Guide
Scope 2 emissions reporting: the complete guide
Understanding your carbon footprint is no longer just a matter of corporate social responsibility — it is a regulatory and financial necessity. Scope 2 represents the indirect impact of the energy you purchase, and it is the category where accuracy moves the number most.
The basics
What Scope 2 actually covers
Scope 2 is the emissions associated with electricity, steam, heating and cooling that your organisation buys rather than generates. You do not emit it directly — someone else does, on your behalf, at the moment you draw it.
That last part is what makes it awkward to measure. The emissions attached to a unit of electricity depend on what the grid was running at the time. Treat a year of consumption as one undifferentiated block and you lose exactly the detail that determines the answer.
At Emissions Intelligence we help clients optimise and improve their Scope 2 reporting — more about how we got here.
The dual requirement
Two figures, not one
Companies must now report using two methods. They answer different questions, and stakeholders read them differently.
Method one
Location-based
Calculates emissions using the carbon intensity of the power grid your company is connected to. It answers: what did the grid emit to supply you? It is the honest picture of physical impact, and it is unaffected by what you have bought on paper.
Method two
Market-based
Calculates emissions based on the electricity an organisation has opted to purchase, typically set out in contracts or instruments such as Renewable Energy Certificates or REGOs. It answers: what did you choose to pay for?
Why both are needed is the subject of a longer piece on the blog.
What is changing
The granularity is going up
The GHG Protocol Scope 2 consultation closed in January 2026, and SECR reporting is moving in the same direction. The expected changes all point one way: less averaging, more matching.
- Hourly matching. Consumption matched to generation within the hour it happened, rather than netted off across a year.
- Greater granularity in emission factors. A move away from a single national annual average toward factors that reflect when energy was actually drawn.
- More evidence, not just more numbers. Reported figures increasingly need the underlying data attached, not merely a calculation summary.
How we help
Build the capability before it is mandatory
We produce location-based, market-based and Scope 3 transmission and distribution reports from your half-hourly meter data. When the standard tightens, nothing about your process has to change.