PCAF Facilitated Emissions Calculator | Part B (Capital Markets)
Compute the emissions facilitated by a capital-markets transaction under the PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B), with league-table attribution, the mandatory 33% weighting factor, and single-year issuance recognition reported in tCO2e.
One transaction, one multiplication, one weighting. The PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B) attributes the emissions an institution helps bring to market through capital-markets activity — arranging a bond, an equity issuance, or a syndicated facilitation — rather than the emissions it finances on its own balance sheet. Each transaction reduces to an attribution share times the issuer’s emissions, multiplied by a mandatory weighting factor.
The core formula.
Facilitated emissions = (Facilitated amount ÷ Company value) × Issuer emissions × 33%
The facilitated amount is the institution’s share of the transaction — for a multi-bank deal, the total raised multiplied by the league-table share (volume- or fee-based). The company value is EVIC for a listed issuer, or total equity plus debt for a private one. The attribution share (facilitated amount ÷ company value) is applied to the issuer’s emissions, and the result is then multiplied by the PCAF weighting factor of 33%.
The 33% weighting is what separates Part B from Part A. A lender or investor holds an ongoing position, so financed emissions are attributed at 100% of the attribution share for as long as the position is held. A capital-markets facilitator does not hold the issuance — it arranges it and moves on. PCAF therefore applies a 33% weighting to reflect the facilitator’s lesser, one-off role in bringing the capital to market. The 33% figure is a PCAF-set policy weighting, not a value derived from the deal; it is mandatory for the reported figure. A 100% unweighted figure may be disclosed only as a supplementary metric, never as the headline number.
Recognised once, in the issuance year. Unlike financed emissions, which recur in every year a loan or holding sits on the balance sheet, facilitated emissions are recognised a single time — in the year the transaction closes — and are not amortised or carried forward. A facilitation completed this year contributes to this year’s facilitated total and to no subsequent year’s.
Reported separately from financed emissions — never summed. An institution with both a lending/investment book and a capital-markets desk reports financed emissions (Part A) and facilitated emissions (Part B) on separate lines. The two are never aggregated into one institutional total: the relationships are different, the weighting is different, and the same counterparty can appear in both.
Data quality scoring is auto-derived on a single five-level ladder. PCAF Part B scores each transaction on one ladder (Annex 1 Table 10-1), from verified issuer emissions with known company value (Score 1) down to a sector-factor-per-asset estimate (Score 5). The calculator derives the score from the input shape — never self-assigned.
Excluded — the institution’s own financed and insurance-associated emissions. This calculator covers capital-markets facilitation only. On-balance-sheet lending and investment are financed emissions, Part A — see the listed equity and corporate bonds and business loans calculators. Underwriting risk is insurance-associated emissions, Part C.
Facilitated emissions are recognised once, in the year of issuance — PCAF Part B §5.2.
Only deals issued in this year contribute to the headline total.
Lead / active bookrunners only — co-manager and lead-manager roles are out of PCAF Part B scope.
Audit mode exposes the per-deal pre/post-weighting chain for verification.
Add capital-market transactions above and click Calculate
A pre/post-weighting waterfall, absolute facilitated emissions, economic intensity, an auto-derived PCAF data-quality score, weighting & company-value scenarios, and a full audit trail appear after calculation.
Results are indicative, intended for PCAF facilitated-emissions screening of capital-markets (debt & equity issuance and arranged syndicated-loan) activity. For regulatory and voluntary disclosure (CSRD/ESRS, TCFD, CDP, SBTi for Financial Institutions), validate facilitated amounts (league-table credit), company values (EVIC / total equity + debt), and issuer emissions against source data at a consistent reporting date; apply the 33% weighting factor and disclose it (PCAF Part B §5.2); recognise emissions once in the year of issuance; and report facilitated emissions separately from financed emissions — the two are never summed. Economic-activity estimates (PCAF score 4/5) are conservative proxies — UK/EU factors are gross-value-added-based, not revenue-based. GreenCalculus does not apply FX rates: enter intensity-metric inputs in a single reporting currency.
Facilitated emissions are the carbon a financial institution helps bring to market not because it lends against it, invests in it, or underwrites its risk — but because it arranges the financing that lets the issuer raise capital. When a bank acts as bookrunner on a bond or lead manager on an equity offering, it enables the issuer to fund operations, and PCAF’s Part B standard attributes a share of the issuer’s emissions to that role.
It is the PCAF class where the carbon is recognised once, weighted at a third, and never sits on the balance sheet at all.
