My products are components sold to other manufacturers. Can I exclude downstream Scope 3?
Partly. The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard lets a company selling intermediate products disclose and justify excluding downstream categories when the eventual end use is unknown, as with a part that goes into many different products. If you know the end use, you should estimate it. Either way, upstream categories and Scope 1 and 2 stay in.
What counts as an intermediate product
An intermediate product is something another company processes, assembles or turns into a final product: a forged gear, a casting, a resin, a dye intermediate, a PCB. A final product is used as sold by the end customer.
Which downstream categories the exclusion can cover
The exclusion is a disclosed choice, not a silent gap. Write which categories you left out and why the end use cannot be reasonably estimated, and check the wording in Chapter 6 of the Scope 3 Standard on whether the categories can be excluded selectively.
- Category 9, downstream transport you do not pay for.
- Category 10, processing of sold products by your customers.
- Category 11, use of sold products.
- Category 12, end-of-life treatment of sold products.
A decision rule
- If one part goes to many customers and many applications, and you cannot say what share ends up where, the exclusion of the downstream categories above is reasonable.
- If you supply one known part for a known product, such as a component for one vehicle model, estimate Category 10 and 12 from your customer's process data and the part's mass and material.
- A passive part, such as a bracket or a gear, has no direct use-phase emissions of its own, so Category 11 is usually zero or not relevant, even when the end use is known.
- If your product burns fuel, uses electricity or releases a gas when used, such as a refrigerant or a solvent, Category 11 usually matters and should be estimated.
What still has to be reported
Scope 1 and 2, every relevant upstream category, Category 4 if you pay for outbound freight, and Category 5 for waste from your own operations. Excluding downstream does not shrink these.
What Senseible does here
Senseible's work is upstream: it reads your fuel, electricity and purchase invoices for Scope 1 and 2 and keeps Scope 3 supplier lines in a separate evidence trail. It does not estimate downstream processing, use or end-of-life emissions.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard (2011), Chapter 6 on intermediate products, GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (2013)
Last reviewed 2026-10-15. The GHG Protocol is revising its standards; check whether the intermediate product exclusion wording changes in the revised Scope 3 Standard.