During a Carbon Assessment, intensity indicators are often a good way to estimate whether the organisation in question is on the right track.
For example, the tool provides default indicators in tCO2e / turnover, to account for an increase in the organisation's activity, thereby putting an increase in absolute emissions into perspective.
The tool also offers intensity indicators per full-time equivalent (FTE).
However, whether in your Carbon Assessment analysis or in the construction of new relevant indicators, you may wish to build other types of intensity indicators.
For this example, we will create an intensity indicator by the number of products sold. Before configuration, you must ensure that the 'Essential Data' section is visible in the analysis and has a sub-section: this will be essential for the subsequent operations.
You can ensure this by going to the Administration section in the Reference section and clicking on the relevant item: you will then have the option to make the item visible or not, and to add a sub-item.
Before diving into the construction of the indicator, you need to create the line 'Number of products sold'.
To do this, you can go to the data collection template and add data in the 'Essential Data' section. You can then enter a name and assign the data to one or more entities depending on your needs.
Be careful not to assign an Emission Factor to the line: the latter is only for analysis and not for the calculation of your Carbon Assessment!
Also, take care to allocate the line to the sub-item of the 'Essential Data' section we mentioned earlier, otherwise the line will not be selectable in your indicator.
To start, you can go to the Administration section in the Indicator part and click on 'Add an indicator'.
From there, we will add a variable and sum the emissions from all the components of the Carbon Assessment. To do this, you can click on 'Add a variable' and click on 'Category'.
You can then select your first category of your project and repeat the action as many times as you have items. Be careful not to add data from the General Data section if you have made it visible.
For this first variable, you should also use tCO2e emissions and not the value of the lines: you can ensure this by clicking on Emissions tCO2e in the drop-down menu at the bottom of your variable.
You can then create a second variable, selecting Data this time, and then look for your previously created 'Number of products sold' data.
You just need to provide the calculation formula for your indicator, which in our case will be $1/$2 to obtain our indicator in tCO2e / products sold.
Note: to make your indicator more readable in some cases, you can enter the formula ($1/$2)*1000 to obtain an indicator in kgCO2e, thus avoiding numbers with many decimal places.
Once saved, you will be able to find this indicator in the library on the tool side like the rest of your indicators!
You now know how to create a carbon intensity indicator!