What is Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life treatment of sold products?

What are Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life emissions?

In GHG Protocol terms, Category 12 includes the emissions from waste disposal and treatment of products sold by your organisation in the reporting year, once they reach end-of-life. This typically means modelling how products are handled after use (for example, recycled, landfilled, incinerated, composted) and applying relevant emission factors to the materials and treatment routes. Because you usually do not control how customers dispose of products, calculating Category 12 requires clear assumptions or customer survey data about disposal methods and waste treatment shares.

Category 12 is specifically about end-of-life. It is different from Scope 3 Category 11 (Use of sold products), which covers emissions while the product is being used (for example, electricity to run an appliance). It is also different from Scope 3 Category 5 (Waste generated in operations), which covers waste from your own operations, not from customers disposing of sold products.

Examples of Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life emissions

What counts depends on what you sell and what it’s made from, but common examples include:

• Disposal of product packaging (e.g. cardboard, plastics, glass, composites)
• Disposal of consumer products at end-of-life (e.g. textiles, electronics, furniture, medical products)
• Disposal of consumables (e.g. single-use items, cartridges, refill packs)
• Treatment of materials through recycling, landfill, incineration, anaerobic digestion, or composting routes
• Emissions associated with treatment processes (and in some methods, credits or avoided emissions linked to recycling and energy recovery, depending on the emission factor source and methodology)

How to calculate Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life emissions

The GHG Protocol calculation guidance for Category 12 is typically activity-based and follows a simple structure:

• Break products (and packaging) into material types and weights
• Estimate the proportion of each material that goes to each end-of-life route (recycled, landfilled, incinerated, etc.)
• Multiply by end-of-life emission factors (often expressed per tonne or kg of material by treatment route)
• Sum across materials and routes

In practice, teams often combine data sources:

• Product and packaging specs (BOMs, weights, material composition)
• Sales volumes by product line (to estimate total material placed on the market)
• Disposal assumptions (country or region-specific waste treatment shares, or sector studies)
• Emission factors (national conversion factors, life cycle databases, or recognised waste tools)

How to reduce Scope 3 Category 12: End-of-life emissions

Because Category 12 is driven by product design and end-of-life outcomes, reductions typically come from material choices, packaging design, and circularity decisions, for example:

• Use less material: lightweight packaging, remove unnecessary components, reduce mixed-material formats
• Design for recycling: avoid hard-to-separate composites, use widely recyclable materials, make labelling and sorting easier
• Increase recycled content (where appropriate): shift demand toward secondary materials and support recycling markets
• Enable reuse and take-back: repairability, refill systems, return schemes, remanufacturing pathways
• Improve end-of-life instructions: clearer guidance for customers and partners can increase correct disposal and recycling rates
• Focus on hotspots: prioritise the products and materials that drive the biggest end-of-life impacts first

Seedling helps teams measure Scope 3 Category 12 in line with the GHG Protocol, using a practical data approach (product and packaging composition + sensible disposal assumptions), then turn the results into clear design and procurement actions that reduce emissions without overcomplicating reporting.