GHG Protocol Scope 3
Scope 3 business travel emissions reporting
Category 6 (business travel) under the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain Standard — what counts, what doesn't, and how IMPT's per-booking retirement record fits a defensible Scope 3 disclosure.
Scope 3 Category 6 covers emissions from employee business travel in vehicles not owned or operated by the company. For hotel stays, the GHG Protocol recommends the spend-based, distance-based, or supplier-specific method — IMPT exports booking-level data that supports the supplier-specific method, with on-chain retirement evidence as a separate voluntary disclosure line.
What Scope 3 Category 6 actually covers
The GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard defines Category 6 as emissions from the transportation of employees in vehicles not owned or operated by the reporting company. In practice that means:
- Air travel on commercial flights
- Rail travel
- Ground transport including ride-shares and taxis
- Hotel stays (because the employee is in transit accommodation paid for by the company)
- Rental cars (if not in Category 1)
The most common misclassification is putting employee commuting in Category 6 — it belongs in Category 7 (Employee commuting). The second is forgetting hotel stays — they are explicitly in scope.
The three calculation methods, ranked by audit-readiness
The Scope 3 Standard permits three methods for Category 6 hotels:
Supplier-specific method. Use the actual hotel's reported emissions per occupied room-night. Only feasible for hotel groups that publish HCMI data per property — typically Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Accor and a handful of others.
Distance-based method. For air and rail, multiply passenger-km by emission factor. For hotels, an analogous approach uses occupied room-nights times the regional emission factor (e.g. DEFRA, Cornell CHSB).
Spend-based method. Use spend (in USD or EUR) times an EEIO emission factor. Coarsest of the three but acceptable where no other data exists.
For corporate ESG disclosure under CSRD ESRS E1, supplier-specific is the gold standard. CSRD does not mandate it but stakeholders increasingly expect it for material emissions categories.
The audit trail that survives external assurance
External assurance providers (Big Four, BV, DNV, etc.) check four things for Scope 3 Category 6 hotels:
- Completeness. Are all booked hotel nights captured? They cross-check the booking platform export against the expense ledger.
- Methodology consistency. Same method year-over-year, or transition documented.
- Emission factor source. Versioned reference to DEFRA, Cornell CHSB, HCMI, EPA, etc.
- Voluntary credits separately disclosed. Offsets do not net against Scope 3 — they appear in a separate Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) line.
IMPT publishes booking-level data with per-booking retirement evidence (transaction hash on Ethereum mainnet). The retirement is treated as BVCM, not as a Scope 3 reduction. This conservative treatment is what makes the disclosure defensible.
How IMPT booking data fits
For Cat 6 hotel emissions you need: booking ID, check-in / check-out, hotel, room nights, traveller cost-centre. IMPT's CSV export carries all of that plus a retirement reference and on-chain transaction hash. Sustainability software (Persefoni, Watershed, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud) ingests the booking layer directly via CSV or API.
The on-chain retirement record sits in a separate BVCM line in the disclosure. It is not netted against Scope 3 gross emissions. This separation is what regulators (EU Green Claims Directive, UK CMA, French anti-greenwash) require.
Book ESG-compliant hotels with IMPT
Live availability across 1.7M hotels in 195 countries. Same nightly rate as direct booking. On-chain carbon retirement record per booking — audit-grade evidence for Scope 3 BVCM disclosure.
Search ESG-compliant hotels →Frequently asked
What does scope 3 business travel emissions reporting mean for a corporate travel programme?
Scope 3 Category 6 covers emissions from employee business travel in vehicles not owned or operated by the company. For hotel stays, the GHG Protocol recommends the spend-based, distance-based, or supplier-specific method — IMPT exports booking-level data that supports the supplier-specific method, with on-chain retirement evidence as a separate voluntary disclosure line.
How does IMPT's per-booking retirement actually work?
Every confirmed hotel booking through IMPT triggers the retirement of one tonne of UN-verified CO₂ from a registry-listed project. The retirement is recorded on Ethereum mainnet with a transaction hash tied to the booking ID. The retirement is funded from IMPT's commission, so the guest or company pays the standard nightly rate.
Does the retirement reduce my Scope 3 number?
No. Voluntary credits and retirements are Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) under the GHG Protocol, SBTi, and ESRS E1. They are disclosed separately, not netted against Scope 3 gross emissions. This is the conservative treatment that survives external assurance.
What's the evidence trail for an external audit?
For each booking IMPT can produce: the booking ID, the registry-issued credit serial, the registry name and project, the retirement date, and the on-chain transaction hash. The transaction is publicly queryable from any Ethereum block explorer. That dual representation — internal record plus immutable public ledger — is the cleanest evidence pattern available.
Which registries does IMPT use?
IMPT sources credits from UNFCCC CDM and equivalent voluntary registries. The specific project and registry vary per booking based on supply and quality criteria. Project-level breakdown is available on request for corporate accounts.
Is there a corporate dashboard?
Yes — corporate accounts get a monthly CSV export with booking-level data including all the fields needed for Scope 3 Cat 6 reporting and BVCM disclosure. The export is designed to ingest cleanly into Persefoni, Watershed, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud and similar sustainability software.