Pallets in scope 3 category 12: end of life of sold packaging
If you sell products on one-way pallets that your customers dispose of, those pallets' end of life can fall in scope 3 category 12, end-of-life treatment of sold products. You estimate tons shipped and an assumed fate mix, then apply EPA Hub Table 9 factors: 0.17 MTCO2e per short ton landfilled, 0.05 combusted.
When it applies
Category 12 covers waste disposal and treatment of products sold by the reporting company at the end of their life, and the Standard lists cutting the packaging in sold products among its category 12 reduction options (Scope 3 Standard, chapter 9). Check your own boundary choice, and say in the disclosure whether the pallets are inside it. One-way whitewood pallets you ship goods on are such packaging. Pooled pallets are not: the pooler owns them and they return to it.
How to estimate it
- Count one-way pallets shipped in the reporting year from your shipping system.
- Convert to short tons with a measured or cited average weight.
- Assume a fate mix for customers. Without customer data, EPA's national 2018 wood packaging split is one documented basis: 26.9% recycled (our arithmetic from 3.10 of 11.53 million tons), 14.3% combusted, 58.8% landfilled.
- Apply Hub Table 9: tons × (landfill share × 0.17 + combustion share × 0.05). Recycling has no factor for dimensional lumber.
Worked example
50,000 one-way pallets at 31 lb (light-duty stringer, FPL-RP-707) = 775 short tons. With EPA's 2018 split: 775 × (0.588 × 0.17 + 0.143 × 0.05) = 775 × 0.10711 = 83.0 MTCO2e.
Say in your disclosure that the fate mix is a national average and the year it describes. A customer survey or take-back data would replace it.
Sources
- Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard GHG Protocol (WRI/WBCSD). Accessed October 27, 2026. Box 5.6 and section 9.5 on avoided emissions; section 5.5 category descriptions.
- GHG Emission Factors Hub 2025, Table 9 (Scope 3 Category 5 and Category 12) U.S. EPA Center for Corporate Climate Leadership. Accessed October 27, 2026. The 2025 Hub is the latest listed on the Hub page on the access date.
- Containers and Packaging: Product-Specific Data (wood packaging, 1960–2018) U.S. EPA. Accessed October 27, 2026. Page last updated October 19, 2026; latest data year 2018.
- Cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessment of wooden pallet production in the United States (Res. Pap. FPL-RP-707) USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (Alanya-Rosenbaum and Bergman, 2020). Accessed October 27, 2026. Table 2 (p. 8): average weights of 48×40 in. designs.