How to measure emissions from Refrigerant

What counts as Refrigerant

Refrigerant covers the fugitive emissions of refrigerant gases lost from equipment owned or controlled by the organisation — air conditioning units, chillers, cold storage and heat pumps — through leakage, servicing or end-of-life disposal. Unlike almost every other purchased-goods category, it sits entirely in Scope 1, because the loss happens directly from equipment under your control rather than through purchased goods, energy or transport. The activity data required is the mass of refrigerant lost, in kilograms, not the volume of gas held in the system.

Refrigerant is unusual among purchased-goods-style categories because it isn't about what you bought — it's about what leaked. A system can hold a large refrigerant charge and lose only a small fraction of it each year, so the correct activity figure is the quantity lost or topped up during the reporting period, not the total charge in the equipment. In the UK and EU, F-Gas regulations already require many organisations to log refrigerant handling, making the compliance record a natural source for this data. This is a separate activity from Chemicals, even though both can involve gases with environmental impact — Chemicals covers purchased chemical products more broadly, while Refrigerant is specifically about fugitive losses from cooling equipment.

What activity data you need

Collect the most specific physical unit available. Unit definitions are in Appendix I — Description of Units.

• kg

Which emission scope it falls under

Refrigerant activity data typically maps to Scope 1 under the GHG Protocol. Confirm organisational boundary and ownership before reporting.

Common sub-types

• All refrigerant
• Carbon dioxide
• Carbon tetrachloride
• CFC-11/R11 (trichlorofluoromethane)
• CFC-113
• CFC-114
• CFC-115
• CFC-12/R12 (dichlorodifluoromethane)

Common questions

Do I need to report the full refrigerant charge in each unit, or just the loss?

Just the loss — the mass of refrigerant added during servicing, or otherwise unaccounted for at decommissioning, is what generates emissions. The total charge sitting sealed inside a working system doesn't count until it's released.

We don't have leakage data — can I estimate it?

A common approach is to use an assumed annual leak rate for your equipment type as an interim measure, but prioritise getting actual top-up records from your service contractor, since real data is far more accurate than an assumed rate.

Does this cover refrigerants in company vehicles' air conditioning too?

Refrigerant losses from vehicle air conditioning are typically tracked as part of vehicle-related fugitive emissions rather than building refrigerant, so check whether your reporting tool separates the two before combining the data.

What gas types need to be distinguished?

Record the specific refrigerant type your engineer used — HFCs, HFOs and older gases like R-22 all have very different global warming potentials, so lumping them together as a generic 'refrigerant' loses significant accuracy.

Our landlord manages the HVAC in our leased office — do we still report it?

Only if you have operational control over the equipment. Where a landlord owns and services shared HVAC in a leased building, refrigerant leakage from that system usually falls to the landlord, not the tenant, under GHG Protocol control-based reporting.