Life cycle emissions in scope 3

Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Companies should use life cycle emission factors to calculate scope 3 emissions related to fuels and energy consumed in the reporting company’s value chain, except for category 3 (fuel- and energy-related activities not included in scope 1 or scope 2).

Compared to combustion emission factors, life cycle emission factors represent all emissions in the upstream supply chain of fuels and energy.

Where possible, companies should use life cycle emission factors that are as specific as possible to the type and source of fuel consumed (e.g., specific to the technology used to produce a fuel).

(source: GHGP Corporate Value Chain Standard, p70)

Implementation by Carbon+Alt+Delete

By default, life cycle emissions factor calculation is enabled for scope 3 activity categories. This corresponds with well-to-wheel emission factors. See pages 43 and 53 in the Scope 3 Calculation Guidance for further details.

However, as this is optional, you can toggle this off in Carbon+Alt+Delete in the boundaries under the tab "Emission Factors".

Toggle the hightlighted setting off to not include life cycle emissions in scope 3 activities

Please note that all company accounts created before September 2024 have this setting off by default, and company accounts created after Sept 2024 have this ON by default.

Practical example in Carbon+Alt+Delete

When life cycle emission in scope are turned on, the emission factors used will represent all life cycle stages of the fuels involved. See the following example for the activity category Business Travel.

In the above example, a flight has been added to the business travel inventory. You can open the "Life Cycle Stages" info box to see the full breakdown of the life cycle stages which are combined to create the life cycle emissions for this factor.