Under the Cabinet Office PPN 006 Technical Standard, disclosing Scope 3 emissions is no longer optional. Bidding suppliers must account for and itemise figures across five mandatory Scope 3 categories. Reporting Scope 3 as a single lump-sum figure—or omitting categories entirely—causes an automatic tender failure.
The 5 Mandatory PPN 006 Scope 3 Categories
1. Category 4: Upstream Transportation & Distribution
Emissions from third-party freight, courier services, and haulage paid for by your business to transport raw materials or goods to your premises.
2. Category 5: Waste Generated in Operations
Emissions from third-party disposal and treatment of operational waste (general waste, dry mixed recycling, cardboard, timber, and scrap metal) sent to landfill, closed-loop recycling, or energy-from-waste facilities.
3. Category 6: Business Travel
Emissions from employee travel for business purposes in vehicles not owned or controlled by the company. This includes grey fleet (employee-owned cars reimbursed on business mileage), national rail, flights, and hotel overnight stays.
4. Category 7: Employee Commuting
Emissions generated by staff travelling between their homes and their regular workplace, alongside remote homeworking energy factors. Under UK GDPR and our practical guidance, we calculate this cleanly using anonymised Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) headcount and average commute distance models—requiring zero employee names or home postcodes.
5. Category 9: Downstream Transportation & Distribution
Emissions from third-party transport of sold goods and products from your premises to your clients. Note: if all client deliveries are performed in company-controlled vans, those fuel emissions are accounted for under Scope 1, and Category 9 is formally recorded as 0.00 tCO2e with an explicit boundary justification.
UK Government Estimates Permitted: Where primary metered supplier data is unavailable, compliant secondary estimation models and official UK Government DESNZ conversion averages are fully accepted by public procurement assessors.
Let Administrator Studio Handle the Scope 3 Maths
Forward your raw invoices and fuel logs. We run all DESNZ conversion calculations and supply a complete 3-tab Excel audit trail.