Emissions from Vehicles (by Type).

This calculates the footprint of a passenger vehicle based on its Type and Size, for a specific distance. For Scope 1, this should be used to report travel in vehicles that are owned or controlled by the reporting organization. If not owned/controlled by organization, the vehicle's emission is reported under Scope 3. This API is also used to calculate emissions related to employee business travel (including commuting) through trains, bus and taxis.

Introduction

Approach 

We use emission factors, data, guidelines from sources like UK Government GHG factors (2026), US Department of Energy, US Environmental Protection Agency and UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

The API to calculate the emission is simple: it just takes the category of vehicle based on its type or size, the type of fuel that is used and the distance travelled in either miles or kilometers.

WTT (well-to-tank) emissions consist of all processes between the source of the fuel (the well) through the extraction, processing (refining), storage and delivery phases up until the point of use (the tank) in the vehicle. Using the "include_wtt" field will add the associated upstream emission.

Ingested Data  

VEHICLE_TYPE : Mandatory. The acceptable values are the following: Car-Type-Mini, Car-Type-Supermini, Car-Type-LowerMedium, Car-Type-UpperMedium, Car-Type-Executive, Car-Type-Luxury, Car-Type-Sports, Car-Type-4x4, Car-Type-MPV, Car-Size-Small, Car-Size-Medium, Car-Size-Large, Car-Size-Average, Motorbike-Size-Small, Motorbike-Size-Medium, Motorbike-Size-Large, Motorbike-Size-Average, Bus-LocalAverage, Bus-Coach, Taxi-Local, Train-National, Train-Local, Ferry-FootPassenger, Ferry-CarPassenger and Ferry-AllPassenger

DISTANCE_VALUE : Mandatory. The distance travelled by vehicle.

DISTANCE_UNIT : Mandatory. The acceptable values are "km" for kilometers and "mi" for miles. This will default to "km", if any other value is passed.

​FUEL_TYPE : Optional. There are 5 possible values here: Diesel, Petrol, PHEV, BEV and Unknown. If in doubt, select the Unknown value, which is also the default.​

INCLUDE_WTT : Optional. As explained above. The default value is "Y".

Example

import http.client

conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection("carbonsutra1.p.rapidapi.com")

payload = "vehicle_type=Car-Type-Executive&distance_value=11250&distance_unit=km"

headers = {
    'content-type': "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    'Authorization': "Bearer <AUTHORIZATION_TOKEN>",
    'X-RapidAPI-Key': "<AUTHORIZATION_KEY>",
    'X-RapidAPI-Host': "carbonsutra1.p.rapidapi.com"
    }

conn.request("POST", "/vehicle_estimate_by_type", payload, headers)

res = conn.getresponse()
data = res.read()

print(data.decode("utf-8"))
{
  "data": {
    "type": "estimate-vehicle-usage",
    "vehicle_type": "Car-Type-4x4",
    "fuel_type": "Petrol",
    "distance_value": 4500,
    "distance_unit": "km",
    "include_wtt": "undefined",
    "co2e_gm": 1106955,
    "co2e_kg": 1106.96,
    "co2e_mt": 1.11,
    "co2e_lb": 2440.43,
    "explanation": "CarbonSutra computed this emission profile using the UK Government's 2026 conversion factors for greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting. This is a 4x4 car, running on petrol. For a transit distance of 4,500 kilometers and with indirect/WTT factors excluded, the total footprint evaluates to 1,106,955 grams of CO2e. Standardized metric conversions render this as 1106.96 kg (rounded to two decimal places) or 1.11 metric tons. Scaled against imperial baselines using the conversion factor of 2.20462 (source: GHG conversion factors, 2026), the final metric is expressed as 2440.43 lbs."
  },
  "success": true,
  "status": 200
}

Notes

  1. If you know the make and model of vehicle, we suggest to use the API that calculates emissions by Vehicle Models for more accurate results. 
  2. WTT is an optional factor in calculation. While it is your decision to include/exclude it, we suggest the calculations are consistent with that choice, esp when the results are compared between periods.