What Is UNSPSC?
The UNSPSC is an internationally recognized classification system for products and services.
It uses a hierarchical structure (the classification tree) with four levels:
Segment – the broadest category (e.g., “Fuels and Fuel Additives and Lubricants and Anti corrosive Materials”)
Family – general groupings within a segment (e.g., “Fuels”)
Class – a narrower set of related items (e.g., “Petroleum and distillates”)
Commodity – the most specific item type (e.g., “Marine fuel”)
This global taxonomy enables consistent categorization, data comparison, and automation to classify transactions when assigning emission factors to different types of products and activities across the value chain.
UNSPSC in practice
The main purpose of using the UNSPSC classification system is to make sustainability accounting faster, simpler, and more consistent.
Instead of assigning an emission factor to every single product manually, we assign coefficients to UNSPSC codes, and the system handles the rest.
Why?
1. You don’t need to classify every product manually: Products inherit the emission factor of their UNSPSC category. Once a coefficient is added to a UNSPSC code, all products under that code automatically use it.
👉 This dramatically reduces manual work and improves consistency across your data.
2. Smart fallback: the system climbs the UNSPSC tree: If a product does not have a coefficient at its exact classification level, the system automatically falls back up the UNSPSC hierarchy until it finds the nearest available coefficient.
For example, if a user imports fuel labeled “RMD 80” and put the UNSPSC Classification "RMD 80" on it, but no emission coefficient exists at that exact level, the system will automatically move up the UNSPSC hierarchy to find the nearest available coefficient.
It will check:
“RMD 80” → no coefficient
“Petroleum and distillates” → if none, then
“Fuels” → if none, then the next parent category
…and so on
This continues until the system reaches a UNSPSC category that is marked as supported in the database.
Because of this design, any UNSPSC classification you can select in the platform is guaranteed to have a usable coefficient somewhere above it in the hierarchy, even if the specific product does not.
Not sure about your products and services classification? Ask your supplier for the UNSPSC Code and review the UNSPSC products and services classification below.
Note: If your supplier uses codes from another coding system, make sure to translate them to the UNSPSC coding system.
How Klappir uses the UNSPSC classification?
To turn raw data into actionable insight, we must organize and manage it with intention.
By structuring data within a framework like the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol, and classifying according to the UNSPSC framework, we ensure it is consistent, comparable, and meaningful. Klappir adopts those methodologies because they are the most widely used and recognized international accounting standard for governments and businesses to understand, quantify, and manage greenhouse gas emissions.
This hierarchy allows the Klappir Platform to interpret data types at varying levels of precision and to apply the most accurate emission factors available.
Example: Granularity and its current limitations
While the UNSPSC classification system allows for highly detailed categorization, emission factor databases do not always provide the same level of granularity.
For example: Both apples and pears may fall under the same UNSPSC category – such as “Fresh fruit” – even though their exact emission factors differ slightly in life-cycle assessments. Similarly, both laptop and desktop computers may fall under the same UNSPSC category, such as "Computers".
In this case, the platform assigns the same emission factor to both products based on the closest available UNSPSC match.
⚠️ Still, classifying data to the most granular level possible is essential. It keeps your system ready for future updates, ensures procurement traceability, and allows new emission factors to apply automatically as databases become more detailed.
Still unsure how Klappir Platform Uses the UNSPSC? Find support from our partners, or reach out to the service desk for additional guidance.