What are Scope 3 Category 15 emissions?

Scope 3 Category 15, known as Investments includes the emissions associated with your company’s investments or financing activities that are not already included in your Scope 1 and 2 emissions. This includes both for-profit and not-for-profit financing activities. Emissions from investments includes all the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of investees, weighted by the percentage equity held in each investee by your company.

Emissions from your investees may be included in your scope 1 or scope 2 emissions depending on the approach used to define organizational boundaries. For example, if the equity-share approach is used, emissions from equity investments will be included in scope 1 and scope 2. However, if the the operational control approach is used, your scope 1 and 2 emissions inventory would only include investments under your control, with emissions from your remaining investments falling within Scope 3, Category 15.

Below is an example demonstrating how emissions from Investments would be accounted for under different approaches to setting organizational boundaries:

Reporting Company’s approach to setting organizational boundaries Investee Scope 1 & 2 emissions (tCO2e) Equity held by the reporting company Party with operational and financial control Reporting Company’s Scope 1 & 2 emissions from the investment (tCO2e) Reporting Company’s Scope 3 emissions from the investment (tCO2e)
Operational Control 23,500 25% Investee has operational control

Reporting company has financial control | 0

(Emissions are accounted for under scope 3 as the reporting company does not have operational control of the investee) | 5,875

(Investee’s scope 1 and 2 emissions are weighted by equity and included in scope 3) | | Financial Control | 23,500 | 25% | Investee has operational control

Reporting company has financial control | 23,500

(All emissions fall under scope 1 and 2 as the reporting company has full financial control of the investee) | 0

(All emissions are accounted for in scope 1 and 2) | | Equity-Share | 23,500 | 25% | Investee has operational control

Reporting company has financial control | 5,875

(Scope 1 and 2 emissions are weighted by equity) | 0

(All emissions are accounted for in scope 1 and 2) |

You can learn more about setting your organizational boundaries from your Unravel Carbon Sustainability Consultant, or under chapter 3 of the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard.

With that, follow our guide below on how to get started with measuring your Scope 3, Category 15 emissions!

Step-by-step guide

Note that data uploads would be by your Portfolio Companies/Investees, and the associated emissions will be reflected as your Financed Emissions

Step 1: Downloading file templates

  1. Access the Unravel Carbon main site and log in.
  2. Click on ‘Measure’ in the sidebar, then select ‘Upload Data’.”

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  1. Click “Download file template” in the upper right corner of the page.

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4.Select the type of file template you are looking for. Click on "Download. Refer to the details in the guide to determine which template to download.

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Step 2: Preparing your data

Unravel Carbon’s Financed Emissions Module is used for calculating Scope 3 emissions from Equity investments. This includes the scope 1 and scope 2 emissions from any subsidiaries, associate companies, portfolio companies and joint ventures in which your company has a share of equity.

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