, and be able to disclose, which parts of its footprint are well-substantiated and which are best-effort estimates. Hiding the distinction is how greenwashing happens. Showing it is how trust is built.
What CarbonKick is not
In the interest of honest positioning, here is what CarbonKick does not claim to be:
- Not a third-party audit. Footprints are self-reported by the business, generated from data the business provides. CarbonKick is not an accredited verifier and does not represent its outputs as externally audited.
- Not a certification. A CarbonKick footprint is not a "carbon neutral" or "net zero" certification. Those claims require additional steps (reduction plans, verified offsets, third-party validation) that are outside CarbonKick's scope.
- Not a substitute for professional environmental consulting. For complex multi-site operations, regulatory disclosure under SEC, CSRD, AASB, or TCFD frameworks, or any context requiring auditor-grade verification, CarbonKick provides a strong starting point but does not replace specialist professional services.
- Not a guarantee of accuracy beyond the inputs provided. If the underlying bills and invoices are incomplete or incorrect, the footprint will reflect those gaps. CarbonKick surfaces completeness gaps and flags suspected anomalies, but the integrity of the input is the user's responsibility.
Known limitations and ongoing work
- Commodity-specific factors for agricultural inputs. Items like green coffee beans, cacao, and other commodities are currently valued partly on a spend-based basis. Activity-based commodity factors (kg of commodity → kg CO₂e at production) are being developed to improve precision for food and beverage businesses.
- Scope 3 completeness. Scope 3 categories are inherently the hardest to fully measure. CarbonKick discloses Scope 3 gaps rather than hiding them, and works to expand coverage iteratively.
- Market-based Scope 2 is recorded and disclosed, not calculated.
- Lines without a sourced factor, such as some refrigerants, appear as unquantified until a sourced factor is added to the registry.
- Range checks on individual extracted values (for example, 842 therms against 84.2 therms) are being extended beyond the bill-total reconciliation.
This methodology is versioned. Every change is listed in the changelog.
How to cite a CarbonKick footprint
Reports generated by CarbonKick include a footer with the version of the methodology used, the date of generation, and the source attribution. The recommended phrasing when referencing a CarbonKick footprint externally is:
Self-reported carbon footprint, GHG Protocol-aligned, generated by CarbonKick™.
Avoid representing a CarbonKick footprint as "certified," "verified," or "audit-ready." These terms imply external assurance that the methodology does not provide.
Questions and corrections
Methodology questions, source recommendations or correction requests: mark@carbonkick.ai.