Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors 2026
These conversion factors enable users to calculate and report greenhouse gas emissions from their UK activities in 2026.
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The UK government conversion factors for company reporting of greenhouse gas emissions enable users to calculate and report their emissions based on their activity data, such as volume of fuel used, kWh of electricity purchased, or distance travelled, for their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions separately.
They are suitable for use by:
- UK-based organisations of all sizes
- International organisations reporting on their UK operations
They are relevant to Environmental Reporting Guidelines, including Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) regulations. The factors may also be used for other purposes, but users do so at their own risk.
An update is published each year, together with a methodology report explaining how they are derived and a major changes report explaining any major changes since the previous publication.
These conversion factors differ from the spend-based emissions multipliers currently published by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) alongside the annual UK and England carbon footprint publication. Defra’s spend-based multipliers are primarily intended to allow users to compare the carbon intensities of different categories of final UK demand, however, they can be used to provide an initial assessment of a user’s full supply-chain emissions based on spending across different goods and services.
Users may wish to use spend-based methods where they do not have sufficient data to use activity-based methods. Users should ensure they report the methods used for their emissions accounting.
New users should read the general guidance and FAQs provided in the ‘Introduction’ worksheet as well as the specific guidance and FAQs provided in each relevant worksheet in the ‘full set’ spreadsheet.
Regular users should read the ‘What’s new’ worksheet in the ‘full set’ spreadsheet which highlights significant changes to support consistent and comparable reporting year-on-year.