Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, explained for product teams

The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard sorts an organisation's greenhouse gas emissions into three scopes. The split exists to avoid double counting and to separate what you control directly from what happens elsewhere in your value chain. If you work on products rather than in the sustainability team, here is what the scopes mean and why they matter to you.

Scope 1: what you burn and leak

Scope 1 covers direct emissions from sources the organisation owns or controls. In a typical manufacturing business, that means:

• Stationary combustion: natural gas or oil burned in boilers, furnaces and ovens.
• Mobile combustion: fuel used by company-owned vehicles, forklifts and fleets.
• Fugitive emissions: refrigerant leaking from cooling and air-conditioning equipment.

Fugitive refrigerant emissions are easy to overlook, but many refrigerants are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide, so a small leak can matter.

Scope 2: the energy you buy

Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat and cooling. The emissions physically happen at the power station, but they are caused by your consumption. Scope 2 is usually reported two ways, location-based and market-based, which we explain in detail in our note on Scope 2 methods.

Scope 3: everything else in the value chain

Scope 3 covers all other indirect emissions, upstream and downstream. The GHG Protocol's Scope 3 Standard divides them into 15 categories. For product companies, the most significant are often:

• Purchased goods and services: the emissions embedded in the materials and components you buy.
• Upstream and downstream transportation: moving inputs to you and products to customers.
• Waste generated in operations: how your production waste is treated.
• Use of sold products: energy your products consume once customers own them.
• End-of-life treatment of sold products: what happens when they are thrown away or recycled.

How the scopes connect to a product footprint

A corporate inventory adds up emissions across the whole organisation for a year. A product footprint divides a slice of those same emissions by the products made. The materials in Scope 3, the factory energy in Scope 2 and the boiler fuel in Scope 1 all flow into each unit's footprint. Getting the corporate inventory right is the foundation for credible product numbers.

Where to start

1. 01Measure Scope 1 and 2 first. The data is in your own utility bills and fuel records.
2. 02Screen Scope 3 to find the categories that matter most for your business.
3. 03Go deep on the largest categories, starting with purchased goods if you make physical products.

ECOT covers all three scopes in one place, from stationary combustion and refrigerant leaks through location-based and market-based electricity to value chain emissions, so the corporate inventory and the product view come from the same data.