Autopilot Endpoint version: V1 (preview 4)V1 (preview 4) ADD-ONADD-ON

Autopilot is an AI-powered calculation endpoint designed to automate spend- and activity-based emission estimates. It uses a proprietary natural language processing (NLP) model paired with Climatiq’s scientific expertise to streamline complex emission calculations, making carbon insights accessible to non-experts.

Autopilot significantly reduces the time and manual effort spent identifying the appropriate emission factors and mapping activity data. Capable of ingesting any taxonomy and unstructured data, this feature matches raw text content and contextual information to find the correct emission factors and delivers accurate and compliant emission estimates.

Autopilot's matching algorithm consistently refines its precision. This is achieved through active feedback and continuous improvement of the underlying NLP model.

Models

As Autopilot is powered by machine learning models, our models have pre-defined restrictions to improve match quality and relevance based on their training and optimization. You can use the source and exclude_source parameters in the request body to define which sources to include or exclude, as long as they are part of the sources available for the chosen model (see table below).

Additional models may be released in the future to support specific use cases and requirements.

Private emission factors ADD-ONADD-ON

While Autopilot has access to a comprehensive range of emission factors, sometimes you may want to include custom emission factors when performing emission factor matches. You may access your private emission factors as part of Autopilot, by first uploading them through the Private Factors API, or through the Dashboard. To enable this add-on feature, please reach out to us via the contact form (opens in a new tab).

When using Autopilot with private emission factors enabled, you can use all available filter fields (unit_type, year, region, source, exclude_source, and source_lca_activity) to refine your results based on the specific attributes you defined during the upload process.

Compatibility Requirements: Private emission factors must include required metadata to work with Autopilot. As of June 16, 2025, the following fields are required for private factor creation: activity_id, name, sector, and category. Private emission factors uploaded before this date must be re-uploaded to ensure compatibility with Autopilot.

Suggest

POST Return a number of suggested emission factors. The Suggest endpoint finds emission factors that you can use to calculate emissions with via the Estimate endpoint. You can adjust the number of suggestions to return, or filter the results by source, year, region, unit, or lifecycle activity. Suggestions are ranked, with the most relevant result presented first.

https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/suggest

Request

This endpoint accepts the following parameters:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/suggest \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $CLIMATIQ_API_KEY" \
  --data '{
    "suggest": {
        "text": "Cement"
    },
    "max_suggestions": 2
}'

Response

The response includes a list of emission factors and details about its relevance:

{
    "results": [
        {
            "suggestion_id": "giytkntbha4weljxmjstqljugqydkllbmfrdsljqga2ggylemu4wmzdfme-hbrtizteg44wmllegvsgcljumezdqllche4tmljsmm4dinzsgu4wcojugi",
            "emission_factor": {
                "sector": "Materials and Manufacturing",
                "category": "Building Materials",
                "name": "Cement",
                "unit_type": "Money",
                "unit": "kg/usd",
                "source": "EPA",
                "source_dataset": "Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emission Factors v1.3",
                "year": 2022,
                "year_released": 2024,
                "region": "US",
                "region_name": "United States of America (the)",
                "description": "Emission intensity of supply chain (with margins i.e. cradle to shelf) in US dollars spend on: cement manufacturing. This factor is representative of the described goods or services category as defined by the 2017 version of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Refer to the source for the source-specific data quality assessment. Retrieved from Supply Chain Factors Dataset v1.3.",
                "source_link": "https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?dirEntryId=349324&Lab=CESER",
                "source_lca_activity": "cradle_to_shelf",
                "data_quality_flags": [],
                "access_type": "public"
            },
            "suggestion_details": {
                "label": "accept"
            }
        },
        {
            "suggestion_id": "gjrwmmjzmizdcllegu3wcljugntgkljygq4wmlldmzrgeolfgbstgolbga-hbrtizteg44wmllegvsgcljumezdqllche4tmljsmm4dinzsgu4wcojugi",
            "emission_factor": {
                "sector": "Materials and Manufacturing",
                "category": "Building Materials",
                "name": "Cement - unspecified (market for)",
                "unit_type": "Weight",
                "unit": "kg/kg",
                "source": "ecoinvent",
                "source_dataset": "Cut-off Cumulative LCIA v3.11",
                "year": 2021,
                "year_released": 2024,
                "region": "CH",
                "region_name": "Switzerland",
                "description": "The activity generating the emissions is market for cement, unspecified. The reference product is cement, unspecified. The product cement, unspecified represents a weighted average of all types of cement in a generic market for cement based on their production volumes. The reference product amount is 1. The cut-off classification is allocatable product. The activity type is ordinary market activity. Please refer to the ecoinvent documentation here for full details: https://ecoquery.ecoinvent.org/3.11/cutoff/dataset/15038/documentation.",
                "source_link": "https://ecoquery.ecoinvent.org/3.11/cutoff/search",
                "source_lca_activity": "unknown",
                "data_quality_flags": [],
                "access_type": "premium"
            },
            "suggestion_details": {
                "label": "accept"
            }
        }
    ],
    "model": "general",
    "model_version": "27",
    "data_version": "24"
}

Errors

When autopilot is unable to find any emission factor suggestions, it will return the following error. Consider relaxing your filters if you specified any in your request.

