Organisational Carbon Emissions in Construction: How to Measure Your Footprint

What are organisational emissions, and why do construction businesses measure them?

Buildings and construction is responsible for a significant share of global carbon emissions and resource use. The UNEP and GlobalABC Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2025–2026 puts the sector at around 37% of global CO₂ emissions and almost half of global material extraction, while employing roughly 9% of the world's workforce. 

Construction businesses are increasingly asked to report their own organisational emissions, through client questionnaires, supplier assessments, tender questionnaires and certification requirements.

That is a different question from the one a project or whole life carbon assessment answers, and the two are often confused. This article covers what an organisational footprint includes, why construction businesses are being asked for one, which standards apply, and how to measure it accurately.

What is the difference between organisational and embodied carbon?

An organisational carbon footprint measures the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a business's activities over a reporting year, typically reported across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 under the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.

Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the materials and construction processes of a building or infrastructure asset, including relevant life cycle stages such as material production, transport, construction, maintenance and end of life. These emissions are assessed using standards such as the RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard, the second edition of which came into full effect on 1 July 2024.

Much of what a project assessment measures also sits inside the organisational footprint. Concrete bought for a build is a Scope 3 purchased good in your annual footprint, and appears in that project's whole life carbon assessment under modules A1 to A3. The same is true of delivery of materials to site, and of the fuel burned in your own plant while building.

The organisational footprint then goes further. It captures everything that keeps the business running but belongs to no single project: office energy and equipment, professional and marketing services, business travel, employee commuting. It also covers a fixed period rather than the life of an asset, so it includes work across every live project in that year and excludes the decades of operation and eventual demolition that a whole life assessment accounts for.

The distinction matters commercially because you might be asked for different things at different stages of the sales lifecycle. For example, if you're bidding to get on a public sector framework, or a large client is conducting a general supplier assessment or screening, then you're more likely to be asked for your organisational emissions. But if you're bidding for a specific project then a project-level footprint may be more relevant.

Where do a construction business's organisational emissions sit?

The GHG Protocol splits emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from sources the business owns or controls. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the energy you buy and use. Scope 3 covers everything else in the value chain, from the materials you purchase through to how your staff travel to work.

The balance between them looks different in construction than in a services business. A consultancy's Scope 1 is often close to nil beyond a gas boiler and a few company cars, and its Scope 3 is dominated by professional services, IT, travel and commuting. A construction business has all of those too, sitting alongside plant fuel, materials and subcontracted work.

Three points worth getting right

Subcontractors normally sit in Scope 3. If a groundworks subcontractor operates its own plant and controls its fuel use, the subcontractor would generally report those fuel emissions in its own Scope 1. Your business would generally account for the purchased groundworks service in Scope 3 Category 1. Subcontracting work out does not remove the activity from your footprint - it just means the allocation by Scope is different.

Materials are often a major source of Scope 3 emissions. For many contractors, housebuilders and specialist trades, purchased goods and services is likely to be one of the largest sources of Scope 3 emissions, particularly where the business buys significant quantities of carbon-intensive materials. A footprint that excludes Scope 3 may therefore leave out a substantial share of total emissions, which is why clients and procurement teams increasingly ask for full-scope figures.

Hired equipment can be complicated to account for. Typically, emissions from equipment that you operate (e.g. fuel or electricity), but you don’t own, sits within your Scope 1 or 2. This is because you are likely to have operational control of the asset - you can decide what to do with it, how to operate it, whether to turn it on or off (etc). But in some cases, there may be blurred lines and it may be difficult to establish whether you do, in fact, have full control of the asset, or whether this sits with the owner - in which case it would sit within your Scope 3. What matters is applying a consistent methodology.

Why are construction businesses being asked to measure organisational emissions?

For many businesses, the trigger is a contract, certification requirement or customer request. As carbon reporting becomes more common across construction and the wider built environment, organisations are increasingly expected to provide credible emissions data alongside other financial, operational and compliance information. The reason for measuring varies, but the requests tend to come from a few common places.

Public sector bidding

Governments and public sector organisations in different countries are introducing carbon reporting requirements into procurement. In the UK, PPN 006  sets out how central government contracting authorities should take account of Carbon Reduction Plans when procuring relevant contracts above £5 million per annum including VAT, subject to relevance and proportionality. Suppliers are expected to demonstrate a commitment to Net Zero by 2050 and provide a Carbon Reduction Plan in the prescribed format.

The NHS has also introduced Carbon Reduction Plan requirements for new procurements, with broader requirements coming into effect from 1 April 2027 for certain higher-value procurements and all new frameworks and dynamic markets. Other countries have their own public sector sustainability requirements, so construction businesses supplying government clients internationally may face different reporting expectations. (Our guide to PPN 006 Carbon Reduction Plans covers the format in detail). 

Main contractor and client requests

Tier 1 contractors and developers reporting their own Scope 3 emissions may need data from suppliers and subcontractors to build a more accurate picture of their value chain emissions. This creates a commercial reason for smaller construction businesses to understand their own footprint, even when they are not directly subject to corporate reporting requirements.

In UK construction pre-qualification, the Common Assessment Standard, developed by Build UK, covers environmental management among its assessment sections. PPN 03/24 recommends its use for certain public construction pre-qualification processes, rather than making it a universal obligation. Carbon questions may also appear in the individual tender question sets that sit alongside it.

