Why do my project’s Energy Use and GHG results look so much higher than the current state and national benchmarks?

In 2025, we released a major update to our models for energy use, GHG emissions, and soil carbon. The new models incorporate new sources of energy use and GHG emissions, along with a complete refresh of all impact factors. However, as of July 2026, the current state and national benchmarks have not been updated yet; they are a rollover from the previous version of the Calculator’s models. Because of this, comparing new results to the old benchmarks might be off. We plan to release updated national benchmarks later in 2026 and are still working on the methodology for the state benchmarks.