Scope 3 category 9: downstream transportation and distribution

Category 9 "includes emissions that occur in the reporting year from transportation and distribution of sold products", and "also includes emissions from retail and storage". It is part of the 15 Scope 3 categories.

The boundary with category 4

"Outbound transportation and distribution services that are purchased by the reporting company are excluded from category 9" and reported in category 4 instead. Category 9 is what happens to your products after the point of sale when someone else pays: a customer collecting with its own trucks, a distributor's warehouses, a retailer's shelves. See the freight guide for the full comparison.

Methods

The guidance points to the category 4 methods for the transport part: "Companies may use either the fuel-based, distance-based or" spend-based method. For storage and retail it offers a "site-specific method or the average-data method".

For most manufacturers and brands the distance-based method is realistic:

1. Estimate the tonnes of product delivered to each main customer or region.
2. Estimate the distance and mode from your warehouse to the customer's sites.
3. Multiply tonne-km by the freight factor for the mode (see the freight calculator).

Storage and retail

For products that need refrigeration or long storage, distribution centres and shops can matter. Without data from customers, the average-data method uses typical energy per pallet or per square metre of retail space; document the assumption.

When category 9 is small

Companies that sell services, or whose customers pick up goods locally, may find category 9 negligible. Screen it with a quick estimate, then report it or justify excluding it, as the Scope 3 Standard requires.