Are company-arranged night-shift cabs for BPO staff Scope 1, Category 7 or Category 1?
It depends on who owns or operates the cabs. Cabs the company owns, or leases and runs itself, are Scope 1. Vendor-run cabs are Scope 3: Category 7, employee commuting, fits the GHG Protocol definition best, though some companies use Category 1, purchased services. Pick one, disclose it and count each trip once.
The control test comes first
- Company-owned cabs, or cabs leased and operated by the company with its own drivers: fuel burnt is Scope 1 under the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.
- Cabs owned and run by a vendor, paid per trip, per km or per month: not Scope 1, because the company neither owns nor operates the vehicles.
- A lease where the vendor supplies car, driver and fuel is usually a vendor-operated service, whatever the contract is called.
Category 7 or Category 1 for vendor cabs
The GHG Protocol Scope 3 guidance defines Category 7 as transport of employees between home and work in vehicles not owned or operated by the reporting company. Night-shift drops fit that definition, so Category 7 is the closer reading. Category 1 covers purchased goods and services, and some companies put vendor transport there because it is bought on an invoice.
Both readings are defended in practice. What matters is that the same trips are counted once, in one category, every year, and that the report says which.
Data to ask the vendor for
- The monthly trip log: trips, route km and vehicle type.
- Fuel type of each vehicle: diesel, petrol, CNG or electric.
- Fuel bought, if the vendor can share it, which gives the most direct figure.
- Otherwise an average km per litre for each vehicle type, so you can convert km to fuel.
What not to mix in
Business trips by cab to clients or airports are Category 6, business travel, not Category 7. Staff who travel on their own, and claim an allowance, are also Category 7 but need a commuting survey, not a vendor log.
Worked example: a month of vendor cabs (labelled estimate)
- 20 cabs x 2 trips a night x 40 km x 26 nights = 41,600 km
- Assumed diesel mileage: 15 km per litre
- Fuel: 41,600 / 15 = 2,773 L
- Emissions: 2,773 x 2.68 = 7,432 kg CO2, about 7.4 t for the month
The mileage is an assumption for illustration. Use the vendor's fuel records or vehicle data where you can, and keep the trip log as evidence.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads cab vendor invoices and fuel slips. Fuel your company buys for its own vehicles goes to Scope 1 at 2.68 kg CO2 per litre of diesel, while vendor invoices sit in the separate Scope 3 supplier evidence trail.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard and Technical Guidance, Category 7, GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, Chapter 3 setting organisational boundaries
Last reviewed 2026-10-15.