# How do I calculate flight emissions for business travel from India?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/flight-emissions-business-travel-india

Multiply each trip's passenger kilometres by a published air travel factor for that distance band and cabin class. Get the distance from the airport pair, add the uplift your factor source requires, and use the UK DESNZ conversion factors or the ICAO calculator. Report the result as Scope 3 Category 6, business travel.

## The data you need for each flight

- Origin and destination airports, and whether the ticket was one way or return.
- Cabin class: economy, premium economy, business or first. On long-haul flights a business seat takes more floor space, so its factor is higher.
- Number of travellers on the booking.
- The travel agent invoice or ticket as evidence. A rupee amount alone is not enough for a distance-based figure.

## The calculation, step by step

1. Find the great circle distance between the two airports.
2. Check whether your factor source asks you to add a distance uplift for indirect routes and holding, and whether it is already built into the factor. The DESNZ methodology paper for your edition says how it treats this.
3. Pick the factor for the distance band and class from the same edition: DESNZ splits domestic, short-haul and long-haul, and has an international category for flights that do not touch the UK.
4. Multiply passenger km by the factor, then by the number of travellers and legs.
5. State whether the figure includes radiative forcing, the extra warming from emissions at altitude. DESNZ publishes factors with and without it.

## DESNZ or ICAO

The ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator estimates CO2 per passenger for a specific route from aircraft type, seat count and load factor data. It reports CO2 only, without radiative forcing.

The DESNZ conversion factors give kg CO2e per passenger km by class, with and without radiative forcing, and are updated every year. Their domestic category is built for flights within the UK, so read the DESNZ methodology paper before choosing a category for flights within India. Whichever you choose, use one source for the whole year and name the edition.

## Where flights sit in your inventory

Flights in aircraft the company does not own or operate are Scope 3 Category 6 under the GHG Protocol. Hotel stays can be reported in the same category if you choose to include them. Flights in a company owned aircraft would be Scope 1. If you also pay for flights of people who are not employees, state how you treat them.

## Worked example: Delhi to Mumbai return, one traveller, economy (illustrative)

- Great circle distance: about 1,150 km each way
- Return trip: 1,150 x 2 = 2,300 passenger km, before any uplift your factor source requires
- Illustrative factor: 0.25 kg CO2e per passenger km (an illustration, not an official DESNZ value)
- 2,300 x 0.25 = 575 kg CO2e, about 0.6 tonnes

The factor here is illustrative only. Take the exact value for your band, class and radiative forcing choice, and any distance uplift, from the current DESNZ edition and record it.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible can keep travel agent invoices as Scope 3 evidence with their source file. It does not apply flight emission factors, so it gives no flight figure; you calculate that from the route and class.

- [Should flight emissions include radiative forcing](https://senseible.earth/answers/should-flight-emissions-include-radiative-forcing)
- [Business car travel: which scope](https://senseible.earth/answers/business-car-travel-which-scope)
- [Scope 3 supplier evidence](https://senseible.earth/scope-3-supplier-evidence)

Sources: [UK Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting (DESNZ), business travel air, and methodology paper](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-conversion-factors-for-company-reporting), [GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions (2013), Category 6](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-10-15. DESNZ factors change every year; update the factor and edition each reporting year.