What are Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3, explained like I am running a kitchen?

Scope 1 is what you burn yourself, like the gas in your own stove. Scope 2 is the electricity you buy. Scope 3 is everything else linked to your business, like the groceries you buy. Scopes 1 and 2 are the core. Scope 3 is optional in the Corporate Standard.

The three labels at a home stove

• Scope 1, your own flame: the cooking gas you light in your own kitchen. You own the stove, so the smoke is yours.
• Scope 2, the plug in the wall: electricity for the fridge and lights. The fuel was burnt at a power station far away, and you pay for it on a bill. The Corporate Standard, the main Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol rulebook for company footprints, says these emissions physically occur at the facility where the electricity is generated, and they are counted for the company that buys it.
• Scope 3, everything around you: the vegetables you buy, the lorry that delivers them, the bin collection. Others burn the fuel, but your kitchen is the reason.

The same labels in a small business

• Scope 1: diesel in your generator, cooking gas or fuel in your oven or boiler, petrol in vehicles you own or control, and leaks of gas from cooling equipment. The Corporate Standard lists combustion in owned or controlled boilers, furnaces and vehicles.
• Scope 2: electricity you buy. The standard uses electricity as shorthand for electricity, steam, and heating or cooling that you buy in.
• Scope 3: purchased materials, freight you pay for, staff travel, waste, and what happens to your product after you sell it.

Which ones you must count

The Scope 3 Standard, the GHG Protocol rulebook for a company's wider supply chain, says the Corporate Standard requires companies to account for and report all Scope 1 and all Scope 2 emissions. For Scope 3 it gives companies flexibility, and the Corporate Standard calls Scope 3 an optional reporting category.

A buyer, bank or scheme can still ask you for more than the standard requires. The one asking sets that rule.

Adding them up

Inside one company the three scopes do not overlap. The Scope 3 Standard says a company's Scope 3 never includes anything already counted as its own Scope 1 or Scope 2. Together they represent the total emissions related to the company's activities.

If you only count Scope 1 and 2 this year, say so on the page, so nobody reads it as the full picture.

Example: a small print shop, one month

• Scope 1: 80 litres of diesel for a generator x 2.645 kilograms (kg) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per litre = 211.6 kg.
• Scope 2: 650 kilowatt hours (kWh) x 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh = 438.75 kg, using the grid average for financial year (FY) 2025-26.
• Scope 1 and 2 together: 211.6 + 438.75 = 650.35 kg, about 0.65 tonnes.
• Scope 3, such as the paper it buys, is not in this total. Add it only if you choose to count it, and keep it on its own line.

Example figures, not a real shop.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into records, so the quantities behind each figure are on file. That covers Scope 1 fuel and Scope 2 electricity. Supplier footprints are handled separately.

• Can I report only Scope 1 and Scope 2?
• Whose tonne is it? One tonne, two footprints
• Upstream and downstream, the back door and the front door
• Get my free carbon number

Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, revised edition (Chapter 4, scopes and double counting), GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard (Chapter 5 and glossary), IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy, Chapter 1 (Tables 1.2 to 1.4), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22.0

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Scope definitions are from the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (Chapter 4) and Scope 3 Standard (Chapter 1 and section 5.1). The kitchen comparison is ours. Diesel and grid factors are the figures Senseible uses now; re-check when IPCC or CEA publish new editions.