Summary: This is an extract from Chapter 5.
Category 5: Waste generated in operations
This category includes emissions from third-party disposal and treatment of waste that is generated in the reporting company’s owned or controlled operations
in the reporting year. This category includes emissions from disposal of both solid waste and wastewater. Only waste treatment in facilities owned or operated by third parties is included in scope 3. Waste treatment at facilities owned or controlled by the reporting company is accounted for in scope 1 and scope 2. Treatment of waste generated in operations is categorized as an upstream scope 3 category because waste management services are purchased by the reporting company.
This category includes all future emissions that result from waste generated in the reporting year. (See section 5.4 for more information on the time boundary of scope 3 categories.)
Waste treatment activities may include:
- Disposal in a landfill
- Disposal in a landfill with landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) – i.e., combustion of landfill gas to generate electricity
- Recovery for recycling
- Incineration
- Composting
- Waste-to-energy (WTE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) – i.e., combustion of municipal solid waste (MSW) to generate electricity
- Wastewater treatment
Companies may optionally include emissions from transportation of waste.
See box 5.6 for guidance on accounting for emissions from recycling.
A reporting company’s scope 3 emissions from waste generated in operations include the scope 1 and scope 2 emissions of solid waste and wastewater management companies.
Box [5.6] Accounting for emissions from recycling
Companies (e.g., plastic bottle manufacturers) may both purchase materials with recycled content (e.g., plastic) and sell products that are recyclable (e.g., plastic bottles). In this case, accounting for emissions from the recycling processes both upstream and downstream would double count emissions from recycling. To avoid double counting of emissions from recycling processes by the same company, companies should account for upstream emissions from recycling processes in category 1 and category 2 when the company purchases goods or materials with recycled content. In category 5 and category 12, companies should account for emissions from recovering materials at the end of their life for recycling, but should not account for emissions from recycling processes themselves (these are instead included in category 1 and category 2 by purchasers of recycled materials).
Companies should not report negative or avoided emissions associated with recycling in category 5 or category 12. Any claims of avoided emissions associated with recycling should not be included in, or deducted from, the scope 3 inventory, but may instead be reported separately from scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions. Companies that report avoided emissions should also provide data to support the claim that emissions are avoided (e.g., that recycled materials are collected, recycled, and used) and report the methodology, data sources, system boundary, time period, and other assumptions used to calculate avoided emissions. For more information on avoided emissions, see section 9.5.