What are purchased goods emissions?
Purchased goods emissions arise from the production and sale of all items a company buys as part of its operations. This includes capital goods such as machinery, equipment, and buildings. These emissions are classified under Scope 3.1 (Purchased Goods and Services) of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.
What you’ll need to get started
Type of goods purchased (e.g. materials, equipment, furniture)
Quantity of goods purchased (either total weight in kg or tonnes, or the cost of the purchase)
Whether any purchases were capital goods (e.g. machinery, equipment, buildings)
Choosing the right option
The options available will depend on whether you have connected your accounting platform and the data you have available.
If you have connected your financial accounting platform
If you have connected your financial accounting platform
There are a number of possible scenarios when completing this module. Follow the steps that best describe your situation:
1. Your business did not purchase goods during this period
Select “I don’t have these emissions” from the module’s front page. This confirms that your business didn’t purchase any goods during the selected quarter.
The module will be marked as complete and a 0kg CO₂e footprint will be applied for this quarter.
2. If you know the quantity or cost of goods purchased
For categories where you know the weight, select the category for each item and enter the weight (kg or tonnes). You can consolidate weights for multiple purchases in the same category into one entry.
If you do not have weight data, you can enter the cost of the purchase instead. Some categories only support cost-based reporting.
Repeat this process for all categories where you have purchase details. The more detail you provide, the more accurate your emissions footprint will be.
3. If you cannot provide the quantity of goods purchased
To check your purchased goods transactions for this period, go to the Transactions screen. Apply a date filter for this financial quarter and a category filter for Purchased Goods.
If you did purchase goods but can’t provide any weight or quantity data, select “No” when asked “Can you provide the weight of any goods the company purchased?”. Sage Earth Carbon Accounting will calculate your purchased goods emissions based on the spend data available.
Choose this option to confirm that you can't provide usage data and want the system to calculate your purchased goods emissions based on your spend data. Your footprint for this module will be recorded, and the module will be marked as complete.
You can always add usage (weight or quantity) data to this module later if you find the data.
If you have not connected a financial accounting platform or if the date range for this module is prior to your integration start date
If you have not connected a financial accounting platform or if the date range for this module is prior to your integration start date
There are a number of possible scenarios when completing this module. Follow the steps that best describe your situation:
1. Your business did not purchase goods during this period
Select “I don’t have these emissions” from the module’s front page. This confirms that your business didn’t purchase any goods during the selected quarter.
The module will be marked as complete and a 0kg CO₂e footprint will be applied for this quarter.
2. If you know the quantity or cost of goods purchased
For any categories in which you know the quantity or cost, choose “Yes, and I can provide purchase details”. Select the category for each purchase and enter the quantity (units depend on purchase type) or the cost. You can consolidate multiple purchases of the same category into a single entry.
To add a new category, click “Add new entry”.
Make sure you add data to account for your business’s entire spend and usage within this category for this quarter.
3. If you know goods were purchased but have no records of quantity or cost
Select “Yes, but I can't provide purchase details.” The module will be marked as complete, but your footprint will be created with a gap. You can amend this later if you are able to find a record of this data.
Points to note
Some categories only support cost-based reporting (e.g. Furniture).
Multiple purchases for the same category or for multiple locations can be consolidated into one entry or added as distinct items.
What if I have both Purchased and Capital Goods in the same category?
If you’ve bought items that fall into both Purchased Goods and Capital Goods within the same category, for example, buying some fridges to use in your business and others to sell — that’s okay.
Capital Goods are marked true or false at the category level; this will be applied to all spends within this category for this quarter. To report this correctly, choose the category that best reflects the majority of your spend or usage. Ask yourself:
Am I mainly using these items? Select Capital Goods.
Am I mainly reselling them? Don’t select Capital Goods.
This helps ensure your reporting stays consistent and accurate.
Find out more:
See Section 7.2 of our Carbon Reduction Actions Guide