Learn how Skrym calculates emissions for your orders

Skrym splits the emissions in E-commerce in two parts of the delivery:

Emissions from creating the packaging materials
Emissions from energy required to transport the package(s)

With Skrym, you can display estimated emissions already in the pre-payment phase, giving your customers more transparency into their choice of delivery!
Limits
Trying to do exact calculations for a shipment before it has happened is impossible due to the enormous amount of small decisions that impact the actual emissions.
Skrym utilizes the best available data to reduce any inaccuracies, but cannot guarantee that the assumptions needed to do the estimation in advanced is followed.

Methodology

Emissions from the packaging material (including fill-material)

To calculate the total packaging  emissions for a given order, Skrym includes both the material emissions from the actual package,
as well as emissions from the fill material that is used to fill any empty spaces.
The package material emissions are calculated by using the following formula:

where  is the surface area (calculated based on  standard),  is the density of the material, and  is the emissions factor for the material.
Fill Material
The fill material emissions, , are calculated by weighting the usage of all the different fill materials used by an organization by their respective emissions,
and then multiplying the weighted usage by the total empty space in the package, namely:

where  is the total empty space in the package,  is the fill material usage (representing how much of the empty space is filled),  is the set of all fill materials,  is the overall usage of fill material  in the organization,  is the density of fill material , and  is the emissions factor for fill material .
Units
| Variable | Unit | Description |
|---|---|---|
|  | kg   | Emissions |
|  |    | Surface area |
|  | kg/   | Density |
|  | kg  /kg | Emissions factor |
|  | % | Empty space |
| ,  | % | Fill material usage |

Packaging emissions

The vehicle emissions produced by a shipment

To calculate the vehicle emissions produced by a shipment, Skrym needs the following data points: the approximate route the shipment will take between the start and end location,
the vehicle that will be used for each segment of the route, emissions factors for each vehicle, emissions factors for the fuel that is used by each vehicle,
and package weight and volume.
If not all of these data points are available, Skrym uses first-hand data sourced from the relevant transporters but defaults to third-party records (such as  ) if the first-hand data is not available.
If no data is available in third-party records, Skrym uses  as fallback.
Route Estimation
The route that the parcel(s) take is estimated in these two simple steps:

Generating the assumed delivery route and breaking it into several segments to reflect stops at Terminals and Delivery Hubs.
Assigning the relevant vehicle (that corresponds to the appropriate transporter) to each segment of the route.

Emissions Factors

The function calculates average emissions factors. It prioritizes obtaining direct data stored for the specific vehicles available for that route.
If this is not available, it falls back on the same information stored for the vehicle's model and its associated fuel.
If there are no available vehicles for that route, the transporter's whole fleet for that route segment type is used.
If no emissions factors are found, or if a vehicle fleet is lacking, the function falls back on using default constants derived by .
These emissions factors are converted into a emissions-by-distance factor:



where  is the set of available vehicles for route segment ,  is the distance of the segment,  is the emissions factor for the fuel, and  is the fuel consumption rate of .
Impact of Individual Shipments on Vehicle Emissions

Volumetric weight is calculated for the shipment, based on its dimensions: 
Debitable weight is assigned by the greater of the volumetric weight and the actual weight of the shipment: .
The function then calculates the emissions for each segment of the route, using the following formula:



where  is the emissions for segment ,  is the distance of the segment , and  is the allocation factor of the shipment.
 is defined by:

where  is the capacity utilization of the vehicle,  is the maximum load weight that the vehicle can createFactory.
Total Vehicle Emissions
The total emissions for the shipment is then calculated by summing the emissions for each segment  of the route :

| Variable | Unit | Description |
|---|---|--|
|  | kg  | Emissions |
|  | km | Distance |
|  | kg /L | Emissions factor for fuel |
|  | L/100km | Fuel consumption rate |
|  | kg | Volumetric weight |
|  | kg | Actual weight |
|  | kg | Debitable weight |
|  | % | Allocation factor |
|  | % | Capacity utilization |
|  | kg | Maximum load weight |
Well-to-Wheel or Tank-to-Wheel?
Skrym's emissions calculation is based on the tank-to-wheel (TTW) approach, which means that we only consider the emissions produced by the vehicle itself, and not the emissions from the production of the fuel or the vehicle.