The company's carbon footprint is a measure of the company's impact on the environment and especially on climate change. The carbon footprint is an indirect indicator of energy, product and service consumption. It measures the amount of greenhouse gases that correspond to the company's activities or products. In addition to the level of companies, the carbon footprint can be determined at other levels - national, urban, individual.

The GHG Protocol introduced the division of emissions related to the company's activities into three areas, which has become a widely used international standard.

Activities that fall under the company and are controlled by it, in which emissions are released directly into the atmosphere. These are direct emissions. They include, for example, emissions from boilers or generators burning fossil fuels in the company, emissions from mobile sources (eg cars) owned by the company or emissions from industrial processes, emissions from waste treatment or wastewater treatment in facilities operated by the company.

Emissions associated with the consumption of purchased energy (electricity, heat, steam or cooling), which do not arise directly in the company, but are the result of the company's activities. These are indirect emissions from sources that the company does not directly control, yet they have a major impact on their size. If the company itself produces electricity / heat and sells it to other customers or if it sells the purchased electricity / heat to other customers (eg tenants) and the amount of this electricity is measured, it is deducted from the total Scope 2 emissions. The procedure for determining Scope 2 emissions (in terms of own energy production from renewable energy sources and other factors) was updated in January 2015 and detailed methodologies are available on the GHG Protocol website.

Emissions that result from the company's activities and that arise from sources beyond the control or ownership of the company but are not classified as Scope 2 (eg business travel by air, landfilling, purchase and transport of material by a third party, etc.). It follows from the definition that this is the broadest and logically least precisely defined category. While Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are well comparable between companies, Scope 3 emissions are comparable only to a limited extent. Therefore, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions reporting is mandatory in the GHG Protocol and the CDP database, while Scope 3 is only recommended. In recent years, however, Scope 3 has become increasingly important and companies have, by default, reported at least the most important items within Scope 3. They can demonstrate innovative emission reduction management. A detailed technical description of the calculation of the main types of Scope 3 emissions is provided by the GHG Protocol.