MAPC Launches Updated Tool for Community Greenhouse Gas Inventories
By Colleen Shortell, Clean Energy and Climate Planning Intern
April 29, 2024 – MAPC has launched an updated version of its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory Tool, which simplifies and streamlines the process for municipalities in Massachusetts to create and update their own GHG inventories. Using 2022 data, this tool offers a more up-to-date assessment of emissions data for climate action and net zero action plans, and an update option for municipalities that set their baseline using the original version of the tool with data from 2017.
The tool is accompanied by a Step-by-Step Guide that reflects these updates and provides municipalities with:
- A consistent and Massachusetts-specific approach to calculating greenhouse gas emissions from the primary sources of emissions in your community.
- Instructions on where to collect local activity data and how to estimate activity where actual data is not readily available.
- Guidance on how to use MAPC’s Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory Tool for accounting and tracking your community’s GHG emissions over time.
In addition to more recent sources of emissions data, the 2022 version features several changes.
Access the guide:Step-by-Step Guide
It includes more comprehensive data on the waste sector to account for emissions from wastewater treatment facilities. The tool also expands upon the transportation sector along with a more encompassing list of fuel types like compressed natural gas, propane, hydrogen fuel cell, and plug-in and hybrid electric vehicles (previously, the tool only accounted for gasoline, diesel, FlexFuel, hybrid, and electric commercial and passenger vehicles). For a detailed look at changes between the 2017 and 2022 versions, check out MAPC’s GHG Tool Updates Tracker.
To complete local GHG inventories, municipalities can follow the instructions in the tool to gather and input state and local data sources. A basic knowledge of Excel spreadsheets and some experience managing small- to medium-sized datasets will be useful in identifying relevant data and visualizing results into charts and graphs.
This example inventory (clicking link will download an excel file) completed by the Town of Natick shows the 2022 version of the tool in action. Find more resources on the 2022 Community Greenhouse Gas Tool and Step-by-Step Guide, and download the Tool at mapc.org/resource-library/community-ghg-inventory-resources.
