I burn nothing at my shop, so why does my electricity bill count as my carbon?

Because the power you buy was made at a power station, and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol counts the emissions from making it as yours. It calls this Scope 2: emissions that physically occur where the electricity is generated, counted for the company that buys it.

The rule in the standard's words

Scope 2 accounts for emissions from the generation of purchased electricity consumed by the company. Purchased electricity is electricity that is purchased or otherwise brought into the company's organisational boundary. Scope 2 emissions physically occur at the facility where the electricity is generated.

Plain words: you do not run the chimney, but you ordered what it makes.

A restaurant comparison

You do not own the stove in the restaurant kitchen, but the meal you ordered used its gas. A footprint follows the order, not the ownership of the stove.

The sum

• Kilowatt hours (kWh) on the bill x the grid factor for the bill's financial year.
• The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) figure is 0.675 kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kWh for financial year (FY) 2025-26 and 0.710 for FY 2024-25.
• Steam, heating and cooling you buy in count the same way.

Two things that surprise people

• Two companies cannot both count Scope 2 from the same electricity, says the Corporate Standard, the main GHG Protocol rulebook for company footprints. If a landlord pays and passes the cost on, check which of you the standard puts it with.
• The standard counts electricity that is purchased or otherwise brought into your boundary. My reading: power you get without a separate bill can still count as Scope 2.

Example: a shop with only a meter

• One month: 850 kWh x 0.675 = 573.75 kg of CO2
• One year at the same use: 850 x 12 = 10,200 kWh x 0.675 = 6,885 kg, about 6.9 tonnes
• Scope 1 for this shop: nothing, if it burns no fuel and has no leaking cooling gas.

Example figures. 0.675 is the grid factor for FY 2025-26.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into records, so the quantities behind each figure are on file. It applies the grid factor for the bill's financial year. It does not read a landlord's shared meter that you have no bill for.

• We burn no fuel, but our buyer doubts our zero Scope 1
• Carbon footprint of a kirana store
• India's grid emission factor for FY 2025-26
• Renting my shop: which scope is its electricity?
• Get my free carbon number

Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, revised edition (Chapter 4, scopes and double counting), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22.0, CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0 (Table S, FY 2024-25 = 0.710)

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Scope 2 wording is from Chapter 4 of the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. The grid factors are the CEA figures Senseible uses (version 22.0 for FY 2025-26, version 21.0 for FY 2024-25); re-check when a new edition is out. The restaurant comparison is ours.