Scope 1, 2 and 3

What each one includes

Scope 1 is direct emissions from sources the organization owns or controls: boilers, its own vehicles, industrial processes, refrigerant leaks.

Scope 2 is emissions from the electricity, steam, heat or cooling the organization buys and uses. It can be accounted for with a location-based method or a market-based one.

Scope 3 is everything else in the value chain, upstream and downstream: what is purchased, transport, business travel, commuting, waste, the use of sold products. The GHG Protocol splits it into 15 categories. It is usually the largest part and the hardest to measure.

And in ISO 14064

ISO 14064-1 does not talk about scopes. It organizes the same thing into six categories. Category 1 matches Scope 1, category 2 matches Scope 2, and the remaining four divide up Scope 3.

Who asks for them

Customer questionnaires and platforms such as CDP ask by scope. So does IFRS S2: it requires gross Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Our advice is to store each emission with its Scope 3 category. With that detail the result can be presented in either format.