The Environmental eXternalities ACcounting Tool (EX-ACT – previously
EX-Ante Carbon Balance Tool) aims at providing guidance in estimating the value of nature’s contribution to people in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation and avoidance and biodiversity preservation.

EX-ACT is composed of different sections, which can be used individually or together, to focus on specific elements of projects and policies or to elaborate a holistic overview of their environmental impacts. The tool can be used at any stage of intervention to design, monitor, report and evaluate projects and policies at any geographical level - from farm to country to global region. 

The current release of the tool covers the assessment of greenhouse gas emitted or sequestered from agricultural production. It covers the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, coastal and inland wetlands, fisheries and aquaculture, agricultural inputs and infrastructure. 

The second release of the tool, planned for early 2025, will support policy makers in identifying off-farm sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from post-harvest to retail, facilitating the development of low carbon agrifood value chains.

The third release of the tool, planned for July 2025, will incorporate biodiversity impacts of agricultural activities through geo-referenced assessment methodologies. The tool will account for the ecological value and biodiversity sensitivity of intervention sites at any stage and at any scale of the intervention.

EX-ACT is mainly based on the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (2006, 2014, 2019) for the climate sections, and on the Global Biodiversity (GLOBIO) Model Version 3.6 developed by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) for the biodiversity section.