QuickTrav Invoicing
Carbon Footprint (v1.7x8+)
Index
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Overview
Setup
Calculations
3.1. Air Tickets
3.2. Car Hire
3.3. Accommodation
Queries
4.1. By Line
4.2. By Segment
Offsetting
About Cleaner Climate
Last Updated: LCK 28/10/2013(v1.10B5)
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1. Overview
QuickTrav invoicing is partnered with carbon travel specialist Cleaner Climate who provide the calculation
methodology and emission factors to calculate carbon emissions on air tickets, car hire and accommodation
based mainly on the UK government’s DEFRA tables. This ensures that QuickTrav’s approach complies with
the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard which is the most widely used
international accounting tool for understanding, quantifying and managing greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon emissions are calculated in tonnes of CO² by multiplying various emission factors against ticket air
miles / kms, car days and accommodation nights.
Carbon emissions may optionally be reflected on each invoice and detailed customised reports may be extracted
using the standard line item query module.
QuickTrav v1.7x8+ now also provides an option to manually capture carbon emissions from land supplier
invoices and the system will use these ‘actuals’ if found in reports and printing otherwise it will calculate them
as before.
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2. Setup
Activate the carbon footprint functionality by selecting Cleaner Climate as the Carbon footprint calculation
method.
Setup \ System \Application
The system comes shipped with preloaded greenhouse gas emission factors (these are based on those supplied
by UK DEFRA which include both uplift factors and radiative forcing indexes for air travel). Should you not
wish to include these adjustment factors, you can download the required tables and update the factors in the
system accordingly.
http://www.ukconversionfactorscarbonsmart.co.uk/
All factors required for calculating greenhouse emissions for air, car and hotel are contained in data sets with
pre-assigned emission type ID keys.
Category
ID Key
Description
Accommodation
Accngt
Accommodation Nights
Car Hire
CarDay
Car days
Air Travel
Air
Dom/SH/LH *
Domestic/Short Haul/Long Haul
Eco/Bus/Fir/Oth
Economy/Business/First/Unknown
* Domestic = distances of 450kms or less, Short Haul = 451 to 3699 kms and Long Haul = 3700 kms or more
Currently only two sets of factors are shipped with v1.7z+
1. 2012 (All travel on/before 31/12/2012)
2. 2013 (Travel in 2013 calendar year)
All air factors / coefficients are stipulated in kilograms of CO2e per kilometre and the system converts the air
miles to kilometres when calculating emissions using the conversion factor specified in the system setup (as air
miles are statutory, the default conversion factor is 1m = 1.609344 km).
The data sets may be viewed/edited under Setup\Global Tables\Carbon Emissions
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The ‘New” action can be used to add an entire set of carbon coefficients (all zero) which must then be
individually captured.
It may also be used to update the effective date range of a set by specify an existing key (in which case you will
be prompted to update accordingly)
The base units for air ticket emissions are air miles converted to kms. You do not have to have air miles
activated in the branch setup (this setting is provided for the old method of capturing total air miles per ticket).
The system also needs to know the seat classes to identify which emission factor to use so you must ensure that
the flight class categories have been correctly setup as follows;
Setup\Company\Flight Class Categories
If flight the class categories are not setup, the emissions will be based on the “Unknown” set class factor
The base units for car and hotel bookings are days and nights respectively. In order for the system to be able to
calculate the relevant duration, you need to activate the capture of return dates in the branch ticketing setup
(although this switch is under ticketing, it is used for land arrangements as well)
Branch setup\Ticketing
If no return dates are available, the duration will be set to 1 which will result in understated emissions
The system also needs to know whether a land arrangement is a car hire or accommodation and as many
agencies use multiple or custom commission type codes over and above the standard ‘Car’ and ‘Acc’, each car
and accommodation land commission type must be flagged with the relevant sub category
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If land commission type are not categorised, they will be ignored by the carbon calculations
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3. Calculations
3.1 Air Tickets
The carbon emission is calculated on all air tickets and refunds by converting each leg’s air miles to kilometres
and multiplying by the emission factor matching the route type (domestic, short haul or long haul) and class
(economy, business and first) and travel date.
