My waste goes to landfill this year and the machines I sold will be scrapped in fifteen years: which year's Scope 3 holds those later emissions?
This year's. The Scope 3 Standard counts the future emissions from waste you generated, and the expected end-of-life emissions of products you sold, in the year the waste arose or the sale happened. They are expected emissions, not ones that have already occurred. On our reading, next year's inventory does not count them again.
What the standard says
The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Scope 3 Standard is designed to account for all emissions related to the company's activities in the reporting year. For some categories the emissions occur in future years, because activities in the reporting year have long-term emissions impacts. It says that for these categories "reported emissions have not yet happened, but are expected to happen as a result of the waste generated, investments made, and products sold in the reporting year," and that the data "should not be interpreted to mean that emissions have already occurred."
The category descriptions say the same in their own words. Category 5 "includes all future emissions that result from waste generated in the reporting year", and Category 12 "includes the total expected end-of-life emissions from all products sold in the reporting year."
What this means for a landfill
Waste landfilled in 2025-26 releases gas over many years in most landfills. All of it belongs in the 2025-26 inventory, so, on our reading, the factor you use should cover the whole life of the waste in the landfill, not only what leaks in the first year. Waste landfilled in 2026-27 is counted in 2026-27. On our reading, your reported year does not rise or fall with the decay of old waste.
What this means for a machine you sell
For Category 12, the year of sale decides the year of the figure. A pump sold in 2025-26 and scrapped in 2040 is counted in 2025-26, using your assumption for how it will be disposed of. The guidance says Category 12 needs assumptions about the end-of-life treatment used by consumers, and that companies must report a description of the methods and assumptions.
Mistakes this avoids
- Waiting to count a sold product until it is scrapped.
- Counting the yearly leak from old landfill waste, which would add every earlier year to this one (our reading of how the rule works).
- Reading a Category 5 or 12 figure as emissions that already happened when you describe it to a buyer.
Example: one year of waste and one year of sales
- Landfilled in 2025-26: 200 tonnes at the guide's example landfill factor of 300 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per tonne = 60,000 kilograms, counted in 2025-26
- Landfilled in 2026-27: 180 tonnes x 300 = 54,000 kilograms, counted in 2026-27
- Sold in 2025-26: 400 pumps x 85 kilograms = 34,000 kilograms of product at end of life
- Assumed split (example): 90 percent recycled, factor 10 kilograms CO2e per tonne; 10 percent landfill, factor 300 kilograms CO2e per tonne. These are example factors for metal pumps; the guide's 300 was for a different product. 34 tonnes x (0.9 x 10 + 0.1 x 300) = 34 x 39 = 1,326 kilograms CO2e, counted in 2025-26
The 300 is the guide's example landfill factor and the rest are example numbers, not published factors. The scrap year does not change which year the pump line sits in.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records. It does not work out waste or end-of-life emissions, so keep your own tonnes by year and the assumptions you used.
- Landfill defaults for factory waste
- End-of-life of sold products, worked example
- Metal products and Category 12
- Free calculators
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard, GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions, Category 5 (Waste generated in operations), GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions, Category 12 (End-of-life treatment of sold products)
Last reviewed 2026-11-06. Factors and disposal splits are your own assumptions; record them in the report so a verifier can follow them.