Do I count the emissions of disposing of my factory's waste in a Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) product footprint?
Yes, if the waste is discarded. PACT says emissions from treating waste during production shall be in the total footprint. You are responsible until the waste returns to nature, such as burning or landfill, or reaches end-of-waste, such as recycling into another product. The waste itself carries no production emissions.
Two different things
- The waste itself: no production emissions are given to it.
- Treating the waste: if discarded, those emissions shall be added to the footprint of the product that made it, shared among the product and co-products.
Scrap you sell on
PACT uses the cut-off approach, also called the recycled content method. Think of passing a relay baton: the first runner does not carry the second runner's leg. Waste and recyclable material leave your process without the production emissions on them. The company that uses recycled material counts the recycling, collection, sorting and pre-processing, not the original production. PACT says avoided emissions shall not be included in the final footprint. If you burn waste to make useful heat or power, PACT says the energy-recovery emissions go to whoever uses that energy; check where your boiler sits before adding them.
How to work out disposal emissions
- Waste treated by you: use your own data on the type of waste, what it contains and the treatment. Internal factors should be verified by an independent auditor before use. If you have none, accepted secondary factors may be used.
- Waste sent to a third party: the treatment facility should calculate its emissions, develop and verify factors and pass them on. If you cannot get that, estimate from the waste type and composition with secondary factors for landfill, burning or recycling.
Which records answer it
- Weighbridge or dispatch slips per waste type.
- The disposal contractor's invoice and the treatment method it names.
- Your own boiler or furnace fuel records if you burn waste on site, though check the energy-recovery point below before adding them.
Cardboard waste, example numbers
- Cardboard waste to landfill: 50 kilograms (kg) per batch of 1,000 pieces
- Example factor: 0.6 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kg of waste. 50 x 0.6 = 30 kg per batch
- Per piece: 30 / 1,000 = 0.03 kg CO2e
- Steel turnings sold to a dealer, 120 kg per batch: they leave without production emissions, so nothing is added for them
Numbers are examples. The 0.6 factor is not a real value, take yours from a source. That the turnings count as waste follows our reading of the co-product questions.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records. Waste slips and contractor invoices are not what it reads. Senseible builds figures in the PACT exchange format as a custom integration, on request.
Sources: PACT Methodology Version 3.0, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Rules are from PACT Methodology 3.0, section 3.3.2.2 and Figure 15. Check the version your buyer names.