Which shareholdings must go into Category 15, how do I count them from the investee's own inventory, and can I ignore small stakes?
Required: equity you hold with your own capital, whether subsidiary, associate, joint venture or small stake, if not already in your Scope 1 or 2. Multiply each investee's Scope 1 and 2 by your equity share. For stakes with no control or significant influence, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol lets you set a threshold if disclosed and justified.
Which holdings the guide lists
These count in Category 15 only when they are not already in your Scope 1 or 2. Under the equity share approach they sit in Scope 1 and 2. Under a control approach, only holdings you control do. The rest go here.
- Subsidiaries where you have financial control, typically more than 50 percent ownership.
- Associate companies where you have significant influence but not financial control, typically 20 to 50 percent.
- Joint ventures that are not incorporated, where partners share financial control.
- Stakes where you have neither financial control nor significant influence, typically under 20 percent.
The calculation
Take the investee's Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the year from its own greenhouse gas inventory, and multiply by your share of its equity. No emission factors are needed because the investee has already calculated its emissions. Your records of the stake give the share. The guide says to also collect the investee's Scope 3 if it is significant compared with its other sources.
A threshold for small stakes
For stakes with neither control nor significant influence, the guide says companies may establish a threshold, for example an equity share of 1 percent, below which the stake is left out of the inventory, if the choice is disclosed and justified.
Which date to take the portfolio
Portfolios change during the year, so the guide says to identify holdings at a fixed point in time, such as December 31 of the reporting year, or to use a representative average over the year. For a company on an April to March year, 31 March is the matching fixed date (our reading).
The guide's example: two subsidiaries and two joint ventures
- Subsidiary 1: 120,000 x 40% = 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)
- Subsidiary 2: 200,000 x 15% = 30,000 tonnes CO2e
- Joint venture 3: 1,600,000 x 25% = 400,000 tonnes CO2e
- Joint venture 4: 60,000 x 25% = 15,000 tonnes CO2e
- Total: 48,000 + 30,000 + 400,000 + 15,000 = 493,000 tonnes CO2e, of which joint venture 3 is about 81 percent
In the guide, company A used the control approach, so none of these four were in its Scope 1 and 2. The guide's example gives the two subsidiaries equity shares of 40 and 15 percent, below the typical 50 percent it describes, so read the shares as example numbers. All numbers are the guide's examples and do not refer to actual data.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, which covers your own Scope 1 and 2. It does not collect investee inventories or work out Category 15.
- A 26 percent stake in a joint venture
- Investee emissions from revenue and sector
- Which holdings are required or optional
- Holding company footprint
Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Arithmetic multiplies out to the guide's printed 493,000. Check the threshold, if you use one, is disclosed in your report.