What are scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions?

There are lots of considerations beyond emissions alone – such as cost and practicality – but, to an extent, we can choose whether our fleet is low or zero emissions, we can determine how our buildings are warmed and a manufacturer can look at ways to reduce the carbon cost of its production processes.

However, a soft drinks maker can’t control how we will dispose of its plastic bottles, nor can an appliance manufacturer decree whether we use the most or least eco-friendly settings on our laundry machines.

It’s somewhat easier to quantify emissions for scopes 1 and 2. For energy use, for example, companies can source the data needed to convert direct purchases of gas and electricity into a value for the associated greenhouse gases.

However, for many organisations, scope 3 emissions account for by far the highest proportion of total emissions. Unfortunately these are also usually the hardest to reduce. Some of the actions a company can take to reduce these is to work with existing suppliers and their customers on solutions to reduce their emissions.