Why recycled waste is assigned a zero emissions factor
When waste leaves your site for recycling, GHG Protocol treats the emissions from the recycling process itself as zero for the company sending the waste.
Most emissions from waste come from what happens to it after it leaves your site: decomposing in a landfill, burning in an incinerator, or breaking down in a composting facility. Recycling is different. The GHG Protocol draws a deliberate boundary around who owns which emissions and that boundary means your company records zero for the recycling process.
How GHG Protocol defines the boundary for recycling
Under the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard (Category 5: Waste Generated in Operations), your company accounts for the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of the third-party waste management companies that handle your waste.
For most waste types - landfill, incineration, composting - those third-party emissions are real and measurable: methane from decomposing organic waste, CO₂ from burning, and so on.
For recycling, the standard makes an explicit exception, as stated in GHG Protocol Scope 3 (Category 5: Waste Generated in Operations):
The GHG Protocol rule on recycling: Companies should account for emissions from recovering materials at the end of their life for recycling but should not account for the emissions from the recycling process itself. Those processing emissions are instead picked up by whoever purchases the recycled materials (in their Category 1 or Category 2 inventory).
This is the "recycled content" allocation method (also termed the "cut-off" method), which is a deliberate choice to avoid double counting the same recycling process in two companies' inventories.
Why this makes sense: avoiding double counting
Think of recycling as a handoff between two inventory boundaries.
Your company sends waste to a recycler. The recycler processes that material and sells it to another manufacturer, who uses it as a raw material input. If your company counted the emissions from the recycling process, and the purchasing manufacturer also counted those same processing emissions in their upstream supply chain (Category 1), the same tonnes of CO₂e would appear twice in the global GHG accounting system.
GHG Protocol resolves this by assigning ownership of recycling process emissions to the downstream purchaser of recycled material, not the upstream sender of waste. Your role in the chain ends when the waste leaves your site for collection.
What Trace calculates for recycled waste
In Trace, when you classify waste as sent for recycling, we apply an emissions factor of zero for the recycling process itself. This is consistent with GHG Protocol's methodology.
For a full breakdown of how Trace calculates each waste stream, see How does Trace calculate waste emissions?
How to handle waste sent to energy recovery
Energy recovery - waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) - is not the same as recycling under GHG Protocol, but it follows a similar boundary logic.
When waste is combusted to generate energy, the combustion emissions are attributed to whoever consumes the energy produced (in their Scope 2), not the company sending the waste. So like recycling, you do not record the combustion process emissions in Category 5.
However, you should record emissions from preparing and transporting waste to the energy recovery facility - these are not zero.
⚠️Notes for reporters
Zero does not mean zero impact. Applying a zero emissions factor to recycled waste reflects a boundary decision, not a claim that recycling has no environmental footprint. The recycler's energy use and process emissions are real, but they are simply accounted for elsewhere in the system. Do not interpret this figure as evidence that recycling is emissions-free.
Avoided emissions are not the same thing. Some companies want to claim a "credit" for recycling, arguing they avoided the landfill emissions they would have produced. GHG Protocol does not allow these avoided emissions to be deducted from your Scope 3 inventory. They may be reported separately as contextual information, but they cannot reduce your reported emissions total. See GHG Protocol Estimating and Reporting Avoided Emissions for guidance on avoided emissions.
Mixed waste streams. If your waste contractor handles both recyclable and non-recyclable material together before sorting, you may need to estimate the split to apply the correct factor to each portion. Trace allows you to record separate entries by waste type and treatment method for exactly this reason.
AASB S2 Considerations
Under AASB S2, companies are required to disclose Scope 3 emissions using a methodology consistent with the GHG Protocol. The zero-factor treatment for recycled waste is part of that methodology, so no special adjustment is needed. If your disclosures are subject to assurance, be prepared to document the GHG Protocol basis for this treatment, as auditors may question a zero figure without context.