Category 6: Business travel
Introduction
This category includes emissions from the transportation of employees for business-related activities in vehicles owned or operated by third-parties, such as air crafts, trains, buses, and passenger cars.
Emissions from business travel may arise from air travel, rail travel, bus travel, automobile travel (e.g business travel in rental cars or employee-owned vehicles other than employee commuting to and from work) and other modes of travel.
This category excludes:
Emissions from transportation in vehicles owned or controlled by the reporting company. These emissions are accounted for in either scope 1 (for fuel use) or scope 2 (for electricity use).
Emissions from leased vehicles operated by the reporting company not included in scope 1 or 2 are accounted for in category 8 (Upstream leased assets).
Emissions from transportation of employees to and from work are accounted for in category 7 (Employee computing).
A reporting company’s scope 3 emissions from business travel include scope 1 and scope 2 emissions from transportation companies (e.g. airlines).
There are three methods that can be used to calculate emissions from this category.
Fuel-based method: This method involves determining the amount of fuel consumed during business travel and applying the appropriate emission factor for that fuel.
Distance-based method: This method involves determining the distance and mode of business trips, then applying the appropriate emission factor for the mode used.
Spend-based method: This method involves determining the amount of money spent on each mode of business travel transport and applying secondary (EEIO) emission factors.
The decision tree below can act as a guide to determine the best method to use in certain scenarios.
Method 1: Fuel-based
The calculation methodology for this method is the same as the fuel-based methodology in category 4. Companies may choose to collect the number of hotel nights spent during the business trip. If they do so, the number of hotel nights together with the corresponding emission factors are factored into the calculation of emissions in this category.
Method 2: Distance-based
This method is used when data on fuel use is unavailable. It involves multiplying activity data i.e. vehicle-kilometers or person-kilometers travelled by emission factors. These emission factors are typically default national emission factors by vehicle type.
To quantify emissions, companies should collect data on the total distance traveled by each mode of transport. Since emission factors vary by country and vehicle type, companies should also collect data on countries the employees traveled to and the specific types of vehicles used for travel, together with their corresponding emission factors. Similarly to the fuel-based method, companies may also collect data on the number of hotel nights incurred during business travel by hotel type.
This data should be expressed as the number of kilometers travelled or kilometers travelled per person for a particular vehicle type. The data should be summed to obtain total annual kilometers or person-kilometers travelled by each vehicle type used by the company.
This method requires companies to collect emission factors for each mode of transport (aircraft, rail, metro, bus), expressed in units of greenhouse gas emitted per kilometer or per passenger-kilometer travelled. Companies may optionally use emission factors for hotel stays by hotel type (e.g., kilograms of CO2e emitted per hotel night).
Companies can use various methods to collect data:
Automatic tracking of distance travelled by mode through a travel agency, other travel providers or through internal expense and reimbursement systems. These systems should capture data on distance travelled and mode of transport.
Annual surveys/questionnaires of employees
Travel providers (e.g., transport companies, hotels) to obtain GHG emissions data.
In a case where the number of employees who have travelled for business purposes is too large, companies can obtain information from a small sample and extrapolate to obtain an estimate of emissions for the large number of employees.
Once the total annual distance travelled has been calculated, emissions can be calculated using the following formula:
Method 3: Spend-based
If it’s not possible to use the first two methods either because of data limitations or any other reason, companies can use the spend-based method. This involves collecting data on amounts spent during travel and applying EEIO emission factors to calculate emissions. This is similar to the spend-based method described in category 4.