How does the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's fuel-based method add diesel and refrigerant leakage when suppliers truck chilled raw materials to me?
Add fuel and refrigerant lines: litres of fuel times the fuel factor, and kilograms of refrigerant leaked times its warming potential (plus electricity for electric trucks). The guide's bread example gives 660,000 kilograms from diesel and 100,000 from refrigerant, 760,000 in all. It fits best when the trucks carry your goods alone; otherwise share the fuel out first.
What the guide asks suppliers for
The fuel-based method in the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol's Category 4 guidance is meant for when you can get fuel data from the transport provider and, where the load is chilled, the refrigerant leakage as well. It also says to take account of any additional energy used and fugitive emissions such as refrigerant loss. Its formula adds three parts: fuel in litres times the fuel factor, electricity in kilowatt hours times the grid factor for electric vehicles, and refrigerant leaked times its global warming potential.
When this method is the right one
- The trucks carry only your goods. The guide says the method is best applied to exclusive or full-truckload use, and otherwise emissions should be allocated between your goods and other customers' goods.
- If the mixed loads cannot be split reliably, the guide says to use the distance-based method instead.
- The fuel factor should at a minimum cover combustion and, where possible, the fuel's extraction, processing and transport as well.
Ask for leakage in kilograms, not a yes or no
The refrigerant line needs kilograms leaked in the year, which comes from the service record of the refrigeration unit, plus the refrigerant name so that you can use its warming potential. A supplier that says only that the truck is refrigerated has not given you this line. Without it, the guide's example total would be about 13 percent short.
The guide's bread example, then an Indian chilled-milk example
- Guide: suppliers B, C and D used 50,000, 80,000 and 90,000 litres of diesel at 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per litre
- Diesel: (50,000 x 3) + (80,000 x 3) + (90,000 x 3) = 660,000 kilograms
- Refrigerant: 50 kilograms of R410a leaked at a warming potential of 2,000 = 100,000 kilograms
- Total: 660,000 + 100,000 = 760,000 kilograms; refrigerant is 100,000 / 760,000, about 13.2 percent
- Example for a dairy: two transporters used 18,000 and 26,000 litres of diesel at 2.645 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per litre = 47,610 + 68,770 = 116,380 kilograms
- Refrigerant leaked 6 kilograms at the guide's example warming potential of 2,000 = 12,000 kilograms. Total 128,380 kilograms. Indian reefer units often run R-404A, whose warming potential is much higher than 2,000, so the refrigerant line would be larger
The guide's figures are examples and not for real use. The dairy figures are also example numbers. 2.645 covers diesel combustion only, and the real warming potential depends on the refrigerant in the unit.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so diesel you buy yourself is on file. Diesel and leakage records from your suppliers' trucks must come from the transporters.
- Refrigerant leak rate default for reefer trucks
- Reefer refrigeration unit emissions
- Freight bill in rupees to litres
- Which category holds each kind of transport
- Free calculators
Last reviewed 2026-11-06. Warming potentials change between Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports; use the one your buyer or verifier asks for.