By Molly McCready
By now, we’ve all internalized the idea that solar energy is clean. It’s the iconography of a decarbonized future: panels soaking up sunlight, converting it into electricity, offsetting fossil fuels one kilowatt-hour at a time.
But here’s the harder truth—no industry, not even the ones powering the transition, is entirely carbon-free. And if we want to actually understand how systems work—how supply chains, infrastructure, and corporate operations intersect with climate goals—we need better language, better categories.
That’s what Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions offer us. Not perfection, but clarity.
Let’s dig in.
Scope 1: The Emissions You Control
Scope 1 emissions are the emissions that come directly from a company’s operations. Think about trucks in a fleet. Backup diesel generators. Heavy machinery on a solar construction site. These are the emissions a solar company owns, and therefore can most easily track and reduce.
For a solar company, these emissions might feel marginal compared to the carbon avoided through clean electricity generation—but they still matter. They’re the direct exhaust from the machines and equipment the company operates. And they’re the emissions it can control today.
For a solar company, Scope 1 emissions might include:
- Fuel combustion in company-owned vehicles (e.g., trucks used for maintenance or construction).
- On-site backup diesel generators (used occasionally at solar farms).
- Emissions from company-owned heavy equipment used during project development or O&M (operations and maintenance).
Scope 2: The Emissions You Buy
Scope 2 emissions are a little more abstract. These are the emissions from the energy a company purchases to power its own operations.
Now, if you’re a solar company, you might think—great, we generate electricity! But even solar companies have offices. They buy grid electricity for their monitoring systems, lighting, heating, data centers. If that electricity comes from fossil fuels, those emissions count as they come from non-renewable sources.
Here’s the thing about Scope 2: it reminds us that being in the clean energy business doesn’t always mean operating on clean energy. That gap is both a risk—and an opportunity.
In the case of a solar company, these emissions could arise from:
- Electricity used at corporate offices.
- Energy consumed at operational control centers.
- Power drawn from the grid at solar project sites (e.g., for security lighting, communication systems, or control equipment when solar output is low).
Scope 3: The System You’re In
Scope 3 is where things get really interesting—and messy.
These are the indirect emissions that ripple out through a company’s entire value chain. For a solar developer, that includes the emissions involved in manufacturing solar panels (often on the other side of the world), shipping them across oceans, and transporting them to project sites. It includes your contractors’ fuel and energy activities. It includes employee travel. It includes the emissions embedded in steel, copper, aluminum, silicon—the raw materials that make the energy transition possible.
Scope 3 also includes what happens after the energy is generated—how customers use that electricity, or how panels are disposed of decades later. These are the emissions that come not from what you do, but from the web of relationships you’re embedded in.
They’re also the hardest to measure. But they’re where most of the emissions actually are.
For a solar company, Scope 3 emissions often make up the largest share and may include:
- Upstream emissions: Manufacturing of solar panels, inverters, steel for racking systems, and other components (often referred to as embodied carbon).
- Construction: Emissions from machinery used and owned by subcontractors on site.
- Transportation: Shipping solar components from suppliers to project sites.
- Business travel: Flights, accommodations, and commuting by employees.
- Downstream emissions: While the electricity produced is clean, some reporting frameworks also encourage looking at how customers use that energy—or any end-of-life disposal impacts of solar components.
Why This Matters for a Solar Company
It’s tempting for clean energy companies to assume the moral high ground. After all, if you’re replacing coal with solar, haven’t you done your part?
But decarbonization isn’t a PR narrative—it’s a systems problem. And Scope 1, 2, and 3 are tools for thinking in systems. They push companies to account for their whole footprint, not just the parts that are easy to count.
When a solar company takes Scope 3 emissions seriously, it might start sourcing from lower-carbon suppliers, or redesigning its logistics chain, or thinking differently about panel recycling. Perhaps even switching to a more centralized, LEED certified office space. That’s not just good accounting. It’s climate strategy.
So What Do You Do With This?
If you’re inside a solar company—or investing in one, or buying from one—you want to ask: How are they thinking about these scopes? Are they treating emissions accounting as a reporting requirement, or as a roadmap for improvement?
Because the truth is, solar is part of the solution. But how we build solar, how we run solar companies—that’s the part still being written.
And Scope 1, 2, and 3? They’re the outline.
Molly joined PureSky Energy in October 2020, bringing with her valuable experience from roles in state and local government agencies as well as the non-profit sector to advance sustainability goals, particularly in natural resource management. Since joining PureSky, she has worked to streamline customer acquisition process and customer engagement, through enhancing communication channels and implementing the CRM. She has also contributed to the overall success of operations through utility relationship management and supporting development and financial teams. She has a M.S. in Environmental Science, Policy and Administration.
