What if companies' environmental impacts could be quantified in monetary terms!?

About The Global Value Factors Explorer Dataset

The Global Value Factors Database, released by the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts during UN Climate Week NYC 2023, provides a set of almost 100,000 “value factors” for converting environmental impacts into monetary terms.

The GVFD covers 430 different environmental impacts across four main categories of impact: air pollution, land use and conversion, waste and water pollution . With the exception of the value factor for greenhouse gas emissions, for which a single value factor is provided ($236/tco2e), the value factors are geographically stratified (in other words, the value factors are both impact-specific and geolocation-specific). In total, there are 268 geolocations in the dataset reflecting all the world's recognised sovereigns as well as some international dependencies. In addition, one set of value factors, air pollution, provides data at the level of US states.

The value factors are intended for use by account preparers preparing financial statements which integrate their environmental and social impacts alongside their traditional financial impacts, unifying all their holistic impacts into one set of financial calculations While the GVFD covers only environmental factors, a key part of the IFVI's mission is also developing methodologies for quantifying social impacts.

The main categories of impact covered in the dataset are as follows:

Air pollution provides a set of value factors to monetise the costs associated with six air pollutants linked to effects upon population health, agricultural productivity and other impacts.
Land use and conversion provides monetary impacts for companies' roles in displacing “pristine land” for their operations.
Waste attempts to quantify the impacts generated by companies through both their generation and disposal waste.
Water impacts monetize both companies' water consumption and their pollutants covering 104 individual water pollutants.

In order to fulfill their intended purpose, the value factors need to be matched with the raw quantitative environmental data which each value factor is intended to convert into monetary terms (the value factors are expressed as conversions to the US dollar).

This derivative dataset was prepared by me, Daniel Rosehill, in order to facilitate the exploration and analysis of this dataset by non-commercial users. I believe that there is a strong policy interest in the question of how companies' impacts can be properly accounted for, recognising their societal and planetary effects.

To facilitate such analysis, I undertook a data reformatting process converting the initial version of the IFVI data from its original format (XLSM) and providing it as extracted comma-separated value files, as well as JSON structured in various hierarchies, some reflecting a territorial hierarchy (i.e. by geolocation) and others reflecting an impact-first hierarchy (in other words, with the impacts as the primary level, and the geo-stratified value factors nested under them).

The CSV files should provide the flexibility for users to work with the data as they see fit, while the JSON files direct towards specific vantage points and use cases for the data.

Use of the value factors is governed in accordance with the licensing terms provided by the IFVI (which, at the time of writing, provide for free usage for individual account preparers and non-commercial users.) Those looking to read the full official licence should refer to the website of the IFVI at www.ifvi.org

Licensing

This derivative dataset is subject to the same terms of use as the original database, available in license.md at the repository root.

Versioning

This repository reflects GVFD Version 1 (October 15th, 2024). It is not guaranteed to be the most recent version. Consult the IFVI website for the latest data and updates. While this repository aims to mirror the original GVFD, using this data for official purposes requires referencing the complete IFVI documentation, which is not included here.

Data Formatting

The source data has been restructured for various analytical perspectives:

By Methodology: JSON arrays organized by methodology parameters.
By Methodology, By Country: Mirrors the source database structure (except Land Use and Conversion, which are split into two files).
By Territory: Organizes data geographically by continent, territory, and US state (US states appear in one methodology). JSON files aggregate data from various methodology tabs.

Additional resources:

CSV format data.
metadata/ folder containing non-data items (e.g., notes from the original database tabs).

Data Modifications

No material data changes were made. Modifications are limited to formatting and restructuring for analysis. Two non-material changes (documented in the changelog) are:

Removal of US dollar signs for easier database integration.
Standardization of 12 country names to more common versions (e.g., "Bahamas, The" to "Bahamas") and mapping all territories to their ISO-3166 Alpha-2 codes for clarity.

Author (Source Database / GVFD)

The International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (IFVI)

Author (Repository / Derivative Dataset)

Daniel Rosehill