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Working with Carbon Databases in ORIS

How databases are structured, how to find materials, and how to verify the data behind your assessment

ORIS connects your bill of quantities to global or country-specific carbon databases to calculate the carbon footprint. Understanding how those databases are structured, how their material names are organised, and how the data behind each entry can be verified is essential for building assessments you can stand behind. This article covers all of that, from choosing the right database to understanding what a material entry contains.

Choosing the Right Database for Your Project

Why You Might Not Find the Material You Are Looking For

What a Material Entry Contains - and What ORIS Automates

Verifying the Data: Transparency in ORIS

 

Choosing the Right Database for Your Project

When you create a Material Assessment, the first step before creating the Bill of Materials is to select a Material Library. This determines which emission factors are available and how materials are named and classified throughout the assessment. You can align the selection with the geographical or regulatory context of your project to ensure local relevance and compliance. Alternatively, you may use ORIS Global, which is built on Ecoinvent-based European datasets and provides broad coverage of common infrastructure materials, enabling consistent assessment across regions when local databases are not available or comparable.

You cannot switch database mid-assessment

The database is set when the assessment is created and cannot be changed afterwards. If you need to compare results under a different database, duplicate the assessment and select the new database in the duplicate. If the database is changed after the bill of quantities has been filled in, all the inputs from the database will be lost.

 

Why You Might Not Find the Material You Are Looking For

A common question from users is why a material they know by one name does not appear when they search the database. The reason is that ORIS databases use the standardised nomenclature of the source database, not project-specific or commercial names.

For example, what a contractor calls “Asphalt AC 32 dense base 40/60 des”. may appear in the database as “Asphalt concrete - base layer” or under a specific mix designation.

A few strategies to find what you need:

  • Search by material family first, then narrow down. Search “asphalt” rather than the full product name and browse the results to find the closest match.
  • Use the closest available entry. If an exact match does not exist, select the closest generic equivalent. At the early design stage this is almost always acceptable. Note your assumption in the assessment description for traceability.
  • If a material you need is not available in the assigned library, you can select the "Custom Material" entry in the library and define the emission factor manually. This keeps the assessment moving while making the assumption transparent and auditable.


What a Material Entry Contains - and What ORIS Automates

When you add a material to your Bill of Quantities and select it from the database, ORIS pre-fills several values automatically. Some come directly from the database entry, others are ORIS defaults associated with the selected material. All of them are editable.

From the database entry:

  • Emission factor (EF). Expressed in kg CO₂eq per EF unit, covering A1-A3 Global Warming Potential (GWP is commonly called as “carbon footprint”).
  • Default measurement unit. The unit in which the database defines by default the material quantity, for example tonnes, m³, or m².
  • Default conversion factor. Pre-filled to bridge the dataset default unit to the EF unit where they differ. For example, if the dataset measures in m³ but the emission factor is per tonne, the conversion factor is the material density (t/m³). Override this if your project specification requires a different value.

Automated by ORIS based on the selected material:

  • Transport mode and default distance (manual distances). When you choose to evaluate transport using manual distances, ORIS pre-fills a default transport mode (typically diesel-based heavy truck road freight) and a default average distance for that material.
  • Associated site type (supplier-based transport). When you choose supplier-based transport, ORIS pre-fills the site type filter that is relevant to the selected material. For example, asphalt materials are automatically associated with asphalt plants, aggregates with quarries, and concrete with ready-mix plants. This determines which supplier sites appear in the site selection results.
  • Default search radius (supplier-based transport). ORIS also pre-fills a default search radius for the site selection step based on the selected material. This is an initial scope that you can narrow or widen depending on local supply chain conditions and project constraints.

These are starting assumptions based on the nature of the material and are fully editable. Review and adjust them to reflect the actual procurement context of your project.

Always review the automated transport defaults

The pre-filled transport mode, distance, site type, and search radius are sensible starting points but are based on typical assumptions, not your specific project. You can review and adjust them before finalising your assessment, particularly for materials with unusual supply chains or projects in areas with limited local sourcing.

 
Verifying the Data: Transparency in ORIS

ORIS is built around the principle that values in an assessment should be traceable back to their sources. In the Bill of Quantities, hovering over the emission factor of any material row reveals the data behind it - this may include the source database reference and the assumptions or notes associated with that dataset entry.

If you modify the emission factor manually, the hover-over is updated to reflect this change. Hence, it makes clear to anyone reviewing the assessment which values came from the database and which, if any, were user-defined. Where custom values have been applied, the dashboard will also indicate it, so that anyone reviewing the results is aware of manual overrides.

Tip: document manual overrides

When overriding an emission factor, note the source and justification in the assessment description so the change is traceable for audit or reporting purposes.