QuickTrav invoicing v1.6q+ automatically imports a standard set of routings and related air miles into the
routing air miles table (included in the genmast.def shipped with the upgrade) and automatically updates the
table from the GDS booking whenever a ticket is imported. This table can also be manually edited for routes
that have not been imported or for older routes before upgrading.
1 nm (nautical mile)
1.15 m (statutory mile)
1 m (statutory)
1.852 km (kilometre)
1.609344 km (kilometre)
Setup\Company\Routing Miles
3.2 Car Hire
The carbon emission is calculated on those land arrangements with commission / service types flagged as Car
Hire by multiplying the car days by the car hire emission factor matching the travel date. Car days are calculated
as the number of days from the travel to the return date (inclusive).
The carbon emissions tool calculates travel carbon emissions at the time of booking. Given that no data would
yet be available on the actual km driven in the rental vehicle a default mileage of 200km/day in a 1.4 – 2.0L
petrol vehicle is applied.
Note that the carbon emissions provided directly by rental agencies are based on actual distance driven and are
provided on the invoice subsequent to the car rental.
Given the potential variation in actual km driven compared to the estimate of 200km applied by default by this
software, it is not unusual for discrepancies in the emissions reported by the software and those provided by the
rental agency to arise. These are related to using estimated vs. actual distance.
Despite possible discrepancies, note that collectively car rental and hotel stays generally only contribute a small
component to the total travel emissions of a trip (~5% each). The majority (~80%) of the travel emissions of an
average business trip are related to the Air component.
3.3 Accommodation
The carbon emission is calculated on those land arrangements with commission / service types flagged as
Accommodation by multiplying the room nights by the accommodation emission factor matching the travel
date. Accommodation nights are calculated as the number of nights between the travel and return dates.
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3.4. Manual Capture
If this option has been activated in the system setup, actual CO2 emissions per supplier invoices may be
captured in the land arrangement capture form;
Note, although the reports reflect CO2 emissions in tonnes, the manual capture is in kilograms.
Most car hire companies report emissions in grams CO2e so these would have to be manually converted to
kilograms.
This field may be edited after saving (subject to standard access control / restrictions)
If the field is set to zero or left blank, the system will calculate the CO2 emissions as per the above.
3.5 Table Validity
All CO2 emissions are based on some factor (as per above) extracted from the carbon emission table matching
the transaction’s travel date and if no factor is found matching the travel date then the emissions will be reported
as zero.
The company month end will check to see if the carbon emission table contains factors for the current period
and will notify you if none are found.
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4. Queries
All carbon emission queries must be extracted from the line item query module and ticket emissions may
optionally be shown by each segment on the ticket.
4.1 By Line
In order to build a CO² emission report by line item, you must remember not to include any segment query
fields (including any one of these will cause the query module to repeat the line for each segment on air tickets)
The following fields are related to the CO² emission calculations
Query Field
Description
Air Tickets
Routing Details
Ticket routing (max 4 legs/segments)
Miles (Route)
Air miles calculated by looking up the distance for each leg on
a ticket in the route miles table
If the system cannot find any leg in the miles table, the total
miles will be set to zero. You can use this fact to build an
exception report to highlight any missing leg miles by setting
the miles filter to ‘Blank’
Land
Travel Date
Starting date used for land duration calculations
Return Date
Ending Date used for land duration calculations
Duration
No of car days or hotel nights for commission types flagged as
such in the commission type setup
CO²
Carbon emission travel category (Air, Car or Hotel)
CO² Type
An * after the type indicates that the value contained in the
CO² tonnes field was manually captured
Carbon emission in tonnes calculated by multiplying air miles
CO² Tonnes
(converted into kms) / land duration by the relevant
coefficients in the carbon footprint setup.
Example
Lhr/Dxb/Jnb
7,406
11/12/2012
25/12/2012
Air Travel
Car Rental
Hotel Stay
7.8847
0.0006
It is advisable to filter the source to only show air tickets and land arrangements (1,2,6) and to group the output
by Source as different methods are used for air tickets and land.
