Calculate Your Business Carbon Footprint

Your emissions are broken down into 3 broad categories, known as "Scopes".

‍

Within each Scope, start with a pragmatic list you can actually measure:

‍

Scope 1

• Natural gas (or other fuels) used on site
• Company-operated vehicle fuel
  

Scope 2

• Purchased electricity (track kWh; note any renewable tariffs or on-site solar)
• Company-operated electric vehicles
  

Scope 3 (here are some high-impact, “starter” sources - common to most businesses)

• Employee commuting and working from home
  
• Business travel (air, rail, road, hotels)
  
• Purchased goods & services (start with major suppliers/categories by spend)
  
• Waste & water
  
• Third-party shipping/couriers (if applicable)
  

Tip: Begin with the big, material items. You can expand later.

‍

Depending on your sector, you might have other sources within Scope 3. For example, if you sell products, you might want to account for the emissions your products generate during their lifecycle, or when disposed of at end-of-life.

You'll need to collect data which can be used to estimate your emissions.

‍

Here's where to find things quickly:

• Electricity & gas: Look for your kWh usage. Look in utility bills, landlord statements, smart meters.
  
• Company vehicles: Look for litres of fuel used (petrol / diesel), or miles travelled. Use telematics, mileage logs, fuel receipts (for litres), lease reports.
  
• Business travel: Look for miles travelled by mode of transport. Could be available in travel booking portals, expense reports, corporate card data.
  
• Commuting & WFH: Send out a short staff survey, covering how often employees commute in (vs. WFH or elsewhere), how far away they live from their site, and their mode of transport when commuting in.
  
• Waste: Look for kgs of waste disposed of on-site, and what % is recycled. Ask your landlord, waste disposal provider, or facilities manager.
• Water: Look for usage in litres or m3. Usually available in your water bills.
  
• Purchased goods/services: You can start by looking at your spend on various types of good and services, relying on spend-based estimates (convert amount to CO₂e with appropriate factors). You can then refine this over time, by requesting more specific data from your supplier (if they have done their own carbon footprint), or using some form of activity-based data (like kgs of material purchased, instead of amount spent on materials).
  

In general, you can use spend data to estimate most emission sources (even things like electricity usage, or travel). But it's not always accurate. For example, the same unit of electricity can vary wildly in cost depending on market factors. So bear in mind the following data quality ladder: Activity-based data (best) → Supplier-specific data → Spend-based data (acceptable for a first pass).

‍

• Use an official, up-to-date database to convert your data into emissions (e.g., UK: DEFRA/BEIS; other countries have their own national inventories).
  
• Match the factor exactly to your activity, or as close as possible (e.g., combine your UK energy usage in kWh, with the factor for UK grid electricity).
  

Emission factors change year-on-year - for example, as electricity grids decarbonise through more renewable energy, the grid factors improve to refelct this. So remember to use factors for the same year as your data. If you’re calculating multiple years, update factors per year.

For each source: Keep a log of all assumptions (e.g., “Average commute distance assumed 12 km each way, 3 days/week, 40 weeks/year”).

• Confirm the unit of your activity data.
  
• Select the matching factor (same unit, same geography, same mode).
  
• Multiply to get tCO₂e.
  
• Sum by by scope (high level, Scope 1, 2 and 3) as well as more detailed underlying category (e.g. "electricity", "flights").
  
  

• If you’re missing data, estimate transparently (e.g., you can estimate your energy based on floor-space).
  
• Expand Scope 3 where material to your sector (e.g., purchased goods and services for service firms; upstream/downstream logistics for product firms).
  

Prioritise what’s large and actionable.

• Analyse hotspot: Which 3–5 categories drive most emissions?
  
• Calculate metrics: Emissions per FTE, per £ revenue, or per unit shipped—useful for target-setting when you’re growing quickly.
• Benchmark: Compare with peers or public disclosures in your sector (directional, not perfect).

• Set a baseline year and initial targets (e.g., % reduction in Scope 1, 2 or 3, and more granular targets for particular categories like energy and travel).
  
• Identify reduction initiatives (e.g. energy efficiency, travel reductions) that are bespoke to you and your hotspots. Make them ambitious but achieveable and realistic.
  
• Assign owners for initiatives to embed accountability (e.g., procurement, travel policy, facilities).
  
• Recalculate emissions annually to keep track; automate data flows where possible.