Facilitated emissions attribute a share of an issuer’s emissions to the institution that arranges its capital-markets transaction. The formula is (facilitated amount ÷ company value) × issuer emissions × 33%, recognised once in the issuance year.
What facilitated emissions cover in PCAF
The PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B) covers the emissions connected to an institution through the capital-markets transactions it arranges — bonds, equity issuances, and syndicated facilitations — as distinct from the emissions it finances on its own balance sheet or the risks it underwrites. The defining feature is that the link is a one-off act of bringing capital to market, not an ongoing position: the institution attributes a share of the issuer’s emissions in proportion to the amount it facilitated, then applies a 33% weighting because its role ends when the deal closes.
Where this sits — and why it’s a separate PCAF standard
PCAF is structured in three parts: Part A covers financed emissions (the nine investment and lending asset classes), Part B — the standard this calculator implements — covers facilitated emissions (capital-markets activity), and Part C covers insurance-associated emissions (underwriting). They are deliberately separate standards because the economic relationship is different in each: a lender holds principal at risk, an insurer carries ongoing risk for a premium, and a capital-markets facilitator arranges a single issuance and steps away. For an institution active in more than one, the figures are reported on separate lines and never aggregated.
This calculator implements PCAF Part B. It is the final calculator in the GreenCalculus PCAF cluster, sharing the auto-derived data quality engine of the financed-emissions calculators — Listed Equity & Corporate Bonds, Business Loans & Unlisted Equity, Project Finance, Commercial Real Estate, Mortgages, Motor Vehicle Loans, and Sovereign Debt, alongside the Insurance-Associated calculator — but it is the only one that applies a mandatory weighting factor, recognises the figure in a single year rather than ongoing, and attributes a transaction the institution arranges rather than capital it provides or risk it carries.
Transaction boundary — what’s in, what’s elsewhere
| Covered in this calculator | Out of scope — separate PCAF treatment |
|---|---|
| Primary bond issuance where the institution acts as bookrunner or arranger | The institution’s own bond and equity holdings — financed emissions, Part A §5.1 |
| Equity issuance (IPO, follow-on) where the institution acts as lead or co-manager | The institution’s own corporate and SME lending — financed emissions, Part A §5.2 |
| Syndicated facilitation, attributed by the institution’s league-table share | Insurance underwriting of the issuer’s risk — insurance-associated emissions, Part C |
| The facilitated figure, recognised once in the issuance year at the 33% weighting | The institution’s own operational footprint — its direct Scope 1 + 2 + 3 corporate inventory |
The boundary that catches institutions out is facilitating versus financing. The same bank can hold a company’s bonds on its balance sheet (financed emissions, Part A, attributed at 100% and ongoing) and also have arranged a separate bond issuance for that company (facilitated emissions, Part B, attributed at 33% and recognised once). These are two distinct relationships with the same counterparty, weighted differently and reported on two separate lines. PCAF keeps them apart precisely because combining them would conflate the institution’s role as a capital holder with its role as a deal arranger.
How the calculation works — share × emissions × 33%
Each transaction reduces to one attribution multiplied by the issuer’s emissions and then by the 33% weighting. The attribution share is the institution’s facilitated amount over the issuer’s company value; the weighting reflects the one-off facilitation role.
Facilitated emissions = (Facilitated amount ÷ Company value) × Issuer emissions × 33%
The facilitated amount
The institution’s share of the transaction. On a sole-arranged deal this is the full amount raised; on a multi-bank deal it is the total raised multiplied by the institution’s league-table share — volume-based (its share of the bonds or shares placed) or fee-based (its share of the underwriting fee pool). Entered directly, or computed from total raised × share.
The company value denominator
EVIC (enterprise value including cash) for a listed issuer; total equity plus debt for a private one. The attribution share — facilitated amount ÷ company value — scales the institution’s stake to the whole issuer, exactly as the EVIC denominator does in the listed-equity financed-emissions class.
The 33% weighting
The attribution share times the issuer’s emissions gives a pre-weighting figure; multiplying by 33% gives the reported facilitated emissions. The weighting is mandatory and fixed by PCAF — it is not derived from the deal and not a user choice for the headline figure.
Do not report the pre-weighting figure as the facilitated total. The attribution share times issuer emissions is an intermediate value; the reported number is that figure multiplied by 33%. Reporting the unweighted figure as the headline overstates facilitated emissions threefold and does not correspond to the PCAF Part B method. A 100% unweighted figure is permitted only as a clearly labelled supplementary disclosure alongside the weighted headline, never in its place.
