Tool: Municipal Energy and Emissions Database (MEED)

MEED is an online dashboard, developed by consultancies Sustainability Solutions Group and whatif? Technologies, where Canadian municipalities can view their total and per-sector energy and emissions data. This is a Beta version, and the tool is in the process of being updated.

Specifications

Suitable for which city climate journey stage?	Establishing an emissions baseline
Tool strengths	- Aligned with the GPC format
Tool limitations	- Currently no functionality for municipality to input their own local data to improve the accuracy of the output, but a mechanism is currently being worked on for communities to create custom inventories using their local utility reported energy data. - Currently no functionality to export the GPC report as an excel file. - Only available for municipalities in Canada.
Geographic location/countries	Canada
Language	English, French
Accessibility	Free to use
Methodology	The tool estimates local municipality emissions by downscaling national and regional energy and GHG emissions data to local governments across Canada, using geospatial analysis and machine learning methods. The national and regional data is downscaled using localised data points, such as population, households, employment, weather and known large emitters. The tool integrates both bottom-up activity-based community GHG inventory data and top-down national and regional data, including waste disposal. To assess the quality of the output, the results are compared to published federal energy and emissions reports. Where there are differences, the MEED calculator assumptions are adjusted. Emissions from large industries have been allocated to the places where their employees are registered. The data sources for MEED come from: Statistics Canada; Census of Population; Business Register; Disposal of waste, by source; Index of Remoteness; Census of Agriculture; Natural Resources Canada; Comprehensive Energy Use Database (CEUD); and National Railway Network.
Documentation of methodology	https://meed.info/documents/MEED_Tech_doc_v0-1.pdf
Data quality/verified by 3rd party	To assess the quality of the output, the results are compared to published federal energy and emissions reports. Where there are differences, the MEED calculator assumptions are adjusted. The data is not verified by a third party.
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF )	Aligned with GPC
Emissions scopes	1, 2
GHGs	CO2, CH4, N2O
Sectors included	Transport, buildings, stationary energy sources, waste
Scopes, GHGs and sectors excluded	Scopes: scope 3. GHGs: HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3. Sectors: IPPU and AFOLU.
Temporal resolution	Annual
Spatial resolution	City boundary
Functionality for city to make adjustments	No functionality to adjust the boundaries or for cities to add local data to improve the accuracy of the data. A mechanism is currently being worked on for communities to create custom inventories using their local utility reported energy data.
Latest accounting year	2018 (soon to be updated to 2019)
Frequency of data updates	Annual
Units	Metric tonnes (tCO2e)
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported	To access the tool, cities need to register on the dashboard. Following this, the user can search for their city using the “Access Data” search bar. Cities can explore the data for total emissions or individual sectors on the dashboard. The tool also automatically converts the data into the GPC format online, therefore the data can be copied and pasted straight into the GPC inventory format. An upcoming update to the tool will enable municipalities to add their own local data as well as export the data to excel.
Additional tool functionalities	None