how do I calculate the emissions from my vehicle fleet for a sustainability questionnaire

Own vehicle fleet is scope 1, leased cars sometimes scope 3

Company vehicles registered in the company's name, with company fuel card or charging card, fall under scope 1: direct emissions from fuel consumption that the company itself controls, according to the GHG Protocol classification. Electric vehicles that you charge yourself count towards scope 2, because it is purchased electricity. The practical route is to derive emissions from fuel consumption: litres of fuel per fuel type multiplied by an emission factor, or for electric vehicles kWh multiplied by the factor for the electricity mix. Tank data from the leasing company or the fuel card are the most common sources for this.

Leased vehicles registered in the name of a leasing company but used by the company often fall under scope 3, category "leased assets" under strict scope classification — in practice, this distinction is regularly ignored in a first report and all vehicles actually used by the company are simply added to scope 1, as long as this is done consistently and explained. Commuting in private vehicles of employees is a separate scope 3 item and does not belong to the company's own vehicle fleet. If the customer asks separately about emissions in the value chain (scope 3) this, you keep it deliberately separate from the answer about the own vehicle fleet to avoid double counting.

Basis: fuel consumption, not estimation based on kilometres

The VSME baseline module of EFRAG asks for emissions to be split by scope 1 and 2, and the most common approach for company vehicles is the fuel method: multiply actual quantities fuelled or charged by a standard emission factor per fuel type. A distance estimation based on average consumption per model is a less accurate alternative and is usually only used if fuel data are missing. If this figure is completely missing, the answer to the list is "no" or "not yet available" — not an estimate that you cannot substantiate. How this figure relates to the company's overall picture becomes clearer if you also look at direct greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1), where the vehicle fleet is usually one of the larger items.