The 33% weighting factor explained
The 33% weighting is the single most distinctive feature of facilitated-emissions accounting, and the one most often misunderstood. It is the reason a facilitated figure is a third of what the same attribution share would produce under the financed-emissions method.
What it represents
The weighting reflects the facilitator’s lesser, one-off role relative to a lender or investor. A capital provider holds a position and bears ongoing exposure; a facilitator arranges the transaction and then steps away. PCAF set the weighting at 33% to capture that the institution enabled the capital to be raised without holding it.
Why it’s a policy figure, not derived
The 33% is a PCAF methodology decision, not a quantity computed from any individual deal. It applies uniformly to every facilitated transaction regardless of size, sector, or issuer. Because it is fixed, the calculator applies it automatically and does not ask the user to estimate it — the only related choice is whether to also disclose the 100% unweighted figure as a supplement.
How it drives the result
The weighting multiplies the pre-weighting figure directly, so the reported facilitated emissions scale linearly with it. In the worked example, a pre-weighting figure of 50 ktCO2e becomes a reported 16.5 ktCO2e after the 33% weighting. Switching to the 100% unweighted supplementary basis would report 50 ktCO2e — three times the headline, and valid only as a supplementary line.
The 33% weighting is mandatory for the reported facilitated figure. The 100% unweighted figure is a supplementary disclosure only — it may accompany the weighted headline to show the gross attribution, but it cannot replace it. An institution that reports the unweighted figure as its facilitated total has not produced a PCAF-compliant number. The calculator defaults to 33% and treats the unweighted view as an optional supplementary toggle for exactly this reason.
League-table attribution — splitting a multi-bank deal
Most capital-markets transactions involve several institutions, and the facilitated amount for any one of them is its share of the total raised. That share comes from the league-table position — the syndicate’s allocation of credit for the deal — and it is where a multi-bank facilitation is most often mis-attributed.
PCAF allows two bases for the share. A volume-based share allocates by the proportion of bonds or shares the institution actually placed. A fee-based share allocates by the institution’s proportion of the underwriting fee pool. The two can differ for the same deal, so the basis must be chosen, applied consistently across the book, and documented. The institution’s facilitated amount is then the total raised multiplied by its chosen share, and the rest of the calculation proceeds on that amount.
The default error is for every bank in a syndicate to attribute on the full deal size rather than its league-table share, so the sum of all syndicate members’ facilitated emissions exceeds 100% of the deal. Each institution attributes only its own share — volume- or fee-based — and the shares across the full syndicate should sum to the whole, not multiply it. Choose one basis, apply it to every position in the book, and state it in the disclosure.
Record which share basis — volume or fee — was used for every transaction, and keep it consistent across the portfolio. Because the volume- and fee-based shares can diverge for the same deal, a book that mixes the two without documentation cannot be reconciled in assurance. The basis belongs in the audit trail alongside the facilitated amount it produced.
Single-year recognition — why it isn’t amortised
A property unique to facilitated emissions among the PCAF parts is that the figure is recognised once and not carried forward. Financed emissions recur in every reporting year that a loan or holding remains on the balance sheet; a facilitated transaction contributes to the facilitated total only in the year it closes.
Recognised in the issuance year
The facilitated figure belongs to the year the transaction completes. A bond arranged this year contributes to this year’s facilitated emissions and to no subsequent year’s. There is no ongoing attribution because the institution holds no ongoing position.
Not amortised across the instrument’s life
A multi-year bond is not spread across its tenor for facilitated-emissions purposes. The full facilitated figure is recognised at issuance and then drops out of the running total. This is the opposite of the financed-emissions treatment, where a held bond is re-attributed each year it is owned.
Read the facilitated total as a flow, not a stock. Because each transaction is recognised once in its issuance year, a year-over-year change in facilitated emissions reflects the deals arranged that year — the institution’s capital-markets activity level — not a change in any held position. A quiet issuance year produces a low facilitated total even if prior years’ deals were large; a busy year produces a high one. This is structurally different from the financed-emissions total, which moves with the balance sheet.
