Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are three categories of greenhouse gas emissions that help organizations map their complete carbon footprint. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from sources you own (like company vehicles), scope 2 includes indirect emissions from purchased energy (electricity and heating), and scope 3 encompasses all other indirect emissions throughout your value chain (from suppliers to product use). This framework, established by the GHG Protocol, helps companies understand where their carbon emissions actually come from.
What exactly are scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions?
These three emission scopes create a standardized way to measure your organization’s total climate impact:
- Scope 1 emissions – Direct emissions from sources you own or control, such as company vehicles, factory boilers, and on-site fuel combustion. These emissions occur within your organizational boundaries and represent areas where you have immediate operational control.
- Scope 2 emissions – Indirect emissions from purchased energy, including electricity, heating, and cooling. When you use electricity or heating, the emissions from generating that power count as your scope 2 footprint, even though the actual combustion happens at a power plant elsewhere.
- Scope 3 emissions – All other indirect emissions throughout your value chain, including supplier emissions, employee commutes, business travel, purchased goods and services, product use by customers, and end-of-life disposal. For most companies, scope 3 represents the largest chunk of their total carbon footprint, often accounting for over 70% of total emissions.
The GHG Protocol created these categories to bring order to corporate carbon accounting, ensuring consistent measurement across organizations. This three-tier structure provides a comprehensive view of your climate impact by capturing emissions from your direct operations, your energy consumption, and your broader business ecosystem. Whether you’re preparing for CSRD compliance or setting SBTI targets, understanding these three scopes forms the foundation of your emissions inventory and guides your reduction strategy.
Why do companies separate emissions into these three categories?
The three-scope framework serves several practical purposes that help organizations take meaningful climate action:
- Clear accountability – The separation clarifies where you have direct control (scope 1), indirect control through purchasing decisions (scope 2), or influence through partnerships (scope 3). This distinction helps assign responsibility across different departments and stakeholders within your organization.
- Regulatory compliance – Different reporting frameworks like CDP and CSRD have varying requirements for each scope. Some regulations mandate detailed scope 1 and 2 reporting whilst treating scope 3 as optional, allowing you to focus resources on mandatory disclosures first.
- Strategic prioritization – Scope 1 and 2 are typically easier to measure and control, making them natural starting points for emissions reduction. You can install LED lighting or switch energy suppliers relatively quickly, whilst scope 3 requires longer-term supplier engagement strategies and value chain transformation.
- Transparent communication – The framework allows you to report emissions in a standardized way that investors, customers, and regulators can understand and compare across organizations. This consistency builds trust and enables meaningful benchmarking against industry peers.
This structured approach transforms an overwhelming challenge into manageable pieces, allowing you to identify specific areas where you have the most leverage to make improvements. By categorizing emissions based on control and influence, the framework enables you to develop targeted reduction strategies, allocate resources effectively, and communicate progress transparently to stakeholders. The separation also prevents double-counting across organizations, as one company’s scope 1 emissions become another’s scope 3, creating a coherent system for tracking emissions throughout the global economy.
Which emissions scope is hardest to measure and reduce?
Scope 3 emissions consistently prove the most challenging for organizations across industries:
- Data collection challenges – Unlike scope 1 and 2 where you measure your own consumption, scope 3 requires collecting information from dozens or hundreds of external sources. Your suppliers might not track their own emissions, forcing you to use industry averages and estimation methods that reduce accuracy.
- Variable data quality – Even when data exists, quality varies wildly. Some partners provide detailed emissions reports whilst others offer rough estimates, making accuracy difficult to achieve and creating inconsistencies in your overall carbon footprint calculation.
- Limited direct control – You can mandate that your own facilities switch to renewable energy, but you can’t force your suppliers to do the same. You’re working through influence and partnership requirements rather than direct authority, which slows the pace of emissions reduction.
- Broad value chain coverage – Scope 3 spans everything from raw material extraction through product end-of-life, including employee commutes, business travel, and customer use patterns across multiple countries and industries. This complexity makes comprehensive measurement resource-intensive and time-consuming.
Despite these difficulties, addressing scope 3 remains essential since these indirect emissions account for over 70% of most organizations’ total carbon footprint. Ignoring scope 3 means missing the majority of your climate impact and undermines the credibility of your sustainability commitments. While scope 1 and 2 provide quick wins and demonstrate immediate action, meaningful climate progress requires tackling the complex web of value chain emissions. Organizations that invest in scope 3 measurement and reduction—through supplier engagement programs, product redesign, and value chain collaboration—position themselves as genuine climate leaders rather than companies merely addressing the easiest portions of their footprint.
Getting your emissions strategy right
Understanding the three emission scopes gives you the foundation for effective carbon management. Whether you’re preparing for CSRD reporting, responding to CDP disclosure requests, or setting science-based targets through SBTI, knowing the distinction between scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions shapes how you measure, report, and reduce your corporate carbon footprint.
The framework transforms climate action from an abstract concept into concrete categories where you can take specific steps. You can tackle scope 1 through operational changes, address scope 2 by switching energy suppliers, and approach scope 3 through supplier engagement and product innovation.
At Dazzle, we connect you with specialized sustainability consultants who understand the nuances of emissions reporting and reduction. Whether you need a scope 3 specialist to untangle your value chain emissions or a sustainability reporting expert to ensure CSRD compliance, we can match you with the right professional within 48 hours. Reach out to our team of experts today.
