- Scope 1: direct emissions from sources you own or control
- Scope 2: indirect emissions from the energy you purchase
- Scope 3: every other indirect emission in your value chain
Why scopes exist
Scopes come from the GHG Protocol, the most widely used standard in greenhouse gas accounting. They do three jobs: they stop the same physical emissions being double counted between organisations, they show how directly you influence a source, and they give everyone a shared vocabulary. You do not need to memorise every category. You do need to know roughly what sits where.Scope 1: direct emissions
Emissions from sources your organisation owns or controls.Common examples:
- Fuel burned in company-owned vehicles
- Gas used in onsite boilers or heaters
- Diesel generators you operate
- Refrigerant leaks from chillers, fridges, and air conditioning
- Onsite industrial processes
Typical data sources
Fuel purchase records, onsite meter readings, refrigerant maintenance logs.
Where you'll see it
Your energy, fuel, and refrigerant entries, and the Scope 1 results breakdown.
Scope 2: purchased energy
Emissions from generating the energy you buy and use, mainly electricity.Common examples:
- Electricity used in offices, warehouses, venues, and factories
- Purchased steam, heat, or cooling from an external provider
Typical data sources
Electricity bills, meter readings, site energy reports, retailer portals.
Where you'll see it
Electricity rows in energy tables, location- or market-based results where applicable, and the Scope 2 breakdown.
Location-based and market-based
Scope 2 has to be reported two ways, and this is the requirement inventories most often miss.- Location-based applies the average emissions intensity of the grid you draw from. It reflects the physical reality of the electricity system, and it is the figure AASB S2 requires.
- Market-based reflects the contracts you hold: GreenPower, renewable energy certificates, or a supplier-specific factor.
Most organisations start with Scope 1 and 2. The data is easier to reach, and reporting frameworks generally require these first.
Scope 3: everything else
All other indirect emissions caused by your activities but occurring outside your own operations.This is where most organisations’ emissions actually sit. For events and products, Scope 3 is usually the overwhelming majority of the footprint. The GHG Protocol splits Scope 3 into fifteen categories, eight upstream and seven downstream. You will not have all fifteen, and most organisations have material emissions in three or four, but you need to know which apply before you can say your inventory is complete.
For most service businesses, categories 1, 6, and 7 dominate. For manufacturers, 1 and 11 usually do. Category 15 is the one that matters overwhelmingly for financial institutions, where financed emissions typically dwarf everything else combined.
A category being immaterial is a legitimate finding. A category you never assessed is a gap. The difference is whether you can say why it is small, so screen all fifteen even if you only measure a few in detail.
Typical data sources
Travel booking data, supplier and contractor reports, waste contractor data, finance exports by category.
Where you'll see it
Your travel, purchasing, and waste entries, plus the Scope 3 breakdown.
How scopes appear in your results
Results are organised by scope, by category, and by assessment type. You can see totals for each scope, drill into the categories driving them, and compare across periods or assessments.- Organisation assessments
- Event assessments
- Product assessments
Scope 1: fuels, onsite energy, refrigerants. Scope 2: electricity and purchased energy. Scope 3: purchases, travel, waste, freight.
Common questions
Are Scope 3 emissions less important?
No. Scope 3 is usually where the majority of impact sits, especially for service businesses, product companies with complex supply chains, and events with heavy travel. Scopes classify emissions; they do not rank them. Most credible net-zero strategies now expect organisations to address material Scope 3, not just Scope 1 and 2.Do I have to measure every Scope 3 category on day one?
No. Start with Scope 1 and 2, plus the few Scope 3 categories where you already suspect impact is high: travel, major spend categories, key suppliers. Improve coverage and data quality each year. What matters is being transparent about what you included.Is double counting a problem?
Between organisations, no. A supplier’s Scope 1 becomes your Scope 3, and that overlap is by design. Within a single assessment, yes. Recording the same activity twice, once as spend and once as activity data, inflates your result. Salvidia’s structured tables reduce the risk by giving each data type one clear home, but the check is yours. See Working with data.The short version
Scope 1
Emissions from things we directly operate: vehicles, boilers, onsite combustion, refrigerants.
Scope 2
Emissions from energy we buy: mostly electricity, sometimes purchased steam or heat.
Scope 3
Everything else our activity causes: purchases, travel, waste, supply chain, product use and end-of-life.