What is Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services?

Summary

Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services covers the upstream greenhouse gas emissions linked to the products and services your organisation buys or acquires in the reporting year. These emissions happen outside your own sites and vehicles, but they’re still part of your footprint because they’re driven by your purchasing decisions. For many organisations, Category 1 is one of the biggest areas within Scope 3 supply chain emissions, because it includes the footprint of the inputs you rely on to operate day to day.

What are Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services emissions?

In GHG Protocol terms, Category 1 includes the cradle-to-gate emissions associated with purchased goods and services. ‘Cradle-to-gate’ means emissions from raw material extraction and processing, manufacturing, and other upstream supplier activities, up to the point where the purchased product or service is ready to be delivered to you. It covers both goods and services.

Category 1 is specifically for purchased goods and services that are not reported elsewhere in the upstream Scope 3 categories. For example, if you buy long-life assets like equipment or machinery that are treated as capital expenditure, those sit in Scope 3 Category 2 (Capital goods) rather than Category 1. Similarly, upstream transport and distribution of purchased goods (for example, freight from a supplier to your site in third-party vehicles) is typically reported in Scope 3 Category 4, rather than being bundled into Category 1.

Examples of Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services emissions

What counts as ‘purchased goods and services’ depends on your business model, but common examples include:

• Raw materials, ingredients and components you buy to make products (e.g. textiles, metals, chemicals, electronics parts)

• Packaging (primary, secondary, labels, cartons) used for your products

• Operational purchases like office supplies, consumables, uniforms and cleaning products

• Purchased services, such as:
  
  • Professional services (legal, accounting, recruitment, consulting)
  • Marketing, design and creative services
  • IT services and software subscriptions (SaaS)
  • Outsourced operational support  

In other words, if a supplier provides it and you pay for it, the emissions from producing it are likely to sit in Scope 3 Category 1 purchased goods and services emissions (unless another Scope 3 category is a better fit).  

How to calculate Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services emissions

The GHG Protocol describes four calculation approaches for Category 1, ranging from most supplier-specific to most based on secondary data: supplier-specific, hybrid, average-data, and spend-based methods.  

In practice, many organisations combine methods across different purchasing categories:

• Supplier-specific: Use supplier-provided product carbon footprints or cradle-to-gate emissions data for the goods/services you purchase.

• Hybrid: Combine supplier data (e.g. allocated Scope 1 and 2 emissions for a product line) with secondary data to fill gaps.  

• Average-data (activity-based): Use quantities (kg, units, hours, etc.) multiplied by cradle-to-gate emission factors from life cycle databases.

• Spend-based: Use procurement spend (e.g. £) by category multiplied by environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) emission factors (e.g. kgCO₂e/£).  

The key input is usually procurement data (general ledger, invoices, purchase orders) mapped into sensible categories, then paired with the best available emission factors and supplier data.  

How to reduce Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased goods and services emissions

Because Category 1 is driven by purchasing decisions, reductions typically come from procurement choices, supplier engagement, and design decisions, for example:

• Buy less and waste less: reduce material use, rework and scrap, simplify packaging, and extend product lifetimes

• Switch to lower-impact inputs: choose alternative materials, ingredients, packaging formats or service providers with lower cradle-to-gate footprints

• Prioritise hotspots: focus first on the categories that drive the most emissions (often the highest-spend or most carbon-intensive purchases)

• Work with key suppliers: ask for better primary data, understand their reduction plans, and support progress through long-term relationships and clear requirements  

Seedling helps teams measure Scope 3 Category 1 in line with the GHG Protocol using the most appropriate method per purchase type, then use that insight to prioritise realistic, high-impact reduction actions.