The PCAF data quality score — the five-level ladder
PCAF Part B scores each transaction on a single five-level ladder (Annex 1 Table 10-1), from verified issuer emissions with known company value at the top to a sector-factor estimate at the bottom. The calculator derives the score from the input shape for each transaction and never lets the user self-assign. The ladder maps PCAF’s option labels (1a through 3c) onto scores 1 to 5.
| Score | Option | Definition (PCAF Part B, Annex 1 Table 10-1) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1a | Facilitated amount and company value (EVIC, or total equity + debt for private) known. Verified issuer emissions available. |
| 2 | 1b | Same financial data known. Unverified issuer emissions (calculated by the company per the GHG Protocol) available. |
| 3 | 2a / 2b | Same financial data known; reported emissions not available. Estimated from primary physical activity data — energy consumption (2a) and/or production (2b) — with primary-data-specific factors. |
| 4 | 3a | Facilitated amount + issuer revenue known. Sector emission factor per unit revenue known. |
| 5 | 3b / 3c | Facilitated amount known. Sector factor per unit of asset (3b), or per revenue + sector asset-turnover ratio (3c). |
The Part B physical-activity boundary differs from Part A listed equity, and the difference is intentional. In the listed-equity financed-emissions class, physical-energy estimation sits at Score 2; in Part B, both physical sub-options (2a energy and 2b production) sit at Score 3. This is not an inconsistency to reconcile — PCAF defines the ladders separately, and a Part B transaction estimated from physical activity data is correctly a Score 3, even though the analogous Part A estimate would score 2. The calculator follows the Part B ladder exactly.
Inputs this calculator needs — and where to source them
Facilitated-emissions accounting is a data-assembly exercise: the arithmetic is one weighted multiplication per transaction, and the work is in sourcing the facilitated amount, the company value, and the issuer’s emissions at the right vintage. The inputs below drive every result.
| Input | Applies to | Primary source | Fallback source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deal type (bond / equity / syndicated) | All | Deal record / mandate documentation | — |
| Facilitated amount | All | Total raised × league-table share (volume- or fee-based), or entered directly | — |
| Company value | All | EVIC for listed issuers; total equity + debt for private (with “estimated” flag) | Estimated company value (flagged; lowers the data quality score) |
| Issuer emissions | Reported path | Issuer’s reported verified Scope 1 + 2 (+ optional Scope 3) | Unverified reported (Score 2), or physical-activity estimate (Score 3) |
| Region → country → sector → revenue | Estimate path | Issuer revenue × sector emission factor per unit revenue | Sector factor per asset, or revenue + asset-turnover ratio (Score 4–5) |
| Issuance year | All | Deal close date — determines the recognition year | — |
Fix the league-table share basis before anything else, then keep it constant across the book. Whether the facilitated amount is computed on a volume- or fee-based share changes the attributed figure directly, and a mismatch between the basis and the stated portfolio convention is both a common error and difficult to spot after the fact. Decide volume-versus-fee once, document it, and apply it across every multi-bank transaction.
The result components — metric strip and transaction panel
The calculator reports in two components. The metric strip answers how much the institution facilitated in total; the transaction panel answers how that total breaks down by deal and shows the weighted-versus-unweighted relationship the 33% factor creates.
Component one — the metric strip
| Metric | Units | What it answers | Disclosure framework |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reported facilitated emissions (weighted) | tCO2e | The headline figure — pre-weighting attribution × 33%, summed across transactions. | PCAF Part B (mandatory), GHG Protocol cross-reference, CSRD ESRS E1 |
| Unweighted facilitated emissions (100%) | tCO2e | The gross attribution before the 33% weighting. Three times the headline. | PCAF Part B supplementary disclosure only |
| Weighted data quality score | Score (1 = best) | How much of the total rests on reported versus estimated data, attribution-weighted. | PCAF Part B (mandatory disclosure) |
| Facilitated intensity | tCO2e / $M facilitated | Reported facilitated emissions per unit of facilitated amount. | PCAF Part B recommended supplementary metric |
Component two — the transaction panel
The transaction panel holds the per-deal breakdown behind the book total:
- Per-transaction facilitated figure — the weighted attribution for each deal, with its data quality score and issuance year.
- Pre-weighting and weighted pair — each transaction’s gross attribution alongside its 33%-weighted figure, so the effect of the weighting is visible per deal.
- Issuance-year grouping — transactions grouped by recognition year, since the facilitated total is a single-year flow rather than an ongoing stock.
The weighted headline and the unweighted supplementary figure must be read together, and the headline is always the weighted one. The unweighted figure is informative — it shows the gross attribution before PCAF’s policy weighting — but reporting it as the facilitated total triples the number and breaks compliance. The panel shows both side by side so the relationship is explicit, while the metric strip leads with the weighted figure as the reported headline.