Certification and management systems

ISO 14001 provides a framework for an environmental management system, while a measured footprint gives that system an evidence base. ISO 14064-1 provides principles and requirements for quantifying and reporting organisational greenhouse gas emissions and removals.

Buyer scorecards

EcoVadis assessments and CDP disclosure can require businesses to provide evidence of their environmental performance, including emissions data. Large corporate clients may also request this information as part of supplier assessments.

Regulation, directly and indirectly

Reporting requirements vary by jurisdiction, company size and corporate structure. In the UK, Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) applies to quoted companies and to large unquoted companies and LLPs meeting at least 2 of 3 size criteria: turnover of £36 million or more, a balance sheet total of £18 million or more, or 250 or more employees.

In Australia, mandatory climate reporting under the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS) is phasing in by entity size, starting with the largest entities for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2025 and extending to further cohorts through 2026 and 2027, with Scope 3 emissions required from an entity's second reporting year. In the EU, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive now applies to a far narrower group following the Omnibus I Directive, which raised the thresholds to more than 1,000 employees and over €450 million net turnover for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027. In the US, California's SB 253 requires companies with over $1 billion in revenue doing business in the state to disclose Scope 1 and 2 emissions, with Scope 3 following. 

Most mid-market construction businesses sit below many direct corporate reporting thresholds. Their clients, main contractors and parent companies may not. That is the mechanism by which the requirement arrives: not necessarily as legislation, but as a question in a procurement pack.

Which standards should a construction business measure against?

PAS 2080:2023  is worth separating out. It covers whole life carbon management across buildings and infrastructure, is referenced in the UK Construction Playbook, and applies across the built environment value chain, including projects, programmes, networks and systems, rather than to the legal entity. It is a management specification rather than an organisational accounting standard, but firms working towards it usually find that a robust organisational inventory supports their wider carbon management approach.

How do you measure organisational emissions accurately?

1. Set your boundary and approach

Decide which entities and operations you are accounting for, and note anything you are leaving out. Most businesses then use what is called the operational control approach: emissions from things the business controls, such as its own vehicles, offices and depots, are treated as Scope 1 or 2, and everything else falls into Scope 3.

Write the boundary down. If it changes between years without a record, the numbers stop being comparable.

2. Gather your input data

You need information that can be converted into tonnes of CO₂e. For Scopes 1 and 2, that is mostly energy and fuel: kWh of gas and electricity from bills and meter readings, litres of diesel from fuel cards, and any refrigerant top-ups.

Scope 3 draws on a much wider set of inputs, including purchased materials, subcontracted work, waste, transport, travel and commuting. Our guide to Scope 3 emissions covers what each category involves.

3. Convert the data into emissions

Emissions factors are published multipliers that turn an amount of activity into CO₂e, such as the emissions produced per litre of diesel or per kWh of electricity. Governments and research bodies publish them, and they are updated each year.

Match the factor to the activity, the country and the reporting year. Using the wrong year's factors makes year-on-year comparison unreliable.

4. Consolidate into scopes and categories

Group the results into Scopes 1, 2 and 3, with Scope 3 broken down by GHG Protocol category. This is the structure clients, tenders and reporting frameworks expect, and it is what makes the footprint reusable rather than a one-off calculation.

5. Summarise and report

Produce a total, a breakdown by scope and category, and an intensity figure such as emissions per employee or per £ million of turnover. Record the methodology and any assumptions alongside it, so the next person to pick it up can repeat the exercise.

Your first footprint becomes the baseline for every target and comparison that follows. If the boundary and method are documented, the difference in year two reflects a real change in the organisation's emissions rather than a change in how they were measured. 

How Seedling can help

Seedling combines carbon measurement software with one-to-one support from a dedicated carbon adviser, which suits construction businesses where nobody holds a full-time environmental role.

• A full-scope organisational footprint. We build Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventories to the GHG Protocol, using activity data wherever it is available, with clear boundary documentation and a traceable audit trail. Where clients require it, the inventory is structured to support ISO 14064-1 verification.
• Carbon Reduction Plans for public sector bidding. PPN 006 compliant plans relevant central government procurement, NHS and wider public sector work, generated in the required format. There is also a free CRP template if you want to see what is involved first.
• One dataset, many outputs. The same footprint supports ISO 14001 evidence, EcoVadis submissions, CDP disclosure, SECR reporting and client questionnaires, rather than rebuilding the numbers for each.
• Supplier data collection. A supplier engagement tool sends short data requests to subcontractors and material suppliers, with responses feeding directly into your footprint, which matters in a sector where Scope 3 dominates.
• Targets and reduction planning. Our target-setting and reduction tools help you set SBTi-aligned targets and quantify the impact of the actions behind them.
• Project-level work where you need it. Where a client asks for asset or project emissions alongside your corporate footprint, we also produce construction project footprints.
• Expert review. Every footprint is checked by our team before it goes to a client.

Seedling is a certified B Corp, trusted by more than 500 businesses, with over 500,000 tonnes of CO₂e measured on the platform and a 95% client retention rate year on year. Book a demo to talk through your requirements.

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