Crosswalk Labs offers a comprehensive measurement, reporting, and verification tool that presents a digital twin of Greenhouse Gas emissions for every city across the United States. The model generates emissions data (fossil fuel CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide) that align with reporting protocols including the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC) and the Common Reporting Framework (CRF).
Suitable for which city climate journey stage? | Establishing an emissions baseline Identifying specific sources of emissions |
Tool strengths |
- Nationwide coverage for every city; - Uniform methodology year-to-year and city-by-city, which can facilitate direct comparison across cities; - Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF); - User-friendly web interface; - Provides both data visualization and data export. |
Tool limitations |
- Only available for cities in United States |
Geographic location/countries | United States |
Language | English, Spanish, other languages as needed |
Accessibility | Crosswalk Labs offers a free-to-use version as well as a more detailed and granular subscription-based service. |
Methodology
|
Crosswalk Labs uses a data mining approach to ingest activity-based (aka bottom-up) data at multiple scales (including local) to best estimate emissions. |
Documentation of methodology | https://www.crosswalk.io/products |
Data quality/verified by 3rd party | Crosswalk submits its sources, methods, and
results for review by experts and publication in reputable scientific journals,
and Crosswalk’s process includes comparing its emissions estimates to the U.S.
government’s atmospheric measurements of CO
2. Past emissions estimates agreed to within 1.4% of direct atmospheric
measurements of CO
2. |
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF) | Emissions data provided by Crosswalk Labs align with global standards and protocols such as the GPC and GCoM CRF. |
Emissions scopes | Scope 1 and 2 |
GHGs | CO2 (fossil fuels), methane, and nitrous oxide. |
Sectors included | Stationary energy (including residential buildings, commercial and institutional buildings and facilities), transportation (including on-road, non-road, waterborne navigation, aviation, railways), IPPU (cement production only), and waste (including disposal of waste generated in the city, incineration and open burning of waste generated outside the city, wastewater generated in the city). |
Scopes, GHGs and sectors excluded | Scope 3 (except waste) GHGs: HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3. Sectors: AFOLU |
Temporal resolution | Annual |
Spatial resolution | City boundary, and neighborhood scale for fossil fuel CO2. |
Functionality for city to make adjustments | Cities can adjust for the spatial boundary, the time period, the individual or set of specific emission sources, and can also incorporate local data into Crosswalk data. |
Latest accounting year | 2021 |
Frequency of data updates | Every six months |
Units | Metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent (mt CO2e) |
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported | Data can be exported as maps, spreadsheets, csv files, shapefiles, and custom reports, and also can be integrated into common reporting tools such as ICLEI ClearPath. |
Additional tool functionalities | Provides detailed maps and spatial analytics to support climate action planning. Ability to overlay on other spatially disaggregated data like the U.S. EPA’s EJScreen. |