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Definition

Scope 3 Category 6: Business travel Definition

Scope 3 Category 6 covers emissions from employee business travel in aircraft, trains, buses, rental or employee-owned cars, and other vehicles your company does not own or control.

What is Scope 3 Category 6: Business travel?

Category 6 covers the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of travel providers carrying your employees for work during the reporting year. Flights, rail, buses, taxis, rental cars, and reimbursed employee-owned cars qualify. Company-controlled vehicles belong in Scope 1 or Scope 2, while travel between home and work belongs in Category 7.

Why does Scope 3 Category 6 matter to you?

CDP 2026 Questions 7.8 and 20.7 ask for gross Scope 3 emissions by category and explanations for exclusions. Travel records often sit across booking systems, expense claims, and finance, so missing one source can understate the total.

How is Scope 3 Category 6 calculated?

Use the fuel-based method when a provider gives you reliable fuel and electricity data, including any air-conditioning refrigerant lost. Otherwise, multiply distance by a matching factor. Passenger-km is trip distance times the number of your employees travelling; vehicle-km is the distance of a car used only by your company. Tonne-km measures freight, not people. If only spend is available, multiply each travel cost by a factor for that service. Calculate hotel nights separately by country and year.

What mistakes should you avoid?

  • Counting commuting or company-controlled vehicles in Category 6.
  • Using ticket count without distance, cabin class, or transport mode.
  • Adding spend and distance estimates for the same trip.

Are hotel stays included in Category 6?

They are optional under the GHG Protocol. If you include them, multiply room nights by a country and year-specific kg CO2e per room-night factor and state that choice consistently.

What should you send when a customer asks for Category 6?

Send the reporting period, traveller list, trip legs, mode, passenger-km or vehicle-km, hotel country and room nights, factor source and year, calculation file, exclusions, and any spend-based proxy.

Example

Suppose a food and beverage processor in the Philippines chooses to include hotel stays and records a total of 2,000 passenger-km of domestic air travel and four Philippine hotel room nights across two employees in 2026. Keslio factor key flight_domestic_average_with_rf_desnz_2026 is 0.22928 kg CO2e/passenger.km, including radiative forcing. Key hotel_ph_room_night_desnz_2026 is 54.3 kg CO2e/room night. Both come from UK DESNZ and DEFRA, UK Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting 2026.

Calculation: 2,000 passenger-km x 0.22928 = 458.56 kg CO2e. Four room nights x 54.3 = 217.2 kg CO2e. The combined estimate is 675.76 kg CO2e, or 0.68 metric tonnes CO2e rounded to two decimals. Record the UK flight factor as a proxy for Philippine domestic travel.

Where it comes up

CDP 2026 full corporate Question 7.8, Business travel rowCDP full corporate questionnaire, 7.8CDP 2026 SME Question 20.7, Business travel rowCDP 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.

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.

Carbon Accounting

Carbon accounting is the process of defining a company’s greenhouse gas inventory, collecting activity data, applying emission factors, and reporting Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions on a consistent basis.

Scope 3 Category 7: Employee commuting

Scope 3 Category 7 covers emissions from employees travelling between home and work and can optionally include extra energy used when employees work from home.

Sources

  • GHG Protocol

    Category 6 boundary, fuel-based, distance-based and spend-based methods, hotel stays, and formula 6.1

    2026-08-19

  • CDP

    2026 full corporate Question 7.8 and SME Question 20.7 for gross Scope 3 emissions and exclusions

    2026-08-19

  • UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

    Published 2026 flight and Philippine hotel-night conversion factors used in the worked example

    2026-08-19

Last verified 2026-08-19

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Scope 3 Category 6: Business travel Definition | Keslio