Cite a factor

To cite a factor, copy the citation at the bottom of its factor page, then print the library's credit line beside it. The citation says which value you used and where to find it again. The credit line is what using the data obliges you to print, and it names two parties: the publisher, and open-climate.ai.

Copy the factor citation#

1. Open the factor page. Find a factor shows how.
2. Click Cite under the value, or scroll to Cite this factor at the bottom.
3. Click Copy citation. The button reads "Copied" for a moment.
4. Paste the line into your methodology note, next to the activity it covers.

The citation is one line, in this order:

open-climate.ai (<year window>). <activity> [emission factor]. <publisher>, <library> <edition>. Dataset 2026-08-28. Retrieved <date>. https://open-climate.ai/factors/<factor address>

• Year window is the window the headline value applies to, written as in factor search: "2019–", "–2018" or "2019–2023". A value with no year window reads "n.d.". See year window.
• The edition after the library name is the publisher's own label for the release you read, such as "v23.6". It is the per-factor provenance in the line, and it changes when the publisher releases a new edition and open-climate.ai loads it. See Editions and updates.
• Dataset is a fixed date written into the site itself. It is not a date from the publisher, not the day the value was loaded, and not a stamp of the data you are reading. Read what the Dataset date is before you defend it to a reviewer.
• Retrieved is today's date, filled in when you open the page.
• The address is the factor's permanent page. Factor addresses do not change: an old address redirects to the current one.

Watch out. The citation points to the factor page, which shows the headline value. If you used another value of the same factor (an earlier year, market-based electricity, a flight without radiative forcing), write that choice next to the citation. Choosing between similar factors lists these choices.

What the Dataset date is#

It is a fixed date written into the site's own code, and it identifies nothing in the data. It is the same on every factor page of every library, it does not move when you reload, and it does not move when a library is loaded or an edition is refreshed. It changes only when the site is next built with a different date written in. So it is not a freshness guarantee for the value above it, it is not evidence that this factor was looked at on that day, and holding it against an ingest stamp from the API or the database tells you nothing. Read it as a stamp on the page, not as provenance for the number.

Four dates sit around a value, and only one of them is this one.

The Loaded column is in the Versions section of each library page, beside the publisher's own date for the edition.

Because the stamp tracks nothing in the data, two people citing the same factor months apart can print the same Dataset date and different values. That is not a contradiction: the edition and the Retrieved date are what tell their two citations apart, and what a refresh changes says what can move under an address that stays the same. If the edition and the Retrieved date do agree and the values do not, something is wrong: report it on the form at the foot of the library page.

Note. The same date ends the provenance line under the value, where it reads "last verified". It is that same fixed site date, so it records no check of the number and no check of the licence. The licence check carries its own date, on the rights card: see What can I do with this data?.

To reproduce a number after an edition has moved, the Dataset date will not do it. Keep the citation, which names the edition; keep the file the number came from; and, if you work in SQL, keep the identifier of the value itself. Pin a factor value to a release sets out what to store. When two surfaces disagree is the same question for the API and the database, which do hand back an ingest stamp you can compare.

Add the library's credit line#

The credit has two halves: the publisher's, which almost every licence here requires, and open-climate.ai's, which the data terms require on every library. One line carries both, and the portal hands it to you ready to copy.

1. Open the Libraries list and click the library named at the top of the factor page.
2. Go to the Open data section. Each Your rights card carries a Credit line, with a Copy credit line button. That line is the whole credit.
3. If you took a file instead, the download dialog holds the same line under What this means, with Copy.

For ADEME Base Carbone the line reads: "Data: Source ADEME, Base Carbone v23.6. Normalised by open-climate.ai, https://open-climate.ai/factors/libraries/ademe (CC BY 4.0)".

Watch out. The Licence section of the same library page prints a shorter line, also labelled "Credit line:". That one is the publisher's half on its own, in the publisher's own words: "Source ADEME, Base Carbone v23.6", or "EXIOBASE 3 (Stadler et al.), CC BY-SA 4.0" for EXIOBASE. It is the same text an export carries in attribution_text on every row. Printing it alone credits the publisher and leaves out open-climate.ai, so take the longer line from the rights card, or add the second half to it yourself.

Always copy the line from the library page, never from a document like this one: it carries the edition you are actually citing, and it changes when the publisher releases a new one.

Print each library's credit line once, in the sources section of your report, even if you used many factors from it. Keep the citations with the individual lines.

Credit open-climate.ai#

The second half of the line is a condition, not a courtesy. The publisher licenses the values; open-climate.ai licenses the layer that makes them comparable, so the licence in the final parenthesis is open-climate.ai's and not the publisher's. That is why ADEME's line ends "(CC BY 4.0)" while ADEME publishes under etalab-2.0. The tick in the download dialog, "I am aware I need to credit the publisher and open-climate.ai", is this obligation. The data terms are where it is stated: which licence covers which layer, why a copyleft library makes it CC BY-SA 4.0, and the two conditions that ride with it, a working hyperlink on a website and no implied endorsement.

What this page adds is where the credit goes, which depends on what you hand over:

• A report or an inventory. The whole line, once per library, in the sources section, with the address as a working link wherever the document is read on screen.
• A product or a dashboard that shows these values. Keep the publisher's credit where the values are shown, and link back to open-climate.ai from your site. The download dialog carries the wording to use, which for ADEME reads "Emission factors by open-climate.ai (https://open-climate.ai/factors/libraries/ademe), from Source ADEME, Base Carbone v23.6 (etalab-2.0)". Its copy box hands that line over as plain text, address and all, so it pastes the same way into a document, a spreadsheet or a page of your own.
• A file you pass on. A library download carries the credit inside it, on its References sheet. An export carries the publisher's half only, in license_code and attribution_text, so add open-climate.ai's when the file leaves your hands. The same credit over the API and in SQL says why the route you took the values out by does not change that.

What the licence adds#

The Your rights card lists the conditions under "Yes, if". The ones you meet most often:

• "you credit the publisher": almost every licence here. The credit line does it.
• "you say what you changed": the Creative Commons licences, CC BY 4.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0. If you converted a value to another unit or used the AR6-normalised figure, say so.
• "you share the result under the same licence": CC BY-SA 4.0, which EXIOBASE and Open CEDA are published under. Read the card before you publish results or hand on a file built on these values, and follow the full terms on what counts as sharing.
• "you imply no endorsement by the publisher": the UK Open Government Licence, which DESNZ publishes under.
• "you keep the values unchanged": statutory licences, such as the Spanish law MITECO publishes under.

Which library carries which condition is on its card, and the What I need to do filter on the Open data page answers it for every library at once.

These answers read the publisher's terms; they do not replace them. The card says so: "Not legal advice: the publisher's terms prevail." Its Full terms link opens the publisher's text. See licence tier, licences and Download the open data.

A cited line in practice#

For a line in your inventory, keep together:

• the activity and quantity from your data;
• the factor value and unit you multiplied by, and the GWP it is on ("AR6 (as published)" or AR6-normalised);
• any value choice you made (year, approach, grid mix, radiative forcing);
• the copied citation.

Then list the full credit line of each library you used in your sources, publisher first, open-climate.ai second. A reviewer can open each address and check the licence from there. The address always shows the edition served today, which is why the citation writes down the edition and the dates you used: see Editions and updates, and Pin a factor value to a release for reading a superseded value back.

Next#

• Editions and updates: what the edition in the citation means, and what a refresh changes.
• The data terms: open-climate.ai's own licence on the layer, in full.
• Export to a spreadsheet: take many factors away at once, with a licence column.
• Read a factor page: where the citation sits on the page.