The mystery of the missing emissions companies aren't reporting
Author: Alex Bishop
Emissions are classified under different “scopes.” Let’s consider The Coca-Cola Co. It is a producer, distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola says a 1-litre bottle produces approximately 350g of C02. These emissions classified under Scope 1 include the amount of Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) produced by onsite manufacturing, onsite transportation and operations to make the Coca-Cola product. Scope 2 includes all the utilities for Coke’s plants. Coca-Cola internal reporting states that 69 per cent of its emissions are in Scope 1, and 31 per cent of its emissions are in Scope 2. That sounds reasonable, except Coca-Cola’s - like most companies, including airlines - calculations fail to consider all of the GHG emissions. The majority of these emissions are in Scope 3. Scope 3 includes purchased goods and services, fuel- and energy-related activities for transportation and distribution of products, waste generated in operations, business travel, employee commuting, leased assets, processing of sold products (in the case of Coca-Cola, this includes the bottles), use of sold products, end-of-life treatment of sold products (most of Coca-Cola’s products are not recycled), and more.