How do I calculate Scope 1 emissions when activity data is not available?

Scope 1 scenario: My company can’t access fuel records for our facilities and/or our fleet vehicles. How can I calculate scope 1 emissions without this information?

For most small to medium-sized companies and for many larger companies, scope 1 GHG emissions are calculated based on the purchased quantities of commercial fuels (such as natural gas and heating oil) using published emission factors. However, if a company does not have access to fuel records, they may estimate fuel consumption in other ways. For example, if you have access to energy bills, facility square footage, equipment type, usage hours, or other relevant metrics, you may be able to estimate energy consumption, which can then be used to estimate emissions.

It’s important to keep in mind there will often be tradeoffs between the GHG accounting and reporting principles (see chapter 1, Corporate Standard) when estimating emissions. To see an example of how one company solved their tradeoff challenges, refer to “The Body Shop: Solving the trade-off between accuracy and completeness,” on page 9 in the Corporate Standard.

If your company has a fleet of vehicles and cannot obtain all fuel bills, there are other approaches that can estimate emissions. A company could incorporate vehicle use logs or odometer readings to capture distance traveled during the reporting period and use the fuel efficiency of the vehicle to estimate total fuel consumption from owned or operated vehicles during the reporting period. You can then apply appropriate emission factors for the specific type of fuel. For other equipment in company facilities, equipment manufacturers may provide information on fuel or electricity consumption that can be used

to estimate the fuel consumption associated with these activities and then apply an appropriate emission factor to estimate emissions.

chapter 6 of the Corporate Standard and relevant sections in the Scope 3 Calculation Guidance can be used jointly to think through challenges related to calculating emissions when activity data may not be attainable for one reason or another. Many sections in the Scope 3 Calculation Guidance provide decision trees that point to different methods to calculate emissions based on the availability of activity data. It’s important to note that the Scope 3 Calculation Guidance was designed specifically for scope 3 emissions where the reporting company does not own or control the emitting asset or resource. However, it still can be helpful in thinking through how to handle situations where activity data may not be available for scopes 1 and 2.

For more information and further reading:

• Corporate Standard, chapter 1 (GHG Accounting and Reporting Principles, chapter 4 (Setting Operation Boundaries), and chapter 6 (Identifying and Calculating GHG Emissions)