# Is the truck that takes my factory waste away counted in Category 5?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/waste-transport-optional-category-5

It is optional. The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol says you may include emissions from carrying your waste in vehicles run by a third party, using the Category 4 methods. Before you add it, check whether your waste emission factor already includes transport, so the same kilometres are not counted twice.

## What the guidance says

In the GHG Protocol's Category 5 guidance, your Scope 3 emissions from waste come from the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of the companies that treat it. Companies may optionally include emissions from the transportation of waste in vehicles operated by a third party. To report it, the guidance sends you to the Category 4 methods.

The same guidance says waste-type-specific emission factors should include end-of-life processes only, and that they may include transport. That last word is where double counting starts.

## Look at your factor before you add the truck

- The factor says it includes transport to the facility: do not add a transport line.
- The factor covers treatment only (landfill, incineration, recycling): you may add transport, and should say so.
- The factor sheet does not say: ask the publisher, or leave transport out and state that in your method note.

## If you add it

1. Collect tonnes per trip and the distance from your gate to the treatment site, from the contractor's invoice or weighbridge slip.
2. Use a Category 4 method: fuel used per trip if the contractor shares it, otherwise tonnes x distance x an emission factor for the vehicle type.
3. Keep it on its own line, so a reader can remove it and compare with a company that left transport out.
4. Write one sentence in the report: transport of waste is included, and how it was calculated.

## Your own truck is a different case

The option in the guidance is for vehicles operated by a third party. If your own vehicle carries the waste, its fuel is already in your Scope 1 and does not go in Category 5 as well.

## Example: 120 t of factory waste a year to landfill (example figures)

- Example landfill factor, treatment only: 0.40 t CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per tonne, so 120 x 0.40 = 48.0 t CO2e
- Transport at 45 km: 120 t x 45 km = 5,400 tonne-km, at an example 0.10 kg CO2e per tonne-km = 540 kg, or 0.54 t CO2e
- Category 5 with transport: 48.0 + 0.54 = 48.54 t CO2e. Transport is about 1% of it
- If the treatment site were 400 km away: 120 x 400 x 0.10 = 4,800 kg, or 4.8 t CO2e, about 9%
- If the factor already included transport, adding the 0.54 t would count it twice

Example factors, not published values. Use factors from a named source and edition.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible keeps waste contractor invoices in its separate Scope 3 supplier evidence trail and shows a figure only when the printed quantity and unit match an approved factor. Whether to add the transport leg is your choice, and you note it in the report.

- [Calculating Category 5 for factory waste](https://senseible.earth/answers/waste-emissions-scope-3-category-5)
- [Scrap sold for recycling](https://senseible.earth/answers/scrap-sold-for-recycling-scope-3)
- [Supplier emissions evidence](https://senseible.earth/scope-3-supplier-evidence)

Sources: [GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions, Category 5 (waste generated in operations)](https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/Ch5_GHGP_Tech.pdf), [GHG Protocol, Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions, Category 4 (transport methods)](https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/Chapter4.pdf)

Last reviewed 2026-11-04. Re-check if the GHG Protocol revises its Scope 3 guidance.