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What is Scope 1?

Updated 30 July 2022

Scope 1, view inside a factory

Scope 1 includes greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, vehicles and processes that are owned or controlled by your organisation.

Scope 1 emissions are classified as direct emissions because they are from sources you own or control. This is in contrast to ‘indirect’ emissions, where another organisation is causing emissions on your behalf, for example your energy company burning fossil fuels for your electricity consumption.

Emissions allocated in this scope arise from:

  • stationary combustion of fuels (in premises),
  • mobile combustion of fuels (in vehicles),
  • manufacturing processes,
  • fugitive sources (eg. from air conditioning and refrigeration systems).

Stationary: Emissions generated from stationary combustion

Scope 1: Stationary, furnace

Summary

The Scope 1 standard on Stationary Combustion requires you to account for the greenhouse gas emissions generated from any combustion of fossil fuels in your business, on your premises.

The sources may include equipment like boilers, furnaces, turbines, heaters, incinerators, engines, flares, etc. Often, such combustion occurs in the effort to generate electricity, heat or steam to run your machinery, facility or office.

The defining feature is that you are going to be purchasing and using fossil fuel directly - be that oil, natural gas or another type.


Examples

Common:
burning gas in a kitchen stove

Service and software companies:
A health-tech company, for example, must allocate for emissions from a gas-burning heating system, and other equipment in its offices and under this section of Scope 1.

Physical product and other companies:
A fertiliser manufacturer, for example, must allocate all emissions from the boilers, turbines, heaters, incinerators, engines, flares, etc., under this section of Scope 1.

Mobile: Emissions generated from mobile combustion

Scope 1: Mobile combustion, trucks outside warehouse

Summary

The Scope 1 standard on Mobile Combustion requires you to account for the greenhouse gas emissions generated from the combustion of fossil fuels of all vehicles that are owned or leased by your company.

These vehicles could be used in transferring goods between your facilities or delivering your end product to the customer’s doorstep.

The defining feature is that you will directly be buying and using fossil fuels that are then consumed by these vehicles that you operate. There are two important exclusions from this section.

  1. 
Hired vehicles. If your organisation was hiring a car whilst on a business trip and you filled it with fuel, this is actually accounted for under Scope 3 Category 6.

  2. The energy used to power electric vehicles also has an impact but is accounted for under scope 2 as you are not directly burning the fossil fuels, but rather consuming the electricity that is produced by another party burning them.

Examples

Common:
delivery trucks, cars running on petrol

Service and software companies:
For example, a dropshipping company that operates its own transportation fleet must allocate, under this section, all emissions that are involved in the pick-up and delivery of store products.

Physical product and other companies:
For example, for a furniture manufacturer that operates its own transportation fleet, all emissions that are involved in distributing raw materials – wood, metal, fabric – to all of its facilities, transporting finished products to the retail store and delivering the sold furniture product to the customer’s delivery location need to be allocated under this section of Scope 1.

If the manufacturer outsources the logistics then it will be accounted for under scope 3.

Process Emissions: emissions generated from manufacturing processes

Scope 1: Process, factory assembly line

Summary

The Scope 1 standard on Process Emissions requires you to account for the greenhouse gas emissions generated as a byproduct in any manufacturing process that you conduct.

There are hundreds of chemical reactions that have CO2 as a byproduct, the most prevalent being the chemical process to create cement. This alone is responsible for 4-5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

Having any emissions in this section would require you to combine chemicals or subject a chemical to heat or pressure that causes the byproduct. As a result, it is not applicable to the vast majority of companies.


Examples

Common:
the creation of cement or fertiliser

Service and software companies:
This section may not be relevant for service or software companies as they will almost certainly not be conducting any chemical processes.


Physical product and other companies:
This section may be relevant for companies that have manufacturing processes in their operations.

For an aluminium manufacturer, the process used to create aluminium from alumina (‘Hall-Héroult’) typically involves a carbon-based fuel that produces not only carbon monoxide as a direct consequence of the reaction but considerable carbon dioxide and the other highly potent greenhouse gases Carbon tetrafluoride (CF4) and C2F6 as unintended byproducts.

An aluminium manufacturer must account for the total carbon dioxide equivalent of all of these byproducts from production, typically on a premise-by-premise basis. The standard approach would be to take the aluminium output you are producing and multiply these by government-provided emissions factors for aluminium or monitor the emissions directly.

If the manufacturer outsources the logistics then it will be accounted for under scope 3.

Fugitive: Emissions generated from fugitive sources

Scope 1: Fugitive, aerial view of vent system of factory

Summary

The Scope 1 standard on Fugitive Sources requires you to account for the greenhouse gas emissions that leak from equipment in facilities owned by your company.

These emissions – intentional or unintentional – may leak from seals and joints of equipment, refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, gas processing facilities, wastewater treatment, cooling towers, and other plant and machinery.


Examples

Common:
leakage of emissions from equipment such as an air conditioning unit


Service and software companies:
The most common and probably the only source is the emissions from refrigeration and air conditioning equipment used in the office premises.

Physical product and other companies:
For a vegetable oil manufacturer, for example, the fugitive emissions released from storage tanks and the decomposition of organic matter in the waste effluent stream must be allocated under this section of Scope 1.

Further information

You can read more in the overall guidance from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol on Scope 1 here.

Get a copy of the Consequence GHGP guide to learn more.

Consequence Greenhouse Gas Protocol Guide