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Definition

Scope 3 Category 10: Processing of sold products

Scope 3 Category 10 covers the greenhouse gas emissions caused when customers or other third parties process your sold intermediate products into usable or final products.

What is Scope 3 Category 10: Processing of sold products?

Category 10 records the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions that customers produce while turning an intermediate product you sold into a final product. The product must need further processing, transformation or inclusion in another product before use. See where Category 10 sits within Scope 3 emissions.

Why does Scope 3 Category 10 matter to you?

CDP 2026 Question 7.8 and SME Question 20.7 ask for gross Scope 3 emissions and explanations for exclusions. If you sell clinker, resin, metal billets or ingredients, omitting customer processing can leave a relevant category unexplained.

How is Scope 3 Category 10 calculated?

Use customer records for the site-specific method when available. Collect fuel, electricity, refrigerant leakage, waste and process emissions, apply factors, then allocate the share caused by your product. Without customer data, multiply the product's mass by a processing factor that covers the required steps. Cover every processing step through the final product and retain the period, quantities, factors and allocation basis.

What mistakes should you avoid?

  • Including a finished product that needs no further manufacturing before use.
  • Counting your own production emissions here instead of Scope 1 or Scope 2.
  • Assigning all customer-facility emissions to your product when the process uses several inputs.
  • Silently omitting varied or unknown end uses instead of documenting and explaining the exclusion.

Does Category 10 apply to every sold product?

No. It applies to intermediate products that another company must process before use. A finished product that can be used as sold does not create Category 10 emissions for that sale.

What data should you ask the customer for?

Ask for the reporting period, processing steps, product quantity, total inputs, energy and fuel use, process emissions, refrigerant leakage, waste, emission factors and allocation method.

Example

Suppose a construction materials producer in Canada sells 5,000 tonnes of raw gypsum to a Canadian customer that calcines it into bagged plaster. The customer isolates the batch and records 75,000 cubic metres of natural gas used for calcination, with no other products in the measured batch. No allocation is needed.

The published Keslio factor is 2.02633 kg CO2e/m3 for UK natural gas, publication year 2026, from UK DESNZ and DEFRA. The calculation is 75,000 m3 x 2.02633 kg CO2e/m3 = 151,974.75 kg CO2e, then 151,974.75 / 1,000 = 151.97475 metric tonnes CO2e.

The producer records that the UK factor is a proxy for Canadian processing and replaces it when reliable customer-specific or Canadian data is available. This result covers the measured natural-gas combustion only. Electricity, process emissions, refrigerants and waste need separate calculations where relevant.

Where it comes up

GHG Protocol Category 10 boundary and site-specific or average-data methodsTechnical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions, Category 10, Figure 10.1 and formulas 10.1-10.2CDP 2026 gross global Scope 3 emissions and exclusionsCDP full corporate questionnaire, 7.8; SME questionnaire, 20.7

Related terms

Scope 3 Emissions

Scope 3 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gas emissions from goods, services, transport, product use, investments, and other upstream and downstream activities outside your company's Scope 1 and Scope 2 boundary.

Scope 3 Category 9: Downstream transportation and distribution

Scope 3 Category 9 covers emissions from transporting, storing and retailing products after sale in assets you do not own or control, excluding outbound services your company buys, which belong in Category 4.

Scope 3 Category 11: Use of sold products

Scope 3 Category 11 covers the expected lifetime emissions from customers using goods and services your company sold during the reporting year, including fuel or electricity use and greenhouse gases released from products.

Product carbon footprint (PCF)

A product carbon footprint (PCF) is the greenhouse gas emissions assigned to one product across a stated life-cycle boundary and expressed per declared or functional unit.

Emission factor

An emission factor converts a measured activity, such as kilowatt-hours of electricity or litres of fuel, into greenhouse gas emissions by stating the emissions released per unit of that activity.

Sources

  • GHG Protocol

    Category 10 boundary, site-specific and average-data methods, allocation, activity data and formulas 10.1-10.2

    2026-08-20

  • CDP

    2026 Questions 7.8 and 20.7 on gross global Scope 3 emissions and exclusions

    2026-08-20

  • UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

    The 2026 natural gas conversion-factor dataset used for the worked example

    2026-08-20

Last verified 2026-08-20

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Scope 3 Category 10: Processing of sold products Definition | Keslio