The category labels are swapped in that summary table

There is one place in CDP's technical note that can confuse a reader, so it is worth writing down.

The summary table

The transportation services section (2.16) opens with a summary table listing the relevant categories by size, and it reads:

• Category 4: Fuel and energy-related activities
• Category 3: Upstream transportation and distribution
• Category 1: Purchased goods and services

The body text

But the body text on the same page says:

• "Scope 3 category 3, 'Fuel-and-energy-related activities'"
• "Scope 3 category 4 'Upstream transportation and distribution'"

GHG Protocol's official numbering is also 3 for fuel- and energy-related activities and 4 for upstream transportation and distribution.

Other sections of the same document confirm it

The cement section (2.3) and the electric utilities section (2.7) both write "Category 3: Fuel-and-energy-related activities" and "Category 4: Upstream transportation and distribution" correctly. Of the 16 sectors, only the transportation services section diverges.

In practice

Read only the summary table and a logistics company will have the wrong name for the largest category in its own sector. The body text corrects it.

This observation is of version 3.0 (revised 28 June 2024) as checked on 8 August 2026. It may be corrected in a later version.

※ This article is not an assessment of CDP; it is here so that a practitioner reading the same document is not confused by it.

This article expands one section of LCS international standards analysis 2, Where CDP Puts Transport. The full report works from the CDP technical note itself (v3.0, 2024-06-28) as its primary source with page numbers given, and does not fill in figures the document does not contain.