Are delivery riders' own two-wheelers part of my Scope 3, and in which category?

Yes. Riders' own two-wheelers are not your Scope 1 because you neither own nor control them. Deliveries you pay riders for are a purchased transport service, so they go in Scope 3 Category 4. Deliveries a customer pays for separately belong in Category 9. Estimate from trips, distance and a per-km factor.

Why not Scope 1

Scope 1 covers vehicles you own or control. A rider who owns the scooter, buys the petrol and is paid per delivery is a supplier of transport services, even if your app assigns the orders. Company-owned or leased bikes that you fuel would be Scope 1.

Category 4 or Category 9

• You pay the rider or the delivery partner for outbound delivery of your sold goods: Category 4, upstream transportation and distribution, which includes outbound transport the company pays for.
• The customer pays a delivery platform directly and you do not buy the service: Category 9 for you as the seller, which is downstream transport.
• A delivery platform buying rides from riders to fulfil its own service: Category 4 for the platform.
• Riders delivering to you, such as inbound parcels paid by you: also Category 4.

How to estimate it

1. Take the number of deliveries and the average distance per delivery, including the pickup leg, from app or GPS logs.
2. Total km x a per-km factor for the vehicle type. For a petrol two-wheeler, the factor is 2.31 kg CO2 per litre divided by km per litre.
3. For electric two-wheelers, use kWh per km x 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh.
4. Count only trips made for you. A rider working for several platforms is shared.

Worked example: one month of outbound deliveries

• Deliveries: 30,000; average 7 km each including pickup leg (from app logs)
• Distance: 30,000 x 7 = 2,10,000 km
• Petrol at 45 km per litre (assumed fleet average): 2,10,000 / 45 = 4,666.7 litres
• CO2: 4,666.7 x 2.31 = 10,780 kg, about 10.8 t for the month in Category 4
• Per delivery: 10,780 / 30,000 = 0.36 kg CO2

Survey a sample of riders for mileage and the petrol versus electric split; record it as an assumption.

What Senseible does here

Senseible keeps transport invoices in the Scope 3 supplier evidence trail and, where only payout spend is known, provides a spend-based estimate labelled as spend-based with wider uncertainty. A trip-and-distance estimate like the one above is firmer and stays your own calculation.

• Is freight Category 4 or 9?
• Are EV deliveries zero emission?
• Logistics emissions calculator
• Petrol emission factor

Sources: GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard (2011), Categories 4 and 9, GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (2013), Category 4, 2006 IPCC Guidelines, Volume 2 (Energy), mobile combustion defaults

Last reviewed 2026-10-18.