Example
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4.2 By Segment
In order to build a CO² emission report by ticket segment/leg you must remember to include any segment query
fields (including any one of these will cause the query module to repeat the line for each segment on air tickets)
The following fields are related to the CO² emission calculations
Query Field
Description
Air Tickets
Segment Route
Leg routing
Segment Class
The segment class letter
Segment Class Category
The class category applicable to the segment class
Segment Miles
The leg distance in air miles (as above, you can use
this field to generate an exception report for legs
without table miles by setting the filter to ‘Blank’)
Land
Travel Date
Starting date used for land duration calculations
Return Date
Ending date used for land duration calculations
Leg Duration
No of car days or hotel nights for commission types
flagged as such in the commission type setup
CO²
Segment CO2 Key
The carbon emission setup key used in the
calculation.
Segment CO2 Units
Air kilometres, Car days or Accommodation nights
Segment CO2 Factor
Carbon emission factor used in the calculation
(matches setup table for CO2 Key above)
Segment CO2 Tonnes
Carbon emission in tonnes / kilograms calculated by
Segment CO2 Kgs
multiplying air miles (converted to kilometres) / land
duration by the relevant coefficients in the carbon
footprint setup.
Example
Lhr/Dxb
R
First Class
3,427
15/12/2012
25/12/2012
15
2013
Airlhfir
5516
0.661470
3.6487
0.0006
It is advisable to filter the source to only show air tickets and land arrangements (1,2,6) and to group the output
by Source as different methods are used for air tickets and land.
Example
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5. Offsetting
Contact Cleaner Climate if your customers or clients wish to offset their travel footprint.
Offsetting refers to the process of neutralising the carbon emission effect of a customer’s travel through the
purchase of carbon credits (offsets) equal to the carbon footprint of their travel (flights, hotel stays & car rental)
as calculated by the QuickTrav software.
A carbon credit or offset effectively negates or "neutralises" a tonne of CO2 emitted in one place (e.g. through
flying) by avoiding the release of a ton of CO2 elsewhere through a registered carbon emission reduction project
(such as a renewable energy or energy efficiency project).
Only credits arising from projects registered with international accreditation schemes such as the United Nations
CDM, Gold Standard or Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) provide guaranteed, audited, permanent emission
reductions.
Cleaner Climate is a preferred offset supplier to United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), has procured
offsets for leading corporate globally, is a member of the Advisory Forum for the UK’s Department Energy and
Climate Change Quality Assurance scheme for carbon offsetting, and was ranked in the top 3 offset companies
in Australia’s 2008 Carbon Offset Watch survey.
Offsetting with Cleaner Climate’s credits ensures no reputational risk to corporate clients.
6. About Cleaner Climate
Cleaner Climate is a specialist carbon solutions company. We work in partnership with major commercial and
public sector organizations to reduce business risk associated with carbon and climate change, whilst
maximizing the associated opportunities.
Cleaner Climate’s suite of carbon management services assist clients in measuring, managing and mitigating
their carbon emissions to realise business and financial benefits.
One of our specialist services is emission reporting and offsetting solutions for the travel industry. We are
partnered with leading travel & tour operators in Asia-Pacific & South Africa, including Greyhound Australia,
HRG Rennies Travel, Harvey World Travel and Flight Centre amongst others.To read more on Cleaner
Climate’s services, go to www.cleanerclimate.com
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APPENDIX A: DEFRA TABLES
2012
With RF
Activity
Haul
Class
Average
Domestic passenger
Average
passenger
Shorthaul
Economy class
Flights
Longhaul
Unit
kg CO2e
passenger.km
0.34387
kg CO2
kg N2O
0.34198
0.00178
passenger.km
0.196299 0.195275 0.001014
passenger.km
0.187049 0.186079 0.000959
Business class
Average
passenger
passenger.km
0.28059
0.279129
0.00145
passenger.km
0.224606
0.22344
0.001155
Economy class
passenger.km
0.163962 0.163112
0.00085
Premium
economy class
passenger.km
0.262329 0.260967 0.001352
Business class
passenger.km
First class
passenger.km
0.47548
0.473016 0.002453
0.655849 0.652448 0.003379
2013
With RF
Activity Haul
Domestic
Short-haul
Class
Unit
kg CO2
kg CH4
kg N2O
Average
passenger
passenger.km
0.326615
0.324811
0.000119
0.001685
passenger.km
0.192457
0.191452
0.000011
0.000994
passenger.km
0.183404
0.182443
0.000011
0.00095
passenger.km
0.275101
0.273675
0.000011
0.001415
passenger.km
0.226528
0.225351
0.000011
0.001166
passenger.km
0.165362
0.164509
passenger.km
0.264582
0.26321
0.000011
0.001361
Business class
passenger.km
0.479574
0.47709
0.000011
0.002473
First class
passenger.km
0.66147
0.658035
0.000022
0.003413
Average
passenger
Economy
class
Business class
Flights
Long-haul
Average
passenger
Economy
class
Premium
economy
class
kg CO2e
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APPENDIX B: Multiple Choice Questions
1. Overview
Any two of the following questions
Who provides the underlying methodology and factors used by QuickTrav to calculate carbon emissions on
travel items?
