How to measure emissions from Supplier refrigerant

What counts as Supplier refrigerant

Refrigerant gas losses reported by suppliers, relevant when a supplier's cooling or refrigeration equipment is a material input to what the organisation purchases - for example, cold-chain logistics or refrigerated storage services. Recorded as kilogrammes of gas by refrigerant blend.

Category 1, distinct from the organisation's own 'Refrigerant' page (Scope 1) and from 'Downstream leased assets: Buildings: Refrigerant losses' (Category 13, buildings leased out to others). Use this only where refrigerant use sits in a supplier's operations that feed into a purchased good or service, most commonly cold-chain and refrigerated transport or storage suppliers.

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

Supplier refrigerant activity data typically maps to Scope 3 Category 1 under the GHG Protocol. Confirm organisational boundary and ownership before reporting.

Sub-types available in the platform

All 3 sub-types available in the platform.

• HFC-32/R32 (difluoromethane)
• R410A
• R600A (isobutane)

Common questions

When would a supplier's refrigerant use be material to us?

Typically when you buy cold-chain logistics, refrigerated warehousing or similar services where the supplier's cooling equipment is central to delivering that service to you.

How is this different from our own Scope 1 refrigerant losses?

Scope 1 refrigerant is gas lost from equipment your organisation operates directly. This page covers gas lost from a supplier's equipment, embedded in a service you purchase (Category 1).

What if we don't know which refrigerant blend the supplier uses?

Ask the supplier directly, since different blends have very different global warming potentials; if it genuinely can't be determined, use the closest available subtype and note the assumption.

Should cold-chain logistics providers report this to us directly?

Ideally yes - request refrigerant top-up or leak data as part of your supplier engagement for cold-chain contracts, the same way you might request fuel or energy data.

Does this overlap with supplier liquid fuels for the same haulier?

No, they're separate activities - fuel use (Category 4) and refrigerant losses (Category 1) from the same cold-chain supplier are tracked on their own dedicated pages, not combined.