My buyer pays for freight from my factory. Does the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) method count delivery in my product footprint?
No. PACT says outbound transport and storage emissions are not in the product footprint. They should be calculated and reported separately, up to the point where another company such as the customer takes over by owning or paying for the outbound logistics. Transport into your factory is inside.
Inside the footprint: bringing materials to you
PACT says all significant upstream and direct transport emissions within the cradle-to-gate boundary shall be counted. That means fuel counted from the oil well to the wheel, not just the exhaust, and energy used by storage. It does not count building the vehicles or the roads.
Outside the footprint: sending the product on
Outbound transport and storage are not part of the footprint figure. PACT says they should still be worked out and reported separately, from your gate up to the point where the customer owns or pays for the outbound logistics.
What to collect for the separate figure
PACT says the usual unit is the tonne-kilometre (t.km): tonnes moved times kilometres travelled.
- Fuel used.
- Mode, such as road or rail.
- Mass of product moved, in tonnes, per unit of product.
- Distance covered.
- Load details, if you have them.
What it means for you (our reading)
If the buyer collects from your gate and pays the lorry, you have nothing to report on delivery. If you pay to deliver to the buyer's door, report the delivery figure on its own line and keep it out of the footprint.
One truck load, example numbers
- Load: 12 tonnes of finished parts, 12,000 pieces of 1 kilogram (kg) each, delivered 600 kilometres (km) by road
- Whole load: 12 x 600 = 7,200 t.km
- Per piece: 0.001 tonne x 600 km = 0.6 t.km. Multiply by a factor for your vehicle type from your freight source to get kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per piece
Numbers are examples. PACT points to the Global Logistics Emissions Council framework, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 14083 and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol for freight factors.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so fuel bought for your own delivery vehicles is on file. Distances and loads come from your own records. Senseible builds figures in the PACT exchange format as a custom integration, on request.
- Which Scope 3 category transport falls in
- Storage energy shared by floor area under PACT
- Cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave
Sources: PACT Methodology Version 3.0, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Rule is from PACT Methodology 3.0, section 3.3.2.1. The reading about who pays for freight is ours; follow the sale terms in your contract.