• Quick Software
• The South African Government
• Cleaner Climate / UK DEFRA
• World Health Organization
• United Nations
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard is a set of guidelines;
• Forming part of the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) in South Africa
• For understanding, quantifying, managing and accounting for greenhouse gas emissions
• For alternative energy
• For domestic agricultural schemes
Carbon emissions (CO2) are calculated in
• Tonnes or Kilograms
• Kilojoules
• Millibars
• Hectopascals
• Pounds
Carbon emissions may be reflected on client invoices?
• Yes
• No
2. Setup
Any two of the following questions
The cleaner climate factors have to be manually loaded into the system setup before calculations can be made?
• Yes
• No
The system can calculate carbon emissions on
• Air tickets
• Car Hire
• Hotel Accommodation
• All of the above
• None of the above
In order for carbon emissions to be calculated on air miles, you need to activate the air miles in the system
setup?
• Yes
• No
In order for carbon emissions to be calculated on car hire and accommodation, you need to activate the capture
of return dates in the system setup?
• Yes
• No
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3. Calculations
Any 4 of the following questions
The carbon emission calculation on air tickets is affected by
• Air miles
• Route type (domestic, short or long haul)
• Seating class (economy, business or first)
• All of the above
• None of the above
The carbon emission calculation on air tickets is not affected by the seating class
• True
• False
The carbon emission calculation on air tickets is affected by the routing type (domestic, short haul or long haul)
• True
• False
A flight leg is deemed to be long haul if the distance is greater than or equal to
• 10,000 km
• 3,122 km
• 5,000 statutory miles
• 3,700 kms
• 2,850 nautical miles
A flight leg is deemed to be domestic if
• The from and to airports are in the same country
• The distance is less than equal to 450 nautical miles
• The air commission type is domestic
• The distance is less than or equal to 450 kilometres
• The from and to airports are the same
Air miles for all routes on an air ticket must exist in the system setup (imported, automatic or manual) before the
carbon emissions for that ticket can be calculated
• True
• False
The carbon emission calculation used by QuickTrav / Cleaner Climate for car hire is based on
• The car type
• The actual distance travelled
• The number of days hired
• All of the above
• None of the above
As at the time of the booking, actual distance is not known, the car hire emissions are calculated on the number
of days hired for which default car ?
• 3.0 liter 4x4 diesel doing 100 km/day
• 1.3 liter hatchback doing 50 km/day
• Luxury German saloon with unlimited mileage
• 1.4 - 2.0l petrol vehicle doing 200 km/day
• Family MPV doing 200 km/day
The carbon emission calculation provided by the car hire company will always exactly match the emissions
calculated by QuickTrav.
• True
• False
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The carbon emission calculation used by QuickTrav / Cleaner Climate for hotel accommodation is based on
• The room type
• The number of nights
• The hotel star grading
• The hotel location
4. Queries
One of the following questions
What is the easiest way to check that air miles have been defined for all segments on all air ticket routes
included in a line item query?
• It is not possible to check this
• Set the air miles filter to blank and check if any records are included
• Set the duration filter to zero and check if any records are included
If the air miles are not defined for all legs on an air ticket, the reported miles for that ticket’s route will be set to
zero
• True
• False
When building a query on carbon emissions by ticket, one must not include any segment fields as
• It will confuse the users
• It will cause the line item query module to repeat the line for each segment on the ticket and thus
overstate the total route emissions in the totals
• It will cause the query module to ignore the total route emission and only show the segment emissions
• They are not applicable
5. Offsetting
Offsetting one’s carbon footprint is a process of
• Reducing the carbon emissions incurred from travelling
• Neutralizing the carbon footprint incurred from travelling by purchasing equivalent carbon credits
• Paying additional taxes to cover your carbon footprint
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