Are electric vehicle deliveries zero emission in my Scope 3?
No. An electric delivery has no tailpipe emissions, but the electricity that charged the vehicle was generated somewhere, and in India most of it from coal. Your Scope 3 transport figure is the carrier's kWh times the grid factor, which is lower than diesel but not zero.
Where EV deliveries sit in your inventory
Deliveries you pay a carrier for, inbound or out to customers, are Scope 3 Category 4, upstream transportation. Deliveries you do not pay for, such as a marketplace's own logistics, are Category 9. The vehicle's charging electricity is in the carrier's Scope 2; in yours it shows up as transport emissions.
How to calculate it
- Get the energy used: kWh per km for the vehicle type from the carrier or the manufacturer, and the km driven for your shipments.
- Multiply km x kWh per km to get kWh.
- Multiply by the grid factor for where the vehicle was charged, 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh for India from the CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0.
- If the carrier shares only total kWh for a shared fleet, ask how it allocates to your parcels, by weight, parcel count or distance.
What the standards add
ISO 14083:2023 and the GLEC Framework count the energy supply of a transport chain, so electricity generation is part of an EV's transport emissions, the same way diesel production is part of a diesel van's on a well-to-wheel basis. They also count hub and warehouse energy between legs. A carrier quoting zero is reporting tailpipe only.
Claims to check before you repeat them
- Carbon-neutral delivery usually means the carrier bought offsets. Offsets are reported separately and do not reduce your Scope 3 figure.
- Solar-charged fleets: ask for evidence, such as on-site generation records or certificates covering the kWh. If the carrier cannot show it, use the grid factor.
- Do not write zero-emission delivery on your packaging or website on the basis of EVs alone.
Illustrative: one month with a shared EV fleet
- Carrier's fleet charging for the month: 24,000 kWh across 60,000 parcels (assumed figures)
- Your parcels: 9,000, so your share is 24,000 x 9,000 / 60,000 = 3,600 kWh
- 3,600 x 0.710 = 2,556 kg CO2 for the month
- Per parcel: 2,556 / 9,000 = 0.284 kg CO2, where the carrier's report said zero
This allocates by parcel count. If your parcels are heavier or travel further than the fleet average, ask the carrier to allocate by weight or distance instead.
What Senseible does here
Senseible applies the CEA grid factor of 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh to electricity and reads freight invoices into a separate supplier evidence trail. It does not get kWh from a carrier's fleet; that has to come from the carrier, and the same factor then applies.
Sources: GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard and Technical Guidance, Categories 4 and 9, ISO 14083:2023, Quantification of GHG emissions from transport chain operations, CEA CO2 Baseline Database
Last reviewed 2026-10-16.