My fabric supplier gave me its total factory emissions. How do I work out the share that belongs to my order?
Multiply the supplier's emissions by your share of its output. Use a physical basis, such as tonnes or metres of fabric, when its products are similar, and an economic basis, your share of its revenue, only when products differ a lot in value. Ask first whether the supplier can give a figure for your product line, which avoids allocation.
Try to avoid allocation first
The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard says to avoid allocation where possible. Ask the mill whether the line or process that makes your fabric is sub-metered, or whether it can give a footprint per kg for your quality. A figure for your product is always better than a share of a factory total.
Physical or economic allocation
- Physical (mass, metres, machine hours): best when the products go through similar processes. It follows how energy is actually used.
- Economic (revenue): use when products share a process but differ greatly in value, or when no physical measure fits. It moves with prices, so a price change shifts emissions without any change on the factory floor.
- Choose one basis, write it down, and use it every year for that supplier.
Check what the total includes
- Which scopes: the mill's Scope 1 and 2 only, or also its own purchased yarn and chemicals. A cradle-to-gate figure needs both.
- Which period and which sites, so it matches your purchase period.
- Whether it covers non-fabric outputs, such as yarn sold to others or power exported, which should be taken out before you take your share.
Record the basis with the number
Keep the supplier's document, the total, the denominator (total output or revenue), your purchase quantity and the method. An auditor will recompute the share, and a supplier figure with no stated basis is hard to defend.
Worked example: one fabric order, two allocation bases
- Mill emissions for the year: 8,000 t CO2e; mill output: 12,000 t of fabric
- Your purchases: 600 t of fabric
- By mass: 8,000 x 600 / 12,000 = 400 t CO2e
- Mill revenue: Rs 300 crore; your purchases: Rs 24 crore, which is 8%
- By revenue: 8,000 x 0.08 = 640 t CO2e
Your fabric is priced above the mill average, so economic allocation gives it more emissions. Use mass unless your fabric takes much more processing per tonne.
What Senseible does here
Senseible keeps the supplier's figure with its source document in the Scope 3 supplier evidence trail, so the allocation basis can be traced. It does not choose the allocation method or check the supplier's own total.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard (2011), allocation chapter
Last reviewed 2026-10-15.