Worked example — a lead-bookrunner bond (PCAF Box 5-2)
This example reproduces PCAF’s own Box 5-2, run through the engine’s exact compute path; the outputs reproduce verbatim. The institution acts as lead bookrunner on a bond issuance, takes a volume-based league-table share, and the issuer is listed. Figures are in USD and ktCO2e.
Inputs and attribution
| Step | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total bond raised | $200M | Deal record |
| League-table share (volume-based) | 50% | Syndicate allocation |
| Facilitated amount | $100M | $200M × 50% |
| Company value (EVIC, listed) | $2,000M | Issuer EVIC |
| Attribution share | 0.05 | $100M ÷ $2,000M |
| Issuer annual emissions | 1,000 ktCO2e | Verified issuer inventory |
| Pre-weighting figure | 50 ktCO2e | 0.05 × 1,000 kt |
| Facilitated emissions (×33%) | 16.5 ktCO2e | 50 kt × 33% |
The institution facilitated $100M of a $200M bond on a 50% volume-based share. Against the issuer’s $2bn EVIC, that is a 0.05 attribution share, which applied to the issuer’s verified 1,000 ktCO2e gives a pre-weighting figure of 50 ktCO2e. The mandatory 33% weighting brings the reported facilitated emissions to 16.5 ktCO2e. Because the issuer reported verified emissions and both the facilitated amount and EVIC are known, the transaction scores 1 on the data quality ladder.
Component one — the metric strip
Reading the result — the weighting and the recognition year
Two points carry the lesson. The first is the weighting. The reported 16.5 ktCO2e is exactly one third of the 50 ktCO2e pre-weighting figure. A reader who saw only the unweighted figure would treat the institution’s facilitated footprint as three times what PCAF actually attributes. The headline is always the weighted figure; the 50 ktCO2e is reportable only as a supplementary line that shows the gross attribution.
The second is recognition. This 16.5 ktCO2e belongs to the issuance year alone. If the bond has a ten-year tenor, it is not spread across that decade — the full figure lands in the close year and then drops out of the facilitated total. A reader comparing this institution’s facilitated emissions year over year is reading its capital-markets activity level, not the running balance of anything it holds. That is the structural distinction from the financed-emissions total, where a held bond would be re-attributed at 100% every year it remained on the books.
Facilitated vs financed vs insurance-associated emissions
PCAF’s three parts describe three different ways a financial institution connects to emissions, and a large universal bank can touch all three. They share the attribution mindset — a stake over a denominator, times the counterparty’s emissions — but the stake, the weighting, the duration, and the reporting line differ in each.
| Dimension | Financed (Part A) | Facilitated (Part B) | Insurance-associated (Part C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relationship | Investment or loan | Capital-markets facilitation | Underwriting a risk |
| The stake | Outstanding amount or equity | Facilitated amount (league-table share) | Premium (commercial) or premium pool (motor) |
| Denominator | EVIC, book value, GDP, property value | Company value (EVIC, or equity + debt) | Customer revenue, or total cost of ownership |
| Weighting | 100% (full attribution) | 33% (mandatory PCAF weighting) | 100% of the premium-based attribution |
| Duration | Ongoing while held | One-off, recognised in the issuance year | Annual policy term |
| Decarbonisation lever | Engagement, capital reallocation | Deal selection, mandate screening | Underwriting-portfolio steering, engagement |
| Reporting line | Financed emissions | Facilitated emissions (separate) | Insurance-associated emissions (separate) |
The error to avoid is summing across the three parts into one institutional total. A bank that adds its financed, facilitated, and insurance-associated emissions into a single number both double-counts (the same counterparty can appear in more than one part) and produces a figure no PCAF standard defines. The three are reported as separate lines. The facilitated figure in particular is weighted at 33% and recognised once, so it is not even on the same basis as the financed figure it would be added to.
