Scope 1, 2 and 3 — a plain-English guide for growing businesses

Draft — pending editorial review.

If you’ve started looking at carbon reporting, you’ve run into “Scope 1, 2 and 3” almost immediately — and it’s worth understanding properly, because it shapes how you collect data from day one.

Scope 1: what you burn directly

Scope 1 covers emissions from sources your organisation owns or controls directly — fuel burned in company vehicles, gas burned in an on-site boiler, refrigerant leaks from your own equipment. If it’s your fuel, your flame, it’s Scope 1.

Scope 2: the electricity you buy

Scope 2 covers emissions from the electricity, steam, heating or cooling you purchase. You don’t burn anything yourself, but generating that power created emissions somewhere upstream — and how you account for it depends on whether you use a location-based or market-based method.

Scope 3: everything else in your value chain

Scope 3 covers every other emission connected to your business — your suppliers, business travel, employee commuting, the use and disposal of what you sell. It’s typically the largest and hardest-to-measure category, split across 15 defined categories in the GHG Protocol.

Where to start

Most organisations start with Scope 1 and 2 — the data is usually already sitting in utility bills and fuel records — and build toward Scope 3 as data collection matures. The important thing isn’t perfection on day one; it’s a consistent, defensible method you can improve over time.