Yearly update CO2-factors february 2025

All changes will take effect from 2024 and therefore do not require recalculation of previous years. The update is in line with the rules for the use of CO2 factors for the CO2 Performance Ladder.

De most important updates of 2025

Below is the list of the most important changes: all factors that have changed by more than 5% plus the change in natural gas (because this is widely used).

• Electricity
  • Grey electricity: -7%
  • Gridmix (NL) electricity: -18%
  • Biomass electricity: -8%
• Fuel and heat
  • Heat from heating network: +53%
  • Heat and cold from external WKO (market mix) -18%
• Refrigerant emissions
  • Most refrigerants +15% to +18%
  • For some refrigerants the changes are larger: from +11% (R22) to +33% (R600)
• Transport
  • Bio-CNG (kg): -22%
  • Bioethanol (liter): -11%
  • HVO (liter): +27%
  • Public transport (pkm): -30%
  • Bus + tram + metro (pkm): -25%
  • Bus (pkm): -16%
  • LPG passenger car (km): +19%
  • Electric transport (km): -7% (grey) -18% (grid mix)
  • Hybrid passenger car (km): +37%

Effect on CO2 footprint

The above changes are only visible in footprints for 2025. If you create a footprint for 2024 and want to analyze the differences with 2023 and previous years, this update is not relevant. You mainly have to deal with the changes in the factors that were implemented at the beginning of 2024, with validity from 2024.

Here you can read the news item about the most important changes in the CO2 factors of 2024. And these are our tips for dealing with changed CO2 factors (in Dutch).

Explanation of the changes in CO2 factors

Electricity
The emission factors for electricity have been updated based on the (continuously) changing composition of the grid mix and the increase in the share of green electricity. For grey electricity (i.e. without the influence of green electricity) there is a decrease of 7%. For the grid mix (in the Netherlands) the CO2 factor has decreased by 18%. This is due to an increase in the amount of green electricity and because the grey part of the grid mix has lower CO2 emissions.

Heat and cold supply
The emission factor for heat supply (NL) has increased by 53%. This large increase is mainly due to calamities at several large heating networks, which meant that they could use fewer sustainable sources and needed more natural gas for heat production. It is expected that this figure will decrease again in the coming years.

The CO2 factor of cold and heat from an external ATAS is determined by the electricity (market mix or green) used by the supplier. With grid mix electricity, the CO2 factor of the supplied cold/heat decreases by 18%, with green electricity it remains zero.

Emissions
For the emission factors of refrigerants, we switched from the values ​​from IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5) to IPCC AR6 in 2025. For most refrigerants, the CO₂-eq. factor increases by 15-18%. There are a few outliers. Because emissions of refrigerants are usually incidental (result of leaks), this will usually not have a structural impact on footprints. The higher factors make it clear that refrigerants have a slightly higher greenhouse effect per kg than we already knew.

Transport
The emission factors of fossil fuels (diesel, petrol, etc.) have not or hardly been adjusted. However, the factors of two biofuels have been reduced: bioethanol and bio-CNG due to changes in the production chains.

The CO2 emission factors of electric transport change in line with the factors of electricity. Depending on the composition of the electricity, the CO2 factor decreases by 7% (gray electricity) or 18% (grid mix electricity). The CO2 factor of plug-in hybrids in km increases. This is because they run on fuel more often than previously assumed.

The CO2 factors for public transport decrease. This is mainly due to the electrification of bus transport, but increasing occupancy rates also ensure that the CO2 emissions per passenger km decrease.

The changes are all in line with “CO2-emissiefactoren.nl(CO2-emissiefactoren)”: https://www.co2emissiefactoren.nl. You can find the changes there in the “change overview of CO2emissiefactoren.nl”: https://co2emissiefactoren.nl/downloads/ .