What Are Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 Emissions?

The GHG Protocol provides widely used frameworks for measuring and reporting greenhouse-gas inventories. Organizations define a boundary, collect activity data, and report emissions consistently over time.

Scope 1 covers sources an organization owns or controls, such as fuel burned in company vehicles, boilers, furnaces, and process equipment, plus relevant refrigerant leaks.

Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling. The emissions occur at the producer, but are associated with the reporting organization's energy use.

Scope 3 covers other upstream and downstream activities, including purchased goods, business travel, employee commuting, transport, product use, and waste. It is often the broadest and most data-intensive scope.

The scopes were designed for organizations. They can help explain sources to individuals, but a personal footprint is not a formal Scope inventory. CarbonCAM currently focuses on electricity-related appliance estimates and does not produce a complete Scope 1-3 report.