Reporting context — PCAF, GHG Protocol, IFRS S2, CSRD, NGFS
Facilitated-emissions disclosure sits across the financial-sector regimes, with particular scrutiny because capital-markets activity is where the gap between an institution’s on-balance-sheet footprint and its full climate influence is widest. The frameworks below cover the surface a capital-markets institution will navigate.
| Framework | Role for facilitated emissions | Mandate scope |
|---|---|---|
| PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B) | The methodology standard. Specifies league-table attribution, the company-value denominator, the mandatory 33% weighting, single-year recognition, and the five-level data quality ladder. | Voluntary methodology; the reference for capital-markets emissions accounting |
| PCAF Financed Emissions (Part A) | The companion standard for the institution’s own balance-sheet lending and investment — reported separately, never combined with the facilitated figure. | Voluntary; the institution’s balance sheet |
| GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard | The accounting standard PCAF cross-references for the financial sector; the conceptual home for value-chain emissions disclosure. | Voluntary accounting standard; referenced by most regimes |
| IFRS S2 (ISSB) | The global disclosure baseline. Industry guidance for capital markets covers facilitated emissions where material. | Mandatory in jurisdictions that have adopted IFRS S2 |
| CSRD ESRS E1 (EU) | The EU sustainability-reporting mandate. ESRS E1 captures material Scope 3 categories for in-scope institutions, with a methodology pointer to PCAF. | Large EU and EU-operating companies, phased |
| NGFS / financial supervision | The supervisory layer. The Network for Greening the Financial System and financial supervisors treat capital-markets climate exposure as a transition-risk matter. | Supervised institutions, by jurisdiction |
Once the balance-sheet and capital-markets inventories are complete, target setting follows. The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard framework and the financial-sector target-setting work take the PCAF baselines as inputs; the SBTi Near-Term Target Calculator consumes the financed-emissions baseline directly, with the facilitated figure tracked as a parallel capital-markets line.
Audit checklist — what gets flagged in PCAF assurance
Assurance over a facilitated-emissions inventory traces each transaction from facilitated amount and issuer emissions to the weighted total. The findings below are the issues reviewers raise most often on a capital-markets book specifically — they centre on the weighting, the league-table share, and the recognition year rather than the asset-level fidelity that dominates the financed-emissions classes.
01 — Unweighted figure reported as the headline
Reporting the pre-weighting attribution as the facilitated total overstates it threefold. Confirm the headline applies the mandatory 33% weighting, and that any 100% figure is labelled as supplementary.
02 — Full deal size attributed instead of league-table share
Every syndicate member attributing on the whole deal sums to more than 100% of the transaction. Confirm each institution attributes only its volume- or fee-based share, and that one basis is used consistently.
03 — Facilitated amount amortised across the instrument’s life
Spreading a multi-year bond’s facilitated figure across its tenor is the financed-emissions treatment, not Part B. Confirm the full figure is recognised once, in the issuance year.
04 — Wrong company-value denominator
Using book value or market cap where EVIC (listed) or total equity + debt (private) is required distorts the attribution share. Confirm the denominator matches the issuer type, with private-issuer estimates flagged.
05 — Self-assigned data quality score
A score typed by the analyst rather than derived from the inputs fails the trace. Confirm each transaction’s score follows the Part B ladder from its input shape — and that physical-activity estimates are scored 3, not 2 as in Part A.
06 — Facilitated and financed emissions combined
Folding facilitated emissions into the financed total — or vice versa — produces a figure on no single basis (one is weighted at 33% and recognised once, the other at 100% and ongoing). Confirm the two sit on separate reporting lines.
Data sources, boundaries, and update transparency
Issuer emissions and financial data — source hierarchy
The calculator implements the PCAF Part B source hierarchy. Transactions score best on verified issuer Scope 1 + 2 emissions with known facilitated amount and company value (option 1a), then unverified reported emissions (1b), then physical-activity estimates from energy or production data (2a / 2b), down to sector-factor estimates on revenue or assets (3a / 3b / 3c). The calculator does not maintain an issuer-emissions database — the analyst supplies the facilitated amount, the company value, and the issuer emissions or estimation inputs, and the calculator applies the weighted attribution and derives the data quality score.
The 33% weighting — a fixed PCAF policy value
The weighting factor is held in the MasterBrain at reporting.pcaf.facilitated_emissions.weighting_factor = 0.33 and read by the engine at compute time. It is a fixed PCAF methodology value, not a per-deal input, and applies uniformly to every facilitated transaction. The 100% unweighted view is a supplementary disclosure the calculator can surface alongside the weighted headline, not a substitute for it.
MasterBrain versioning
The data quality scoring rules (PCAF Part B Annex 1 Table 10-1) and the 33% weighting are read from the MasterBrain (v2025.59), which stamps each result with the version against which it was computed, so positions computed against different vintages are distinguishable in restatement work. PCAF Part B versioning is independent of the underlying scoring data — the methodology applies until a new PCAF Part B edition ships.