{
    "error": "bad_request",
    "error_code": "no_emission_factors_found",
    "message": "No emission factors could be found using the current query."
}

Estimate

POST Calculate an emission estimation for an emission factor match. To calculate an emission estimation you will need to first find an emission factor using the Suggest endpoint. When you have selected an emission factor, you can request for a calculation using the following parameters.

https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/suggest/estimate

Inflation Adjustments

When using spend-based emission factors for carbon estimation, you can enable automatic adjustments for changes in inflation. If your expenditure occurred in a different year than the emission factor's year, your expenditure amount has to be adjusted to match that emission factor's year. Inflation adjustments are calculated using country-specific inflation data, using rates provided by the World Bank (opens in a new tab). To enable this feature, include inflation_adjustment with the year of expenditure. Autopilot will use the emission factor's region as the region of expenditure.

Request

curl --request POST \
  --url https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/suggest/estimate \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $CLIMATIQ_API_KEY" \
  --data '{
	"suggestion_id": "mqydemtghbrtillegaztsljugm2dsllbga2wcljsgfrtcobrmm3dqnbxge-ge3gcmzvgy3tmzbqgm2timbqmy4dimtegaydambqgaydambqgayq",
	"parameters": {
		"weight": 100,
        "weight_unit": "kg"
	}
}'

Response

The response includes the CO2e estimate and details about the calculation.

{
    "estimate": {
        "co2e": 79.52,
        "co2e_unit": "kg",
        "co2e_calculation_method": "ar4",
        "co2e_calculation_origin": "source",
        "emission_factor": {
            "name": "Cement (CEM II 42.5)",
            "activity_id": "building_materials-type_cement_cem_ii_42.5",
            "id": "d022f8c4-d039-4349-a05a-21c181c68471",
            "access_type": "public",
            "source": "OEKOBAUDAT",
            "source_dataset": "OEKOBAUDAT 2023-I",
            "year": 2018,
            "region": "DE",
            "category": "Building Materials",
            "source_lca_activity": "cradle_to_gate",
            "data_quality_flags": []
        },
        "constituent_gases": {
            "co2e_total": 79.52,
            "co2e_other": null,
            "co2": null,
            "ch4": null,
            "n2o": null
        },
        "activity_data": {
            "activity_value": 100,
            "activity_unit": "kg"
        },
        "audit_trail": "enabled"
    },
    "calculation_details": {
        "inflation_applied": 0
    },
    "source_trail": [
        {
            "data_category": "emission_factor",
            "name": "Cement (CEM II 42.5)",
            "source": "OEKOBAUDAT",
            "source_dataset": "OEKOBAUDAT 2023-I",
            "year": "2018",
            "region": "DE",
            "region_name": "Germany",
            "id": "d022f8c4-d039-4349-a05a-21c181c68471"
        }
    ],
    "notices": []
}

Emission Factor License

If you attempt to estimate with an emission factor with a premium access type and you do not have access to this premium dataset, an estimation will not be performed. These datasets require a separate purchase license. Contact us to obtain a license for the dataset you wish to purchase.

One-shot Estimate

POST Calculate total estimated emissions produced for an autopilot matched activity, in kgCO2e. All requests are performed by sending a POST request to the following endpoint.

Estimations can be performed by using free-text input. It will automatically perform an emission calculation with the best match, using the emission factor with the top similarity score from the list of factors provided in the Suggest endpoint.

https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/estimate

Inflation Adjustments

When using spend-based emission factors for carbon estimation, you can enable automatic adjustments for changes in inflation. If your expenditure occurred in a different year than the emission factor's year, your expenditure amount has to be adjusted to match that emission factor's year. Inflation adjustments are calculated using country-specific inflation data, using rates provided by the World Bank (opens in a new tab). To enable this feature, toggle the inflation_adjustment flag to true.

Request

Receive an estimation for the best emission factor match using the following parameters.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://preview.api.climatiq.io/autopilot/v1-preview4/estimate \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $CLIMATIQ_API_KEY" \
  --data '{
	"text": "Steel",
	"parameters": {
		"money": 100,
        "money_unit": "usd"
	}
}'

Response

The response includes the CO2e estimate and details about the calculation.

{
    "estimate": {
        "co2e": 47,
        "co2e_unit": "kg",
        "co2e_calculation_method": "ar4",
        "co2e_calculation_origin": "climatiq",
        "emission_factor": {
            "name": "Cast iron and steel",
            "activity_id": "metals-type_cast_iron_steel",
            "id": "15e75a68-b485-494b-8cbc-398d417207a7",
            "access_type": "public",
            "source": "EPA",
            "source_dataset": "Supply Chain Factors Dataset (commodities)",
            "year": 2018,
            "region": "US",
            "category": "Metals",
            "source_lca_activity": "cradle_to_shelf",
            "data_quality_flags": []
        },
        "constituent_gases": {
            "co2e_total": null,
            "co2e_other": 0.7,
            "co2": 41.3,
            "ch4": 0.2,
            "n2o": 0
        },
        "activity_data": {
            "activity_value": 100,
            "activity_unit": "usd"
        },
        "audit_trail": "enabled"
    },
    "calculation_details": {
        "label": "accept",
        "inflation_applied": 0
    },
    "source_trail": [
        {
            "data_category": "emission_factor",
            "name": "Cast iron and steel",
            "source": "EPA",
            "source_dataset": "Supply Chain Factors Dataset (commodities)",
            "year": "2018",
            "region": "US",
            "region_name": "United States of America (the)",
            "id": "15e75a68-b485-494b-8cbc-398d417207a7"
        }
    ],
    "notices": [],
    "model": "general",
    "model_version": "27",
    "data_version": "24"
}

Dry-runs

If you attempt to estimate without suggestion using a premium source that your API key does not have access to, the estimate will still work, but the CO2e values will not be provided. This is so you can evaluate how good matches would be using different models and sources, before purchasing commercial access to the data.

Notice

The notices array can contain these objects:

The different possible values for code are as follows. You should not treat this list as exhaustive as more values may be added with time: