Understanding Carbon Emission Scopes
Carbon emissions are grouped into three categories under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol:
Scope 1 – Direct Emissions
These are emissions that are from sources your institution owns or controls, such as company vehicles or on-site fuel combustion.
Scope 2 – Indirect Energy Emissions
These are emissions resulting from the electricity, heating or cooling your institution purchases.
Scope 3 – Value Chain Emissions
All other indirect emissions that occur across your value chain, including purchased goods and services, business travel, waste, water use and employee commuting.
Scotland does not mandate Scope 3 reporting for institutions however, public sector climate policies strongly advise it as part of the national Net-Zero goals. Without Scope 3 data, institutions cannot fully understand or plan to reduce their largest sources of emissions. The Scottish Governments improvement plan also emphasises better reporting of supply-chain emissions, ensuring public bodies account for the climate impacts of their procurement activities.
Reporting
APUC have developed a Scope 3 Emissions report to allow quick determination of the CO2e emissions associated with institutional procurement spend. The report is populated with your institutions procurement data which is taken from the Non Pay Spend (spend on goods and services) data that you have provided to UKUPC consortia. This report is available to APUC members.
In order to calculate your institutions Scope 3, the spend data against each Proc HE is mapped to a defined list of DEFRA categories for which conversation factors – calculating value to carbon – are allocated. The data is then used to generate your instititions Scope 3 Emissions report allowing you to analyse individual supplier emissions.
By reporting these emissions, institutions play a key role in Scotland’s Net-Zero transition, using their estates, services, budgets and procurement influence to drive meaningful carbon reduction across the public sector.
APUC members can download their Scope 3 Emissions report from Hunter.