What’s next — completing the PCAF picture
Facilitated emissions are the last of the three PCAF parts. For a large universal institution active across lending, capital markets, and insurance, the full picture needs all three, each on its own reporting line.
✓ Completed
Listed Equity & Corporate Bonds
Part A §5.1. EVIC denominator.
✓ Completed
Business Loans & Unlisted Equity
Part A §5.2. Book-value denominator.
✓ Completed
Project Finance
Part A §5.3. Project-capitalisation denominator.
✓ Completed
Commercial Real Estate
Part A §5.4. Property-value attribution.
✓ Completed
Mortgages
Part A §5.5. Loan-to-value attribution.
✓ Completed
Motor Vehicle Loans
Part A §5.6. Distance-based attribution.
✓ Completed
Sovereign Debt
Part A §5.7. PPP-GDP attribution.
✓ Completed
Insurance-Associated Emissions
Part C. Premium and industry-factor attribution.
✓ Completed
Facilitated Emissions
Part B. League-table attribution at the 33% weighting. The calculator you just used.
With facilitated emissions complete, the PCAF cluster covers all three parts and all nine financed-emissions asset classes. The full methodological deep-dive on facilitated attribution — the league-table share, the company-value denominator, the 33% weighting, single-year recognition, and the five-level data quality ladder — is published on the paired PCAF Facilitated Emissions methodology page, and the data-quality-scoring logic shared across all PCAF asset classes is documented on the PCAF data quality score methodology page.
Frequently asked questions
They are the emissions a financial institution is connected to through the capital-markets transactions it arranges — bonds, equity issuances, syndicated facilitations — rather than through what it lends, invests in, or underwrites. Under the PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B), the institution attributes a share of the issuer’s emissions in proportion to the amount it facilitated, then applies a mandatory 33% weighting to reflect its one-off arranging role. The figure is recognised once, in the issuance year, and reported separately from the institution’s financed (balance-sheet) emissions.
Financed emissions (PCAF Part A) come from positions a financial institution holds — loans and investments — attributed at 100% of the attribution share and recurring every year the position is held. Facilitated emissions (PCAF Part B) come from transactions the institution arranges but does not hold — attributed at a 33% weighting and recognised once, in the issuance year. The same institution can have both, with the same counterparty appearing in each, but PCAF keeps them on separate reporting lines and they are never summed into one institutional total.
The formula is (facilitated amount ÷ company value) × issuer emissions × 33%. The facilitated amount is the institution’s league-table share of the deal; the company value is EVIC for a listed issuer or total equity plus debt for a private one; the issuer emissions are its reported or estimated figure; and the 33% is the mandatory PCAF weighting. In PCAF’s Box 5-2 worked example, a $100M facilitated amount against a $2bn EVIC gives a 0.05 attribution share, which applied to 1,000 ktCO2e of issuer emissions gives 50 ktCO2e before weighting, and 16.5 ktCO2e after the 33% weighting.
Because a capital-markets facilitator plays a lesser, one-off role than a lender or investor. A capital provider holds an ongoing position and bears ongoing exposure; a facilitator arranges the transaction and then steps away. PCAF set the weighting at 33% to reflect that the institution enabled the capital to be raised without holding it. The 33% is a fixed PCAF policy value, not a quantity derived from any individual deal, and it is mandatory for the reported figure. A 100% unweighted figure may be disclosed only as a supplementary metric.
No — not as the headline. The reported facilitated figure must apply the mandatory 33% weighting. The 100% unweighted figure, which is three times larger, may be shown only as a clearly labelled supplementary disclosure alongside the weighted headline, to indicate the gross attribution before weighting. Reporting the unweighted figure as the facilitated total overstates it threefold and is not PCAF-compliant. The calculator defaults to the weighted figure and treats the unweighted view as an optional supplementary toggle.
Each institution attributes only its league-table share of the deal, not the full amount. The share can be volume-based (the proportion of bonds or shares the institution placed) or fee-based (its proportion of the underwriting fee pool). Choose one basis, apply it consistently across the book, and document it. The institution’s facilitated amount is the total raised multiplied by its share, and the calculation proceeds on that amount. The shares across the full syndicate should sum to the whole deal, not multiply it.
No. Facilitated emissions are recognised once, in the year the transaction closes, and are not spread across the instrument’s life. A ten-year bond’s facilitated figure lands entirely in the issuance year and then drops out of the facilitated total. This is the opposite of financed emissions, where a held position is re-attributed every year it remains on the balance sheet. As a result, the facilitated total is a flow that tracks the institution’s capital-markets activity level, not a stock that tracks held positions.
