How do I count remanufactured or refurbished parts I buy in Scope 3?

Count them in Category 1, or Category 2 if you capitalise them, using the remanufacturer's own footprint for the part where you can get it. Otherwise estimate the remanufacturing energy plus the new components fitted. Do not use a new-part factor, which overstates them, and do not count them as zero.

Which category

Spare parts, reconditioned engines, gearboxes and pumps bought for maintenance are purchased goods, Category 1. A remanufactured machine or major assembly you record as a fixed asset goes in Category 2, capital goods, in the year you buy it, the same as a new one. The category follows how you account for the purchase, not whether the part is new.

The order of data to use

1. A product footprint from the remanufacturer for that part, cradle to its gate, ideally to ISO 14067.
2. Supplier-specific activity data: electricity and fuel used to strip, clean, machine and test the core, plus the footprint of new components fitted.
3. A spend-based estimate, labelled as such. Spend factors are built from new goods, so check whether a cheaper remanufactured part over or understates the result, and say so.

What a remanufacturer footprint should cover

• Energy and consumables used in the remanufacturing plant.
• New components that replace worn ones, such as bearings, seals and gaskets.
• Transport of the old core to the plant, if the supplier arranges it.
• It should not carry the emissions of making the original part; those belong to the first life.

Do not net off the saving

The difference between a new part's footprint and a remanufactured one is an avoided emission. You may report it separately to show the benefit, but your Category 1 total should carry the remanufactured part's actual footprint, not the new-part figure minus a credit. If you pay to send old cores back, that freight is in Category 4.

Illustrative example: 40 remanufactured engines for a fleet

• Remanufacturing electricity reported by the supplier: 150 kWh per engine; x 0.710 = 106.5 kg CO2
• New components fitted, from the supplier's footprint: 60 kg CO2e per engine (illustrative)
• Per engine: 106.5 + 60 = 166.5 kg CO2e
• Fleet purchase: 166.5 x 40 = 6,660 kg, about 6.7 tonnes CO2e in Category 1

The component figure is CO2e because it covers several gases; the electricity part is CO2 only. Figures are illustrative; use the supplier's data.

What Senseible does here

Senseible keeps supplier invoices for these purchases in a separate supplier evidence trail, and where only spend is known it gives a spend-based estimate labelled with its wider uncertainty.

• Using a supplier's product footprint
• Machinery purchase: Category 1 or 2?
• Scope 3 supplier evidence
• Spend-based or activity-based Scope 3

Sources: GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (2013), Categories 1 and 2, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products

Last reviewed 2026-10-18.