Overview
Part of your GHG report is estimated based on your employees' habits. The Greenly employee questionnaire gathers this information to calculate the GHG emissions resulting from the company's employees, which is included in the Scope 3 of your GHG report.
The survey is a short, 5-minute questionnaire of 25 questions across four sections: general work profile (country, tenure, working pattern, holiday allowance, and remote working frequency), commutes, work meals, and remote work. The more employees contributing, the more accurate your GHG report is, so broad participation matters.
💡 For business travel, use the Business Travel module instead of the employee survey.
1. What's included in the survey?
The questionnaire is divided into 25 questions across four sections:
Work profile: country, tenure, working pattern, holiday allowance, and remote working frequency
Remote working: home office space, heating/cooling energy use
Commutes: how employees travel to and from work
Work meals: lunches on working days
Before configuring the survey, you can use the d emo to preview all the questions without any answers being recorded.
2. Methodology: how emissions are calculated?
The survey focuses on three main emission source: commuting, remote working, and meals.
Commuting
Commuting is a significant factor in the employees’ GHG emissions. The survey captures the total distance travelled by each employee to and from work across transport modes such as walking, biking, scooting, metro, train, and car. To ensure accuracy:
Modes of transport: each mode is accounted for with its specific emission factor.
Carpooling and fuel types: for car users, emissions are adjusted based on the number of carpoolers and the type of fuel used.
Survey responses and proxies: emissions are first calculated from survey responses. For unanswered surveys, we use proxies based on an INSEE study and the total number of employees to estimate distances and transport modes of nonrespondents.
Remote working
As remote working becomes more common, its impact matters. The survey addresses this through:
Working days at home: employees report how many days they work from home.
Energy considerations: the heated surface area, the home energy source, and air conditioning use are taken into account.
Survey responses and proxies: emissions are first calculated from survey responses. For unanswered surveys, we use proxies based on the average employee (all employees that have previously answered the Greenly survey) and the total number of employees to estimate heating and AC emissions.
Meals
For clients following the BEGES-R methodology (optional for the GHG Protocol), the survey also evaluates emissions from employees' meals:
Daily lunch emissions: calculated for one meal per working day, both on-site and remote.
Type of lunch: vegan, vegetarian, red meat, white meat, or fish, each with accurate emission data.
Reporting standards: meal emissions contribute to "other emissions" for BEGES-R v5 and the GHG Protocol. They are included in the company's GHG report for the BEGES-R but are excluded from the report in the GHG Protocol but can be included in the report to enhance reduction actions and raise awareness.
3. Next steps
Ready to set up and send the survey to your team? See Employee module: how to set up the survey and complete the module for the step-by-step platform guide.