EVIC (enterprise value including cash) for a listed issuer, or total equity plus debt for a private one. The attribution share is the facilitated amount divided by this company value, exactly as the EVIC denominator works in the listed-equity financed-emissions class. For a private issuer where the value must be estimated, flag the estimate — it lowers the data quality score. Using book value or market capitalisation in place of EVIC distorts the attribution share and is a common assurance finding.
Because PCAF defines the ladders separately, and the difference is intentional. In the Part A listed-equity class, a physical-activity (energy) estimate sits at Score 2. In Part B, both physical sub-options — energy consumption (2a) and production (2b) — sit at Score 3. A Part B transaction estimated from physical activity data is correctly a Score 3, even though the analogous Part A estimate would score 2. This is not an inconsistency to reconcile; the calculator follows the Part B ladder (Annex 1 Table 10-1) exactly.
No. They are reported on separate lines and never aggregated into one institutional total. The two are not even on the same basis: facilitated emissions are weighted at 33% and recognised once in the issuance year, while financed emissions are attributed at 100% and recur every year the position is held. The same counterparty can appear in both — a bank can hold a company’s bonds and have arranged a separate issuance for it — which is another reason summing them would double-count. Report each under its own PCAF part.
No. This calculator covers capital-markets facilitation only (PCAF Part B). On-balance-sheet lending and investment are financed emissions under PCAF Part A, computed in the listed equity and corporate bonds and business loans calculators. Insurance underwriting is insurance-associated emissions under Part C. An institution active across all three reports each on a separate line, never combined.
Methodology notes and limitations
Methodology version. Calculator implements the PCAF Facilitated Emissions Standard (Part B): league-table attribution, the company-value denominator, the mandatory 33% weighting, single-year issuance recognition, and data quality scoring per Annex 1 Table 10-1 (five levels). Inventories computed under a future Part B edition should be re-run and the version transition documented.
Transaction boundary. Capital-markets facilitation only. The institution’s own balance-sheet lending and investment are financed emissions under PCAF Part A (see the Listed Equity & Corporate Bonds and Business Loans & Unlisted Equity calculators); insurance underwriting is insurance-associated emissions, Part C.
The 33% weighting is mandatory and fixed. The reported facilitated figure applies the PCAF weighting of 33% (held at reporting.pcaf.facilitated_emissions.weighting_factor). It is a policy value, not derived from the deal. The 100% unweighted figure is a supplementary disclosure only and must never be reported as the headline.
Single-year recognition. Facilitated emissions are recognised once, in the issuance year, and are not amortised across the instrument’s life. The facilitated total is a single-year flow, structurally distinct from the ongoing financed-emissions total.
League-table share basis. The facilitated amount on a multi-bank deal is the total raised times the institution’s volume- or fee-based league-table share. The basis must be chosen, applied consistently across the book, and documented; the calculator takes the facilitated amount as entered or computed from the share supplied.
Company-value denominator. EVIC for listed issuers, total equity plus debt for private. Private-issuer values that must be estimated should be flagged, which lowers the data quality score.
Data quality ladder. A single five-level ladder (Annex 1 Table 10-1). The calculator derives each transaction’s score from its inputs and never self-assigns. Note that physical-activity estimates (options 2a and 2b) score 3 under Part B, not 2 as the analogous estimate would under Part A listed equity — this is intentional and follows the PCAF Part B ladder.
No issuer-emissions database. The calculator does not maintain issuer-emissions data. The analyst supplies the facilitated amount, the company value, and the issuer emissions or estimation inputs; the calculator applies the weighted attribution and derives the data quality score. It takes the supplied figures at face value.
No FX conversion. Facilitated amounts, company values, and the facilitated intensity must use a consistent reporting currency. The calculator does not perform FX conversion. Convert before entry; document the FX rate and date.
No assurance opinion. Results are estimates and do not constitute a PCAF assurance opinion. They should be reviewed by a qualified practitioner before use in regulatory submissions, IFRS S2 disclosures, CSRD ESRS E1 datapoints, or supervisory reporting. For an assurance-grade output, the per-transaction audit trail (deal type, league-table share basis, facilitated amount, company-value denominator and issuer type, weighting applied, recognition year, score derivation) should be exported and reconciled against primary sources transaction by transaction. The full methodological deep-dive is on the paired PCAF Facilitated Emissions methodology page, with the shared scoring logic on the PCAF data quality score methodology page.