On behalf of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), SMED has updated and further developed an Excel tool that can be used by government agencies to calculate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from business travel and the use of non-road mobile machinery or vehicles during governmental operations. The purpose of this project was partly to meet the requirements of the Environmental Management in Government Agencies Ordinance (2009:907) and partly to serve as a general tool for calculating climate emissions from an agency’s personnel transport and use of vehicles and non-road mobile machinery during governmental operations.
Previously, the tool (prior to 2018) only accounted for carbon dioxide emissions and did not include other greenhouse gases or indirect emissions related to fuel production and distribution. In 2018, the tool underwent significant development and updates, including changes to categories and interface to better reflect the current transport sector. Additional greenhouse gases (methane and nitrous oxide) and emissions values covering the entire fuel lifecycle were incorporated. During the years 2019–2023, simpler updates and minor developments were carried out.
This year’s project (2024) was limited to a review of existing emission factors, the most relevant updates, as well as certain developments and additions. Most of the updates concern road traffic. Information about fuels has also been reviewed and updated, particularly regarding the share of biofuels, with data from sources such as the Swedish Energy Agency and the Swedish Transport Administration. New data collection was conducted for bus and taxi traffic, and various values were updated where newer and better information was available.
Some new categories were added for non-road mobile machinery s (e.g., snowmobiles, helicopters, operational aircrafts), the Umeå- Vasa ferry line, and other minor changes. It should be emphasized that several calculation methods and emission factors used as a basis have been modified in this year’s tool, resulting in significantly changed values in some cases. These changes are further explained in this report.
In the 2024 tool, many emission factors are considerably higher compared to the 2023 tool, primarily due to a lower biofuel share in diesel, a direct result of changes in reduction obligation rules. Emissions for all diesel-powered travel and vehicles are approximately 40–50 % higher than in 2023, a direct consequence of the significant reduction in biofuel share. Gasoline-powered vehicles also show an increase for the same reason but to a lesser extent (2–10 %). When emissions are expressed as CO2-equivalents from a life cycle perspective (CO2e LCA), the percentage increase is smaller, as the biofuel share also contributes to fossil emissions during production.
For taxis in Sweden, emissions factors are at the same level as in 2023 (decreased by 5 %), but in Stockholm, emission factors per vehicle kilometre are about 35 % lower than in 2023. This is due to a significant shift toward more electric taxis in Stockholm (40% to 60 %, compared to the rest of Sweden, which increased from 7 % to 11 %).
For buses in public transport, data availability was much worse this year for all regions except Stockholm and Gothenburg, resulting in more uncertain evaluations compared to previous years. However, for Stockholm and Gothenburg, emission factors are significantly lower than in 2023 (5 % – 20 %), reflecting changes in bus fleets. Occupancy rates were slightly higher in Stockholm but slightly lower in Gothenburg. For some regions, differences between 2023 and 2024 are very large or even extreme (seven cases), which are assessed as erroneous. In these cases, the 2023 values are used instead. Nationwide in Sweden (excluding extreme values), emissions per person-kilometer are about 10 % higher than in 2023.
For rail transport, which is entirely electric-powered (except for diesel trains in Europe), emission factors have been adjusted due to major changes in electricity mix levels, including the "Nordic electricity mix" and "SJ Renewable Electricity." The Nordic electricity mix has been recalculated, resulting in about 25 % lower emission factors. SJ has updated its calculation methods, and the emission factors in the tool are adapted to these, leading to levels 50–100 times higher than before. It should be noted that the previous method produced very low emission values.
For boats, a completely new calculation method has been applied, replacing the previous one that was only partially updated in recent years. The new emission factors resulted in drastically lower emissions per person-kilometer in most cases (20–60%), but higher in some cases. The decrease was slightly greater for boats carrying vehicles. The explanation lies in the previous method, which derived emissions from ferry routes based on vessel specifications, such as installed engine power and average speed. The new method derives vessel emission intensity and the allocation between passengers and cargo from Marine Reporting and Verification (MRV) data.
For air travel, changes are minimal (+/- 5 %) except for the Gothenburg-Luleå route, where emissions increased by 36 %. The reason for this is unclear without detailed study of the ICAO tool's data, but a change in occupancy rates may explain the significant impact.
For non-road mobile machinery, emission factors are generally about 40 % higher for CO2 and about 30 % higher for CO2e LCA, directly due to the lower biofuel share because of changes in the reduction obligation. An exception is wheel loaders of 37–75 kW, which decreased, possibly due to changes in machine sizes or increased use of gasoline-powered smaller machines, where the reduction obligation change has a smaller impact.
SMED refrains from making specific recommendations for future improvements and development of the tool, as the Environmental Management in Government Agencies Ordinance (2009:907) has not been revised at the time of writing. SMED intends to provide proposals for tool development when a potential new ordinance is decided. For public transport buses in certain regions, caution is advised, and it is recommended to check specific information about the buses’ fuels. The updates made in this work are deemed sufficient to ensure the tool maintains good quality for emission calculations in 2024.