Activity data·Freight & logistics
How to measure emissions from Freight: Downstream
Freight: Downstream is the outbound transport of sold products in vehicles you don't own, once goods have left your control — think courier and haulier legs paid for by your organisation on the way to distributors, retailers or end customers. It maps to Scope 3 Category 9. Collect tonne.km, distance or spend from carrier invoices and shipment records.
- Scope
- Scope 3 Category 9
- What activity data you need
- km, kWh, litre, tonne, tonne.km, £ Spend, $ Spend, Unit
- Activity data
- Freight & logistics
What counts as Freight: Downstream
Freight: Downstream covers the transport and distribution of products the organisation has sold, once they've left its control, carried out in vehicles the organisation doesn't own — typically couriers, hauliers or freight forwarders working for you or paid by you. It sits under Scope 3 Category 9 (Downstream Transportation and Distribution) in the GHG Protocol. It only applies where the reporting organisation pays for the transport or requires it for another reason; if the customer arranges and pays for collection themselves, that leg belongs in the customer's own inventory, not yours.
Downstream freight begins the moment a product changes hands from your organisation and continues until it reaches its next stop — a distribution centre, a retailer or the end customer. Because it happens in vehicles operated by third parties, none of it is Scope 1 or Scope 2; the whole activity sits in Scope 3 as Category 9. The key boundary question is payment and control: if you commission and pay for the leg (even via a 3PL), it belongs here; if a customer collects goods themselves, exclude it. This differs from Freight: Owned vehicles, which covers movement in your own fleet regardless of direction, and from Freight: Upstream: Third party, which covers inbound goods arriving from suppliers rather than outbound goods leaving for customers.
How to collect the data
Start with invoices from couriers, hauliers and freight forwarders, which often itemise weight, distance and mode (road, air, sea, rail) per shipment or account period. Where carriers report tonne.km directly — increasingly common with 3PL partners such as DHL, DPD, Fedex or Royal Mail — use it in preference to distance alone, since it reflects both weight and distance. If shipment-level detail isn't available, spend from freight and logistics cost centres is an acceptable fallback, recognising that spend-based data sits lower in the data hierarchy than physical activity data.
What activity data you need
Collect the most specific physical unit available. Unit definitions are in Appendix I — Description of Units.
- km
- kWh
- litre
- tonne
- tonne.km
- £ Spend
- $ Spend
- Unit
Which emission scope it falls under
Freight: Downstream activity data typically maps to Scope 3 Category 9 under the GHG Protocol. Confirm organisational boundary and ownership before reporting.
By emission scope
Compliance frameworks
Sub-types available in the platform
All 23 sub-types available in the platform.
- Freight: Air: Average
- Freight: Air: Average DHL
- Freight: Air: Average DPD La Poste
- Freight: Air: Average Fedex
- Freight: Air: Average K&N
- Freight: Air: Average Landmark
- Freight: Air: Average UPS
- Freight: HGV -- All artics
- Freight: HGV -- All HGVs
- Freight: HGV -- All rigids
- Freight: Rail: Average Mars Rail and Sea
- Freight: Road: Average
- Freight: Road: Average DHL
- Freight: Road: Average DPD La Poste
- Freight: Road: Average Royal Mail
- Freight: Road: HDV: Average DPD La Poste
- Freight: Road: HGV: Average Fedex
- Freight: Road: LDV: Average DPD La Poste
- Freight: Sea: Average
- Freight: Sea: Average K&N
- Freight: Van Class I (up to 1.305 tonnes)
- Freight: Van Class II (1.305 to 1.74 tonnes)
- Petrol (average biofuel blend)
Data entry options
fuel type
Select fuel type when entering freight: downstream activity data in the platform.
load type
Select load type when entering freight: downstream activity data in the platform.
Common questions
- Does downstream freight include deliveries my customers arrange and pay for themselves?
- No. If a customer collects goods from your site or arranges and pays for their own onward transport, that leg falls outside your reporting boundary. Only include transport you commission or pay for after the point of sale.
- How is this different from freight in my own vehicles?
- Downstream freight covers carriers you don't own or control — couriers, hauliers, freight forwarders. Movement in vehicles you own or lease, in any direction, belongs in Freight: Owned vehicles instead, and sits in Scope 1, 2 and 3 rather than Scope 3 alone.
- What if a single shipment mixes several transport modes?
- Break the journey down by leg where your carrier data allows it — for example, a road leg to a port followed by a sea leg — and record tonne.km or distance separately for each mode, since emission intensity varies significantly between them.
- Can I use volume or pallet counts instead of weight?
- Weight-based tonne.km is preferred wherever your logistics system supports it. Volume or pallet counts can be converted to an estimated weight if that's all your carrier provides, but note the assumption in your methodology.
- Do returns and reverse logistics count here?
- Product returns moving back through third-party carriers are typically tracked separately from outbound distribution, since they represent a different flow. Many organisations still report them within Category 9, but flag the direction so the two flows aren't confused during analysis.
By industry
Industries where this is material
Next step
Start benchmarking your Freight: Downstream footprint
Apply matching emission factors in Compare Your Footprint and compare your footprint against sector peers.
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