Overview

Determining whether a building's energy-related GHG emissions must be included in your GHG inventory, and if so how they are allocated across scopes and regulatory categories, depends on two key parameters:

The consolidation approach, which defines the organizational boundaries of your GHG assessment: equity share, financial control, or operational control;
The type of lease, applicable when the building is leased rather than owned: operating lease or finance/capital lease.
These parameters dictate whether emissions fall within your inventory scope and how they are distributed across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, and regulatory categories under GHG Protocol or BEGES.

Key benefits / use cases

Accurate reporting: Ensure precise allocation across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3.
Regulatory compliance: Align your data seamlessly with the GHG Protocol, BEGES, or CSRD requirements.
Streamlined assessments: Understand your organizational footprint quickly using default configurations.

Default Approach Greenly applies the operational control approach by default for all GHG assessments, unless a different approach has been specifically agreed upon.Important: Companies reporting under CSRD, for example, are required to use the financial control approach for their main reporting boundary.

Regarding lease types, operating leases are the most common arrangement for buildings. Because by definition, any lease that is not a finance/capital lease is an operating lease. The vast majority of standard office rentals fall into this category.
The allocation rules described in this section apply to this most common configuration: operational control approach + operating lease.

What is operational control According to the GHG Protocol: "A company has operational control over an operation if the former or one of its subsidiaries has the full authority to introduce and implement its operating policies at the operation."

In practice, any company that uses and occupies a space (whether as owner or as tenant) is considered to have operational control, because it determines how energy is consumed within that space (working hours, equipment choices, lighting, etc.).Not having operational control is an exception that must be explicitly justified and documented. The same principle applies under BEGES: while the regulatory text is less explicit on this point, the underlying logic is identical to the GHG Protocol's, and Greenly applies the same reasoning in practice for BEGES-based assessments.

Use the decision tree below to determine whether your organization has operational control over a building — and therefore whether its energy consumption emissions should be reported in Scopes 1 & 2 or in Scope 3.

What is an operating lease vs. a finance/capital lease?-Operating lease: a standard rental arrangement where the lessee uses the asset without bearing the economic risks and rewards of ownership. The vast majority of office space rentals fall into this category.

Finance/capital lease (known as crédit-bail or location-financement under BEGES): a rent-to-own arrangement in which the lessee bears the risks and rewards of ownership, and the asset is recorded on the lessee's balance sheet.

Allocation under the default scenario

Under the default scenario (operational control + operating lease), the allocation is as follows:

Occupant's perspective(whether you own the building or rent it as a lessee): you are considered to have operational control and must report 100% of the building's energy-related emissions as Scope 1(direct combustion, e.g. gas heating) and Scope 2 (purchased electricity), plus the associated upstream energy emissions in Scope 3.
Lessor's perspective(you own the building and lease it out to a tenant): the building's energy emissions fall in your Scope 3 (Category 13 Downstream leased assets under GHG Protocol / Category 5.2 *Actifs en leasing aval *under BEGES).

What does "Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions from a building" include?
The energy use of a building generates two distinct categories of emissions, allocated to different scopes:

Energy generation emissions → can be reported in Scope 1 or Scope 2:
Scope 1: direct combustion emissions produced on-site (e.g., natural gas or fuel oil used for heating or hot water)
Scope 2: indirect emissions from the generation of electricity purchased and consumed on-site.
Upstream energy emissions → always reported in Scope 3, never in Scopes 1 or 2:
For fuels:
emissions from the extraction, production and transport of the fuel prior to its on-site combustion
in BEGES reporting only: emissions from the manufacturing and construction of energy infrastructure.
For electricity:
emissions from extraction, production and transport of the fuel prior to its on-site combustion
emissions from transmission and distribution (T& D) losses along the grid
in BEGES reporting only: emissions from manufacturing and construction of energy infrastructure.