The amount of control your business has over its greenhouse gas emissions varies according to the influence you have over the source. For example, you have more control over the emissions created by your company-owned car and business travel than you do over the emissions created by the activity of one of your suppliers.
To help us make sense of all this, we’ve adopted the GHG Protocol for categorising emissions. These categories are called scopes:
Scope 1 refers to direct emissions from your owned or controlled resources, e.g. from the fuel burned by your van, or the gas used to power your boiler.
Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions from the electricity, heating, cooling and steam bought by your company from third party providers.
Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur within a company's value chain. This makes up the majority of your emissions.
By taking into account each of these, you’ll get a complete image of your company’s carbon footprint and a better understanding of how to reduce it.
Useful links: