PAM U.S. Carbon Footprint Calculation Manual

The PAM U.S. Carbon Footprint Calculation Manual is a practitioner-oriented technical reference for greenhouse gas accounting in U.S. organizations, construction activities, buildings, and infrastructure projects. It integrates Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 accounting with activity-data selection, emission-factor hierarchy, electricity, fuels, refrigerants, freight, waste, construction materials, Environmental Product Declarations, embodied carbon, operational carbon, life-cycle assessment, benchmarking, data quality, target gaps, and reduction planning.

The manual is designed not only to quantify emissions, but also to help users interpret results, evaluate evidence quality, compare performance using appropriate functional units and benchmarks, and identify technically credible reduction opportunities. It emphasizes transparent system boundaries, traceable evidence, authoritative U.S. data sources, and reproducible calculation practices.

Prepared by PAM Sustainable Projects as a public-interest technical contribution, the work is intended to support engineers, project managers, sustainability professionals, organizations, educators, and decision-makers seeking a practical approach to carbon accounting and emissions reduction.