The release¶
The 2026-rc.1 emission factors are published as one Excel workbook that contains: a cover, a data dictionary, a producer-price tab and a purchaser-price tab for each year the data is available for, and five auxiliary tabs.
Cover¶
The first tab introduces the dataset and the release details:
Description: cradle-to-gate greenhouse gas emission factors in kg CO₂e per USD, by good or service, location and year, in producer and purchaser price. Prices are in current-year dollars, so the dollar year matches the data year.
Coverage: 148 countries and 21 regions, and 405 categories of goods and services (government services are not covered). The total and each gas (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, HFCs, PFCs, NF₃, SF₆) are given in CO₂e, annually.
Version, date and DOI: the release version, its release date and the Zenodo DOI.
Publisher and license: Cornerstone Sustainability Data Initiative, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Below these details, the cover lists every other tab with a one-line description and points readers to the data dictionary and the model documentation.
Producer and purchaser price tabs¶
There are two tabs for each year, with identical layouts: {YEAR}PRO for producer prices and {YEAR}PUR for purchaser prices. The producer price is the cost to the producer plus their profits and taxes paid. The purchaser price adds the value of sales and distribution. Read more about how to choose between purchaser and producer prices in User guidance.
Each row is one sector in one location, and the columns are:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Code | Good or service code, based on the BEA input-output commodity codes, which derive from NAICS. There are 405 categories. |
| Name | Name of the good or service. |
| Location | A UN three-letter country code, with additions for multi-country regions. |
| Location Name | Full name of the location. |
| Total GHGs | Sum of all greenhouse gases, in kg CO₂e per USD. Totals may not equal the sum of the gas values due to rounding. |
| CO2 | Carbon dioxide, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| CH4 | Methane, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| N2O | Nitrous oxide, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| HFCs | Hydrofluorocarbons, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| PFCs | Perfluorocarbons, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| SF6 | Sulfur hexafluoride, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
| NF3 | Nitrogen trifluoride, in kg CO₂e per USD. |
Values are in current-year dollars: a factor in a 2024 tab applies to spend in 2024 dollars.
Auxiliary tabs¶
The data dictionary and five other tabs support the data tabs. The data dictionary is the second tab in the workbook; the others follow the price tabs.
| Tab | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Data Dictionary | Definitions of each field in the data tabs. |
| Exchange Rates | Local currency units per US dollar for 221 countries and territories, with the columns Country Code, Country Name, LCU (local currency unit), Unit, and one column per year. Rates come from Open Exchange Rates (openexchangerates |
| GWP | The 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC AR6 that express each gas in CO₂e: CO₂ 1, CH₄ 29.8 (fossil) or 27.0 (non-fossil), N₂O 273, SF₆ 24,300 and NF₃ 17,400. HFCs and PFCs are already in CO₂e in the published factors, so their factor is 1. |
| NAICS to Cornerstone mapping | The correspondence between NAICS 2017 codes and Cornerstone codes, with the columns NAICS 2017 Code, NAICS Name, Cornerstone Code, Cornerstone Name and Weight. When a NAICS industry is split across several Cornerstone codes, the weights show each share and add up to 1. |
| Sector Descriptions | The 405 sectors with their Code, Name and Description. Cornerstone recommends using this description to map spend categories to emission factors. |
| Locations | Every location used in the model, with the columns Location, Location Name, Region, Region Name and Has Country EFs (whether the location has its own country factors). It lists 249 locations, 148 of which have country factors. |
Update cadence¶
The Cornerstone EEIO follows an annual update cycle. Every year we release a version named after the release year, so Cornerstone 2027 will be released in 2027. Releases are publicly available every October so companies can plan accordingly. Cornerstone EEIO 2026 will stay methodologically stable for at least the next five years, giving companies a consistent basis to rebaseline and set new targets.
Applies to: 2026-rc.1 · Last reviewed: 2026-rc.1