Scope 5 Selected BEIS (Defra) Tables

Introduction

This resource library contains selected emissions factors sourced from the UK’s Department for
Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Formerly, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) database that can be used to determine direct combustion (scope 1) and corporate value chain (scope 3) emissions. Presently the library offers factors for:

• Business Travel (including air travel, land travel, air travel, sea travel, and hotel stays)
• Freighting Goods
• Fuel and Energy Related Activities
• Homeworking
• Material Use

What's Included

Business Travel

Each business travel conversion factor translates a travel activity, such as flying in a plane or driving a car, into a quantity of emissions per distance traveled, or per hotel room per night.

The Business Travel library section is divided into the following categories:

1. Air Travel (with RF) (Business travel - air tab in source file)
2. Hotel Stay (Hotel Stay tab in source file)
3. Land Travel (Business travel - land tab in source file)
   1. Cars (by market segment)
   2. Cars (by size)
   3. Motorbike
   4. Taxis
   5. Bus 
   6. Rail
4. Sea Travel (Business travel - sea tab in source file)

Notes on Air Travel Resources

In addition to the CO2 emissions associated with jet fuel combustion, air travel further contributes to climate change by increasing atmospheric radiative forcing (RF) through the emission of nitrous oxides, water vapor and aerosols as well as by changing cloud abundance. The BEIS Business Travel Library accounts for these additional impacts of air travel under the category labeled “With RF”.

Notes on Car Resources

Within the Cars categories, different fuel types and technologies are considered such as diesel, petrol, hybrid, battery-electric and more.

For battery-electric vehicles, emission factors include the emissions associated with the production of electricity in the UK used to charge a battery-electric vehicle. 

Notes on Units of Measurement

The Air and Sea travel emissions factors in this library are expressed in units of distance (km). When applying them, please beware that the BEIS publication expresses them per unit of passenger.km. (A passenger.km, is the unit of measurement representing the transport of one passenger by a defined mode of transport (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways etc.) over one kilometer.) For instance, if two employees take the same flight, their kilometers traveled should be added up before being entered as activity data. The same applies to conversion factors in land travel by bus, rail and in some instances by taxi.

Freighting Goods

The BEIS freighting goods emissions factors are used to calculate the emissions from a variety of freight transportation vehicles (truck, van, rail, vessel). These factors can be used to calculate scope 3 emissions from upstream and downstream transportation, as well as scope 1 emissions from vehicles owned or operated by the reporting company.

Notes on Units of Measurement

The factors maintained in the Freighting Goods section are expressed in units of weight-distance. Weight-distance (such as tonne-kilometers) is a specific type of unit associated with freight, in which activity expresses the product of the weight of the goods shipped and the distance over which they are shipped. Weight-distance activity is appropriate when the vehicle is shared with products from other companies.

Fuel and Energy Related Activities

The BEIS library includes well-to-tank (WTT) emissions factors, which can be used to quantify scope 3 emissions in the Fuel and Energy Related Activities category. Complimentary to scope 1 fuel factors that describe the emissions associated with the combustion of fuel, WTT factors quantify the upstream emissions associated with extraction, refining and transportation of fuels burned by a company. These include fuels that are combusted in stationary and mobile equipment, as well as fuels that are combusted by a reporting company's utility in the process of generating electricity.

The Scope 5 library organizes WTT emissions factors according to the same categories offered by BEIS, described below:

1. Bioenergy
2. Biogas
3. Biomass
4. Business Travel
5. Fuels
6. Overseas Electricity Generation
7. Oversees Electricity T&D

Homeworking

Homeworking, or work from home, emission factors are used to estimate the emissions associated with company staff working from home. These emission factors are calculated using the methodology from the Homeworking emission Whitepaper (EcoAct, 2020).

The three factors in this section provide estimates for emissions from operating office equipment, heating, and the combined scenario of using office equipment and heating.

Per Greenhouse Gas Protocol, homeworking/WFH emissions are accounted for in scope 3, category 7 - employee commuting.

Material Use

Material use emission factors can be used to calculate the cradle-to-gate lifecycle emissions of a variety of materials. These factors are particularly useful in calculating scope 3, category 1 - purchased goods and services emissions on a mass basis for the categories listed below:

• Construction
• Other
• Organic
• Electrical items
• Metal
• Plastic
• Paper

For primary materials, these factors cover the extraction, primary processing, manufacturing and transportation materials to the point of sale, not the materials in use. For secondary materials, the factors cover sorting, processing, manufacturing and transporting to the point of sale, not the materials in use. These factors are useful for reporting efficiencies gained through reduced procurement of material or the benefit of procuring items that are the product of a previous recycling process.

These emission factors are provided in units of mass per mass (i.e. kg CO2e per tonne of material).

 

Where the numbers come from

To identify the source of a specific set of emissions factors in Scope 5, please refer to the ‘Source’ for the specific conversion factor set, as illustrated in the following example.

Updates

The Scope 5 Selected BEIS (Defra) Tables Library is updated when the source authority publishes updates. The most recent set of emissions factors was released in June 2023 and is sourced from the database of the UK Government's Department for Environment and Rural Affairs Conversion Factors for greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting.

Global Warming Potentials

Following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol recommendation, all Scope 5 standard resource libraries use global warming potentials from the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) as of February 13, 2017.

 

The Scope 5 team is always available to help, whether that means navigating the application, making changes to your account configuration, or just answering questions.