Understanding Scopes 1, 2, and 3

You'll see the term "Scopes" used throughout the Gravity platform. Scopes are a foundational concept in carbon accounting – core to helping you understand your carbon footprint. But what are they?

Put simply, Scopes are the most common way of categorizing your organization's emissions. They're defined by the GHG protocol, the gold standard carbon accounting framework, as follows:

• Scope 1 – direct emissions. These are greenhouse gases emitted from company-controlled sources. Examples include burning natural gas to produce heat, operating company-owned vehicles and other equipment, and performing other industrial processes.
• Scope 2 – acquired energy emissions. Your utility provider typically burns fuels to produce the energy your company uses, producing emissions that are classified under scope 2. Electricity is by far the most common example here, but some industrial companies also purchase steamed or heat from the grid.
• Scope 3 – value chain emissions. A complete carbon accounting also includes the emissions of your company's customers and suppliers in the course of their dealings with your company. Big sources include emissions from your procurement activities, business travel, logistics, product usage, and investments.

Of course, it's possible to classify your emissions according to more intuitive categories, like emissions from vehicles, buildings, or industrial processes. Gravity supports both types of categorization. But when companies disclose their emissions in materials such as annual reports, they typically do so according to Scopes.