Use Assessment Report (AR) Global Warming Potentials (GWPs)

2025-03-05

Important

Some or all of this functionality is available as part of a preview release. The content and the functionality are subject to change.

Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) measure how much energy the emissions from one ton of a given gas absorb over a period of time, relative to the emissions from one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). To improve calculation accuracy, Microsoft Sustainability Manager lets you choose between Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports (AR) 4, 5, and 6, each with a 100-year time horizon.

Important

When ingesting fugitive emissions data, use (ARVersion) at the end of each gas in the Greenhouse gas table to indicate the AR version to use for that data, for example, CO2 (AR4).

Set a default Assessment Report (AR) version

Note

When selecting a default AR version for the first time, all calculation profiles are set to use that default. If you want to customize the AR set used at an individual calculation profile level, go to Customize the AR version of a calculation profile.

In the Settings area, navigate to App settings > General.
In the Calculations tab, select the AR version to use as your default for calculations.

Note

If you're an existing user who received the upgraded AR set support, the default is automatically set to Custom, which refers to the single greenhouse gas table that was previously available containing AR4. All new users have AR4 selected by default.

Customize the AR version of a calculation profile

To customize individual calculation profiles to use a different AR set than the default selected one, follow these steps:

In the Data area, under Calculations, select Calculation profiles.
Select an existing calculation profile that you'd like to customize, or select New calculation profile to create a new one.
Under IPCC Assessment Report version, select the AR set you want the calculation profile to use.

Use custom AR values

You can use the Custom AR version to modify the GWP value for existing gases or add additional ones.

Customize an existing AR value

In the Data area, select Reference data.
From the list of reference data tables, select Greenhouse gases.
Filter by AR Version equals Custom.
Select the gas for which you want to modify a GWP value.
Update the value, then select Save and close.

Add a new custom AR value

In the Data area, select Reference data.
From the list of reference data tables, select Greenhouse gases.
Select New and fill out the required fields, ensuring that AR Version is set to Custom.
Select Save and close.

Note

Adding additional AR sets or making customizations outside of what’s outlined earlier isn't supported.

Gaps in AR5 and AR6

Currently, Sustainability Manager supports 68 greenhouse gas GWPs for AR4. Of these 68 GWPs, AR5 and AR6 have some gaps in GWP availability. If a calculation profile attempts to use a GWP for a gas with a missing value in AR5 or AR6, it automatically defaults to the next tier down that has support for that gas. For example, calculation profiles attempting to use the AR5 R-407E GWP value automatically default to using the AR4 R-407E GWP value.

AR version	Gases without a GWP
AR5	R-407E R-504 R-508A
AR6	R-401A R-401B R-401C R-402A R-402B R-403B R-404A R-406A R-407A R-407B R-407C R-407D R-407E R-408A R-409A R-410A R-411A R-411B R-413A R-414A R-414B R-417A R-422A R-422D R-423A R-424A R-426A R-428A R-434A R-500 R-502 R-504 R-507 R-508A R-508B