Is a company bus or contracted staff transport Scope 1 or Scope 3 Category 7?
It depends on who operates the bus. A bus you own, or lease and run with your own drivers and fuel, is Scope 1. A bus run by a transport contractor who supplies vehicle, driver and fuel is Scope 3; Category 7, employee commuting, is the closer fit, though some companies use Category 1. Disclose your choice.
Four common set-ups and where each goes
- Company-owned bus, company driver, company buys diesel: Scope 1.
- Bus on lease, company driver and fuel: Scope 1 under the operational control approach most companies use. Under financial control, an operating lease moves it to Scope 3 Category 8.
- Company-owned bus, but a contractor drives it and buys the fuel: decided by who has operational control under the contract. Read the contract, record the answer, and treat every such bus the same way.
- Contractor's bus, driver and fuel, paid per month or per trip: Scope 3.
Category 7 or Category 1 for a contracted bus
The GHG Protocol Scope 3 guidance describes Category 7 as transporting employees between their homes and worksites in vehicles the company does not own or operate. A contracted factory bus fits that wording. Category 1, purchased services, is also defended because the service arrives on an invoice. Either is acceptable if disclosed and applied every year; the error to avoid is counting the same trips in both.
How to calculate it
- Best: fuel used. For your own buses this is the diesel slips; for a contractor, ask for litres bought for your routes.
- Next: distance. Route km per day x days run x the bus's km per litre gives litres; then multiply by the fuel factor.
- Last resort: spend. Monthly charges x a spend-based factor, labelled an estimate.
Keep the rest of commuting separate
Staff who come on their own scooters or by public transport are also Category 7 but need a commuting survey. Trips to clients, airports or other plants are Category 6, business travel, even if the same bus does them.
Worked example: two contracted buses
- Route: 60 km a day per bus, 2 buses, 300 days a year = 36,000 km
- Contractor's figure: 4 km per litre, so 36,000 divided by 4 = 9,000 litres of diesel
- Emissions: 9,000 x 2.68 kg CO2 per litre (IPCC 2006 default) = 24,120 kg, about 24.1 t CO2
- Reported in Scope 3 Category 7; if the buses were yours, the same 24.1 t would be Scope 1
The km per litre is the contractor's number; ask for the fuel log to confirm it.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads diesel slips for buses you run as Scope 1 fuel, and keeps contractor invoices in the Scope 3 supplier evidence trail with the document attached. It does not convert route kilometres into fuel; you supply that calculation.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, revised edition (2004), Chapter 4 and Appendix F on leased assets, GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (2013), Category 7, 2006 IPCC Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (diesel default)
Last reviewed 2026-10-15. Classifying contracted buses is a judgement under current guidance; check whether the GHG Protocol revision clarifies it.