ESG and emissions reporting · Leased assets
Category 13 downstream leased assets for lessors
How the GHG Protocol treats emissions from equipment and vehicles that a lessor owns and leases to others, and the asset records that support the calculation.
What Category 13 covers
Category 13, downstream leased assets, covers emissions from the operation of assets that a reporting company owns and leases to other entities, where those emissions are not already included in the company’s Scope 1 or Scope 2.
The minimum boundary is the lessees’ Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from operating the leased assets. For a leased truck or excavator, that is mainly the fuel burned while the lessee operates it. Emissions from manufacturing the leased assets are optional.
Category 8, upstream leased assets, is the mirror category for lessees.
Lease type and consolidation approach for lessors
Where the emissions are reported depends on the type of lease and the consolidation approach the lessor uses to set its organisational boundary.
| Lease type | Equity share or financial control | Operational control |
|---|---|---|
| Finance or capital lease | Scope 3, Category 13 | Scope 3, Category 13 |
| Operating lease | Lessor’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 | Scope 3, Category 13 |
Under operational control, an operating lease is reported in Category 13 unless the lessor has operational control of the asset.
Lessee treatment
| Lease type | Equity share or financial control | Operational control |
|---|---|---|
| Finance or capital lease | Lessee’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 | Lessee’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 |
| Operating lease | Scope 3, Category 8 | Lessee’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 |
Category 11 for leased products
A company that manufactures products and leases them to customers may report the emissions from those products in Category 11, use of sold products, instead of Category 13. It discloses which category it uses.
Calculation methods
Category 13 uses the same calculation methods as Category 8. The GHG Protocol Technical Guidance gives three.
- Asset-specific: fuel and energy used by each leased asset, multiplied by the emission factor for that fuel
- Lessee-specific: the lessee’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, allocated to the leased asset
- Average-data: the number of leased assets of each type, multiplied by average annual emissions for that asset type
Lessee data for leased vehicles and plant
For leased vehicles, the Technical Guidance gives fuel or mileage data collected from lessees as the example data for the asset-specific method. Where an asset is leased for part of the year, emissions are pro-rated to the lease period.
Asset-level records support each method: make, model, year and asset class for every leased machine, with its hours, distance or fuel, and the lease start and end dates.
Leases held by banks and financiers
The PCAF motor vehicle loans asset class covers on-balance sheet loans and lines of credit used to finance vehicles, including yellow equipment for mining and construction. It does not address leases. The GHG Protocol and PCAF do not state whether a bank’s finance leases are reported in Category 13 or Category 15.
A lender with both loans and leases on its equipment book sets out the treatment it applies to each and the reasons for it.
How we support lessors
Asset-level emissions for each leased machine under the method that fits your lease and reporting boundary, with a proposed treatment where loans and leases sit on the same book.
Common questions
Questions and answers
- Is a finance lease reported in Category 13 by the lessor?
- Under the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard, a lessor reports emissions from assets under a finance or capital lease in Category 13 under every consolidation approach.
- Where does a lessor report an operating lease?
- Under the equity share or financial control approach, an operating lease is in the lessor’s own Scope 1 and Scope 2. Under the operational control approach, it is reported in Category 13 unless the lessor has operational control of the asset.
- What data does a lessor need?
- For the asset-specific method, the fuel or energy used by each leased asset during the lease period. For leased vehicles, that is usually fuel or distance data collected from lessees.
Sources
- GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard
2011. Section 5.5, Table 5.4 and Appendix A, Tables A.1 and A.2.
- GHG Protocol Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions
Version 1.0, 2013. Chapters 8 and 13.
- PCAF: The Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard Part A: Financed Emissions, Third Edition
December 2025. Subchapter 5.6, Motor vehicle loans.
How to start
Leased asset emissions enquiries
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