EXIOBASE
Reviewed by Afonso Firmo, Co-Founder & Director · Updated 8 July 2026
The global multi-regional input-output database for spend-based emissions. 163 industries across 44 countries — the open standard for scope 3 screening.
At a glance
- Publisher
- EXIOBASE Consortium
- Geography
- Global — 44 countries + 5 rest-of-world regions
- Methodology
- Spend-based
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0 (free)
- Coverage
- 163 industries and 200 product categories across 49 regions, representing roughly 95% of global GDP
- Versions
- Version 3 series; time series with regular releases (3.8.2, 3.10, 3.11)
- Scale
- 163 industries × 49 regions of spend-based intensity data
Official Source & Citation
EXIOBASE is published by EXIOBASE Consortium. Use the citation below when referencing factors drawn from it.
Citation: Stadler, K., Wood, R., Bulavskaya, T., et al. (2018). EXIOBASE 3: Developing a Time Series of Detailed Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output Tables. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 22(3), 502–515. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12715
Most scope 3 inventories start with a wall of invoices and no activity data. EXIOBASE is the database that makes those invoices usable: a global input-output model that converts money spent into estimated emissions, industry by industry and country by country. It is the workhorse behind most scope 3 screening exercises.
What It Is
EXIOBASE is an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (EE-MRIO) database developed by a consortium of European research institutions and released openly under CC BY-SA 4.0. Version 3 models the global economy as 163 industries and 200 product categories across 44 countries and five rest-of-world regions — roughly 95% of global GDP — and attaches environmental extensions (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O and more) to every inter-industry flow.
The result, for emissions accounting purposes, is a set of cradle-to-gate intensities per unit of spend: what a euro (converted from your currency) spent on, say, chemicals manufactured in China carries in upstream emissions.
When to Use It — and When Not To
Spend-based estimation is the right tool when activity data does not exist, which in practice means most of scope 3 categories 1 and 2: purchased goods, services and capital goods. Map each supplier invoice to an EXIOBASE industry and region, multiply, and you have a defensible screening estimate.
It is the wrong tool where you hold real quantities. Fuel, electricity, flights and freight should always use activity-based factors — a litre of diesel is a litre of diesel, whereas a dollar of “transport services” is an industry average blurred across operators, vehicle types and price levels.
EXIOBASE Compared to Other Spend-Based Sources
| Database | Publisher | Regions | Industries | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXIOBASE 3 | EXIOBASE Consortium | 49 | 163 | CC BY-SA 4.0 (free) |
| CEDA | Watershed | 148 + RoW | 400 | Open + commercial tiers |
| USEEIO | US EPA | US only | 400+ | Public domain |
EXIOBASE’s strength is genuine multi-regional coverage under an open licence; CEDA resolves more industries and countries but is commercial at full depth; USEEIO is superb but US-only.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
Spend-based factors are sector averages: they cannot distinguish a low-carbon supplier from a high-carbon one in the same industry, so they should not be used to track supplier engagement progress. They are also price-sensitive — inflation or a discount changes your “emissions” without any physical change — and the underlying economic tables lag the reporting year by several years. The standard maturity path is to screen with EXIOBASE, find the hotspots, then replace the biggest categories with activity data or supplier-specific factors over time.
NetNada uses spend-based intensities for exactly this screening role, then upgrades hotspot categories to activity-based factors from sources like the NGA Factors as better data arrives.