Scope 3 Emissions
Scope 3 emissions are all indirect greenhouse gas emissions occurring across an organisation's value chain, excluding Scope 2, including purchased goods and services, business travel, and supply chain activity.
Definition
Scope 3 emissions, as defined by the GHG Protocol, cover indirect emissions that occur throughout an organisation's value chain but are outside its direct ownership or control — and outside the purchased-energy category covered by Scope 2. The GHG Protocol breaks Scope 3 into 15 categories, spanning purchased goods and services, upstream transportation, business travel, employee commuting, waste generated in operations, and use of sold products, among others.
Scope 3 is typically the largest emissions category for most organisations by volume, but also the hardest to measure accurately, since it depends on data from suppliers, logistics providers, and other third parties that the reporting organisation doesn't directly control.
Why It Matters
Scope 3 is increasingly a mandatory disclosure requirement under frameworks like CSRD, and it's also where most companies get their carbon reporting wrong — either omitting it, underestimating it, or relying on rough industry averages rather than actual supply chain data.
How ecolyptus Helps
While Scope 3 estimation typically depends on data outside a single energy platform's direct visibility, ecolyptus's reporting structure is built to accommodate Scope 3 category inputs alongside Scope 1 and 2 data, keeping all three in one consolidated disclosure report.