FLAG emissions in Earthster
What is FLAG?
FLAG stands for Forest, Land and Agriculture. It is a way of reporting greenhouse gas emissions defined by the SBTi (the Science Based Targets initiative) in its FLAG Guidance. It matters if you work with food, farming, forestry, or other land-based products.
The idea is simple: emissions from land are reported separately from the rest of your carbon footprint, so you can see, in one place, what comes from land-based activity.
Get your FLAG report
Open your cycle and click Export.
Under Report type, select FLAG results.
Click Generate report.
What the report shows
The report is a table with one row per process and these columns:
Column | What it means |
Land use change, CO2 | Carbon dioxide released when land is converted (for example forest or grassland turned into farmland). (exchange: "Carbon dioxide, land use") |
Land use change, CH4 | Methane released from land conversion. (exchange: "Methane, land use") |
Land management, CH4 | Methane from biological sources — for example farm animals, rice, or wet soils — not from burning fossil fuels. (exchange: "Methane, biogenic") |
Land management, N2O | Emissions from Nitrous oxide from cycles tagged with flag |
FLAG | The total of the four columns above — your land-based emissions. |
Non-FLAG | The rest of your carbon footprint — everything not related to land (energy, transport, materials, and so on). |
Removals | Carbon taken out of the air and stored in the ground (for example carbon captured in soil). It is shown as a negative number, because it reduces your footprint. (exchange: "Carbon dioxide" emission/ground) |
All numbers are in kg CO2 eq (IPCC 2021 GWP100): every greenhouse gas is converted into "how much CO2 would warm the planet the same amount", so everything can be added up in a single number.
Works with the databases you already use
FLAG is compatible out of the box with the main background databases — BAFU, ecoinvent, Agri-footprint, USEEIO, Exiobase, USLCI, or PEF. Their land-related datasets already come with the flag tag, so you can simply use them and get a correct FLAG report.
What counts as FLAG in these databases
As a rule of thumb, a cycle is tagged FLAG when it emits nitrous oxide from natural, land-based sources (soils and manure) rather than from machinery or fuel. Below is a general guide to which types of processes are included or excluded, regardless of the specific database used:
Category | Included in FLAG (on-farm / biogenic) | Excluded from FLAG (mechanical / industrial / downstream) |
Crops & cultivation | Raw crops at the farm gate (wheat, paddy rice, fruits, vegetables, sugarcane, sugar beet) • Raw plant fibers grown on farm (e.g. seed cotton) • Direct soil/ground emissions and peat oxidation | Post-farm food processing and refining (e.g. processed rice, corn products) • Prepared foods and beverages (breweries, coffee, tea) |
Livestock & animals | Animal raising and aquaculture ponds (poultry, raw milk, wool, silkworms) • Direct biological animal emissions and manure on pasture | Post-farm animal processing (slaughterhouse meat products, processed dairy) • Industrial animal rendering and factory processing |
Forestry & logging | Forest management, forestry support services, and raw timber/wood extraction | Downstream wood manufacturing (sawmills, furniture, paper) • Mechanized forestry operations (clefting/splitting, wood chipping, yarding, skidding, forwarders) |
Field & machine operations | Natural biological processes and biogenic gas releases during cultivation | All machinery operations (tillage, plowing, sowing, mechanical planting, mowing, machine harvesting, baling, and so on) • Fuel burned in tractors and farm machinery (diesel, petrol) • Mechanical application of inputs (spraying, limestone spreading, slurry irrigation) |
Textiles & animal byproducts | Raw fiber harvesting at farm gate (raw wool, unspun cotton) | Factory processing of textiles (spinning, weaving) • Tanning and leather production |
Agricultural inputs & equipment | Basic agricultural means of production (seeds, breeding stock) | Chemical crop protection (pesticides, herbicides) • Manufacturing of farm machinery and garden equipment |
Biological processing & waste treatment | Anaerobic digestion of manure • Treatment of raw biological wastes (waste wood, wastewater from starch production) • Primary biogenic co-products (protein starch from citric acid, ethanol) • Combustion of biogenic fuels (burning wood, biogas) | Industrial composting/treatment with fossil auxiliary systems |
Logistics & distribution | (none) | All freight, transport, and distribution of agricultural goods |
Using your own data? Mark it as FLAG
If you use your own cycles for farm or land-based processes, add the flag tag so their nitrous oxide is counted correctly:
Open the cycle settings and in the tags field, write flag
What happens: the nitrous oxide emitted by that dataset is then counted as land management (FLAG) whenever the dataset is used.