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Definition

Scope 3 Category 7: Employee commuting Definition

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.

What is Scope 3 Category 7: Employee commuting?

Category 7 covers travel between employees' homes and worksites in vehicles your company does not own or control. It includes the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of employees and transport providers. The GHG Protocol also lets you include teleworking emissions.

Why does Scope 3 Category 7 matter to you?

A customer may ask for your gross Scope 3 total and excluded categories through CDP 2026 Questions 7.8 or 20.7. Australian entities applying AASB S2 must consider all 15 categories and disclose which categories their Scope 3 figure includes.

How is Scope 3 Category 7 calculated?

Use fuel consumed when reliable fuel data is available. Otherwise, multiply annual passenger-km or vehicle-km for each transport mode by its matching factor. If employee-level fuel, distance, and mode data are unavailable, use average commuting patterns, such as official national data. Convert a one-way distance into a return trip, then multiply by staff, office days per week, and working weeks.

A commuting survey is a practical way to collect this information. Ask employees at least annually for mode, one-way distance, office days, work location, and car occupancy. For homeworking, Keslio's calculator multiplies staff by homeworking days, 8 hours, and 46 weeks, then applies a kg CO2e per FTE working-hour factor to the additional energy used for work.

What mistakes should you avoid?

  • Counting business trips in Category 7 instead of Category 6.
  • Using one car factor for bus or rail travel.
  • Ignoring return trips, car occupancy, or weeks not worked.

Is employee commuting the same as business travel?

No. Category 7 covers travel between home and work. Category 6 covers travel undertaken for business, such as a flight to visit a customer.

What should you send when a customer asks for Category 7?

Send the reporting period, employee count, survey file, mode split, distances, attendance days, working weeks, factor names and years, calculation file, homeworking choice, assumptions, and exclusions.

Example

Suppose a garment and textile factory in Australia surveys 30 employees who drive an average 12 km one way, four days per week, for 46 weeks. Ten of those employees also work from home one day per week. Keslio's factors dataset uses 0.16591 kg CO2e/passenger.km for average car travel and 0.32393 kg CO2e/FTE working hour for office equipment and heating while homeworking. Both factors are from UK DESNZ and DEFRA's 2026 conversion factors, used here as UK proxies because the dataset has no Australia-specific commuting factors.

Calculation: 30 x 12 km x 2 x 4 days x 46 weeks = 132,480 passenger-km; x 0.16591 = 21,979.7568 kg CO2e. Homeworking is 10 x 1 day x 8 hours x 46 weeks = 3,680 hours; x 0.32393 = 1,192.0624 kg CO2e. The combined estimate is 23,171.8192 kg CO2e, or 23.17 metric tonnes CO2e.

Where it comes up

CDP 2026 gross Scope 3 emissions and exclusionsCDP full corporate questionnaire, Question 7.8; SME questionnaire, Question 20.7AASB S2 employee commuting category and disclosure of included Scope 3 categoriesAASB S2 paragraph 29(a)(vi)(1), Appendix A definition A[17], and paragraphs B32-B33

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 6: Business travel

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.

Sources

  • GHG Protocol

    Category 7 boundary, teleworking option, fuel-based, distance-based and average-data methods, survey fields, and formulas 7.1-7.2

    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

  • Australian Accounting Standards Board

    Category 7 employee commuting, consideration of all 15 Scope 3 categories, and disclosure of included categories

    2026-08-19

Last verified 2026-08-19

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Scope 3 Category 7: Employee commuting Definition | Keslio