Category 7: Employees commuting
Introduction
This category includes emissions from the transportation of employees between their homes and their work sites.
Emissions from employees commuting may arise from automobile travel, bus travel, rail travel, air travel or other modes of transportation.
Employee commuting is categorised as an upstream scope 3 category because it is a service that enables company operations, similar to purchased or acquired goods or services.
A reporting company’s scope 3 emissions from employee commuting include the scope 1 and scope 2 emissions of employees and third party transportation providers.
There are three methods used to calculate emissions from employee commuting.
Fuel-based method. This involves determining the amount of fuel consumed during commuting, and applying the appropriate emission factor for that fuel.
Distance-based method. This involves collecting data such as distance travel and mode used for commuting from employees, and applying different emission factors for the modes used.
Average-data method. This involves estimating emissions from employee commuting based on average national data on commuting patterns.
The decision tree below can act as a guide to determine which method to use to calculate these emissions.
Method 1: Fuel-based
The fuel-based method in this category is similar to the one in category 4. It is can be used if data on the quantity or amount spent on fuel for commuting by employees is available. If this method is used to calculate emissions from commuting on public transport, then emissions need to be allocated to the employees.
Method 2: Distance-based
Companies should collect data on employee commuting habits. Types of data to be collected include:
- Distance travelled by employees per day, or location of residence and office.
- The number of days per week that employees use different vehicle types.
- The number of commuting days per week and number of weeks worked per year.
- In cases where the company is multinational, employees’ region of residence / work since transportation varies by region.
- Whether there is a significant car pooling scheme in operation, the proportion of employees using the scheme and the average occupancy per vehicle.
- For remote workers, the amount of energy used from teleworking e.g. kWh of gas and electricity consumed.
This data can be collected through a survey. Collecting data from a large number of employees may not be feasible. In such a case, companies can obtain a sample from this large number, collect data from them, estimate emissions and extrapolate the results to get an estimate of emissions of the larger group of employees.
The emission factors to be used here are specific to each mode of transport and should be expressed in units of greenhouse gas emitted per passenger-kilometers travelled.
The following formula is used to calculate emissions from employee commuting using the distance-based method and below it is an example of how the formula can be applied.
Method 3: Average-data
This method is used when company specific data is not available. It involves using average secondary activity data to estimate distance traveled and mode of transport.
The activity data needed here include:
- The number of employees
- The average distance travelled by an average employee per day
- The average breakdown of transport modes used by employees
- The average number of working days per year.
Average secondary data may be obtained from sources such as national transportation departments, ministries or agencies, national statistics publications, and/or industry associations.
Companies should collect emission factors for each mode of transport, usually expressed as kilograms of GHG emitted per passenger per kilometer travelled.
Using this method requires several simplifying assumptions, which adds uncertainity to the emissions estimates.
The formula for calculating emissions from employee commuting is shown below.
