How does a dairy cooperative or brand count member farmers' emissions in its Scope 3?
Member farms are outside the dairy's control, so their emissions go in Scope 3 Category 1, purchased goods, even in a cooperative the farmers own. Estimate them from a sample of member farms: herd numbers, milk yield and feed, converted with IPCC methods, then scale to total milk procured.
Where the boundary sits in a cooperative
- Union or brand plants, chilling centres and tankers it owns: Scope 1 and 2.
- Bulk milk coolers at village societies: Scope 2 of whoever has operational control of the cooler. If the society runs it, its power is part of the purchased milk footprint; if the union runs it, it is the union's Scope 2.
- Member farms: Scope 3 Category 1. Farmers owning shares in the cooperative does not bring their farms into its control.
- Cattle feed from the union's own feed plant: the plant's energy is the union's Scope 1 and 2. Do not count the same feed plant energy again inside the farm footprint.
What to collect from a member sample
- Pick a sample of farms across villages and herd sizes, weighted by the milk each group supplies.
- Record animals by type: milking cows, dry cows, buffalo, young stock.
- Record milk supplied per farm from the society's collection records, which you already hold.
- Record feed: concentrate, green and dry fodder, and how manure is handled.
- Repeat each year with the same method so trends mean something.
The sources to include
All of these are CO2e. State the GWP edition you used, for example AR6, and keep it.
- Enteric methane from each animal type, from IPCC Tier 1 factors or Tier 2 if you have feed and yield data.
- Manure methane and nitrous oxide, from how dung is stored or used.
- Feed production, including fertiliser and diesel for fodder.
- Farm electricity for pumps and chaff cutters, and diesel.
Scaling and reporting
Divide the sample's emissions by its milk to get kg CO2e per litre, then multiply by total milk procured in the year. Report it as a separate Category 1 line, labelled as an estimate from a sample, with the sample size. Where only milk payments are known for a group of suppliers, a spend-based estimate fills the gap, labelled with its wider uncertainty.
Worked example: enteric methane only, from a sample (illustrative)
- Sample: 1,000 dairy cows supplying 20,00,000 litres a year
- Enteric methane: 1,000 x 58 kg CH4 (IPCC 2006 Tier 1, dairy cattle, Indian subcontinent) = 58,000 kg CH4
- In CO2e at AR6 GWP 27: 58,000 x 27 = 15,66,000 kg CO2e
- Per litre: 15,66,000 / 20,00,000 = 0.783 kg CO2e
- Scaled to 10 crore litres procured: 0.783 x 10,00,00,000 = 78,300 t CO2e
Enteric methane from cows only. Buffalo, manure, feed and farm energy are added the same way.
What Senseible does here
Senseible puts purchased milk and other Scope 3 lines in a separate supplier evidence trail and gives spend-based estimates, labelled as spend-based, where only payments are known. The member sample survey and herd calculation are done by the dairy.
Sources: GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard (2011), Category 1, purchased goods and services, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 4, Chapter 10, Table 10.11; IPCC 2019 Refinement, Volume 4, Chapter 10, IPCC AR6 WG1, Chapter 7, Table 7.15 (methane GWP)
Last reviewed 2026-10-18.