Scope 3 for BRSR: how to screen and collect value-chain emissions in India

The instinct with Scope 3 is to produce one big, precise-looking number. That instinct is exactly what gets consultants into trouble. For most Indian manufacturers, Category 1 (purchased goods and services) is 60 to 80% of the value-chain footprint, and it is also the one category with no credible free India emission factors. So a confident Category 1 figure built from a foreign, spend-based proxy is not an achievement; it is a liability the moment an assurer asks how you derived it. The defensible move is the opposite of the instinct: screen the categories you can measure honestly, and flag the one you cannot.

Scope 3 is the part of the footprint outside your own gates, in suppliers, logistics and products in use, and it is rising fast on Indian reports: ICRA's analysis of the NSE top 200 found companies disclosing Scope 3 up nearly 59% over four years. It is still a voluntary Leadership indicator in BRSR, but with value-chain disclosure now live for FY 2025-26, more consultants are being asked to screen it. This guide covers where it sits, the fifteen categories, why the data is the real obstacle, and how to estimate it without inventing anything.

Where Scope 3 sits in BRSR

BRSR Principle 6 asks every in-scope filer for Scope 1 (direct, from fuel burnt on site and in owned vehicles) and Scope 2 (indirect, from purchased electricity) under the Essential indicator P6-E7. For BRSR Core filers, those two are independently assured. Scope 3, everything else in the value chain, is P6-L2, a Leadership indicator, so it is voluntary. Companies still screen it because CDP, investors and large customers increasingly ask, and because the FY 2026-27 value-chain assurance timeline is approaching.

The 15 categories, and which matter in India

The GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard splits Scope 3 into fifteen categories. You rarely report all of them; the discipline is finding the few that are material to your client and screening those well.

The full standard also covers capital goods, fuel- and energy-related activities, upstream and downstream leased assets, processing and end-of-life of sold products, franchises and investments. Screen for materiality first, then estimate only what matters.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 in one minute

Before the categories, a quick refresher, because the boundary is where most confusion starts.

• Scope 1 is direct: fuel burnt in your own boilers, furnaces and owned vehicles.
• Scope 2 is indirect from purchased energy: the grid electricity you buy, converted with the CEA grid factor.
• Scope 3 is everything else in the value chain, upstream and downstream: the emissions you cause but do not directly control.

Scope 3 is almost always the largest of the three, often several times the size of Scope 1 and 2 combined, which is exactly why it is worth screening even though BRSR keeps it voluntary.

All 15 categories at a glance

The GHG Protocol's fifteen categories, split upstream and downstream. You are not expected to report all fifteen; you are expected to identify which are material and account for those.

How to run a Scope 3 screening, step by step

1. 01Screen for materiality. Map your client's value chain and judge which categories are likely to dominate. For a manufacturer that is usually Category 1; for a services firm, business travel and commuting.
2. 02Gather activity data. For each material category, collect a real activity quantity: passenger-kilometres flown, tonne-kilometres freighted, tonnes of waste by disposal route, headcount and commute mode.
3. 03Apply cited factors. Multiply each activity by a published emission factor (DEFRA/DESNZ 2024 for travel, freight and waste), keeping the factor, its source and vintage next to the number.
4. 04Total and convert. Sum the category results and convert kilograms to tonnes of CO2e.
5. 05Document the boundary. State what you included, what you excluded, and why, so the estimate is transparent and repeatable next year.

A worked example

Say a mid-size manufacturer wants a first screen of three categories. The method, not any invented total, is the point:

• Business travel (Cat 6): sum passenger-kilometres by air, rail and road, apply the DEFRA factor for each mode (air includes radiative forcing), and add them.
• Upstream freight (Cat 4): sum tonne-kilometres by road, rail and sea, apply the freight factor for each, and add the well-to-tank component.
• Waste (Cat 5): sum tonnes by disposal route (landfill, incineration, recycling) and apply the route-specific factor.

The free Scope 3 screening calculator runs exactly this, with every factor cited, so you enter activity data and read out a category-by-category total in tonnes of CO2e.

Why the data is the hard part

Scope 3 accounting is not mathematically difficult. The obstacle is that the data belongs to other people. Three problems recur in India:

• Boundary definition. Deciding which suppliers to include, and how to treat joint ventures, contract manufacturing and outsourced activity, is a judgement call that changes the total.
• SME capacity. Most value-chain partners are small firms that do not measure their emissions and do not have the resources or literacy to start on request.
• Engagement at scale. A large company may have thousands of suppliers; collecting consistent, comparable data from each one individually is resource-intensive and slow.

How to screen it honestly

The right first pass is an activity-based screening estimate: multiply a real activity quantity (passenger-kilometres flown, tonne-kilometres freighted, tonnes of waste to landfill) by a published emission factor. Saaksh's free Scope 3 screening calculator does exactly this, using the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard with cited DEFRA/DESNZ 2024 factors, for business travel, employee commuting, transport and distribution, and waste.

From screening to supplier data

A screening estimate tells you where the footprint concentrates, which then tells you which suppliers are worth engaging directly. That is the point at which value-chain data collection begins, and where Saaksh Collect helps: chasing figures from named owners, attaching evidence, and computing emissions with cited factors so the trail is assurance-ready. Keep the framing straight throughout: Scope 1 and 2 are the assured numbers, Scope 3 is a screening estimate until supplier-specific data replaces it.

For the assured figures underneath, see our guide on calculating Scope 1 & 2 for BRSR, and for the disclosure timeline, BRSR value chain disclosure.