An SMB Example
What’s the fruit and vegetable shop accounting for?
Under the GHG Protocol, your business will be accounting for emissions that fall into three categories or scopes.
What are the three categories of emissions under the standards?
- Scope 1 emissions are the direct emissions from business-owned or controlled sources.
- Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity.
- Scope 3 emissions are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation, but that indirectly impact the organisation through its value chain (GHG Protocol, 2022).
As an example, let's think of a fruit and veggie shop 🍎
Scope 1
Their Scope 1 emissions would include emissions such as those from their van as they deliver groceries to other businesses, and those coming from their gas cooker that emits the GHGs methane and nitrous oxide, or fugitive emissions released from the refrigeration system used to keep their produce fresh.
Scope 2
Their Scope 2 emissions would include the emissions associated with the electricity they’ve purchased to power their store, including cash registers, heating units, lights and speakers.
Scope 3
Their Scope 3 emissions will include the emissions associated with producing the fruit and vegetables on the farm, those produced by the truck that delivered their fruit and veggies from the wholesaler, the emissions associated with the waste from the food they don’t sell, the emissions associated with their recycling, and even the emissions from the cars their employees use to get to work. Nearly every good or service they purchase will have some form of emissions associated with it.