Scope 3 emissions
Other indirect emissions across an organisation's upstream and downstream value chain.
Example
Purchased materials, business travel and use of sold products may fall within this scope.
The catch
Category relevance and data quality depend on the business.
In more depth
Scope 3 emissions, explained.
For most companies, Scope 3 is the largest part of the footprint and the least precise. The GHG Protocol splits it into upstream categories, from purchased goods to inbound freight, and downstream ones, from distribution to end-of-life treatment. A carmaker's largest category is usually the energy its vehicles use after sale. A bank's sits in its loans and investments, known as financed emissions.
Spend-based estimates are the usual starting point, multiplying money spent by an average emission factor for each sector. That method tracks prices. A cheaper supplier then looks cleaner and a price rise looks like growth in emissions, with no physical change at all. Better inventories move the largest suppliers onto measured, product-specific data over time.
Scope 3 overlaps by design. One firm's Scope 1 emissions appear in its customers' and suppliers' Scope 3 totals. Adding Scope 3 figures across companies therefore produces double counting. That is acceptable for managing a value chain but rules out summing inventories or selling the same reduction twice. When reviewing a disclosure, check which categories were excluded and why, and whether a reported cut came from suppliers or from a change of method.