One of the first questions businesses ask after calculating their carbon footprint is: is this number good or bad?
Without context, a figure like “47 tCO₂e per year” is meaningless. Context comes from benchmarks — comparing your footprint to similar businesses in your sector. This guide provides indicative benchmarks for common EU SMB sectors, based on published data from the European Environment Agency, GHG Protocol case studies, and EmissionPlan user averages.
How to Read Carbon Footprint Benchmarks
Carbon footprints are typically expressed in two ways for benchmarking purposes:
- Total tCO₂e per year — the absolute footprint of the whole organisation
- tCO₂e per employee per year — normalised for company size, useful for comparing companies of different sizes in the same sector
The benchmarks below use tCO₂e per employee, which is the most useful metric for SMBs. These are indicative ranges covering Scope 1, 2, and key Scope 3 categories (travel, commuting, waste). They exclude complex supply chain Scope 3 which varies enormously.
Benchmarks by Sector
Professional Services (Consulting, Legal, Accounting, Marketing)
Typical range: 2–6 tCO₂e per employee per year
Professional services firms are relatively low-emission businesses. The main sources are office energy (Scope 2), employee commuting (Scope 3 Cat. 7), and business travel (Scope 3 Cat. 6). For a 20-person consultancy:
- Office electricity: 3–8 tCO₂e total
- Business travel (moderate): 5–15 tCO₂e total
- Employee commuting: 8–20 tCO₂e total
- Typical total: 20–50 tCO₂e (1–2.5 tCO₂e per employee)
Firms with heavy international travel can reach 8–12 tCO₂e per employee. Remote-first companies are often below 1.5 tCO₂e per employee.
Retail (Physical Stores)
Typical range: 3–10 tCO₂e per employee per year
Retail businesses are dominated by Scope 2 (electricity for lighting, heating, and refrigeration) and Scope 3 transport (goods delivery). A 10-person retail shop in Germany:
- Shop electricity (lighting, HVAC): 8–20 tCO₂e
- Heating (gas): 3–8 tCO₂e
- Staff commuting: 5–12 tCO₂e
- Typical total: 20–45 tCO₂e
Food retailers with refrigeration are at the high end. Fashion and non-food retail without refrigeration are typically lower.
Manufacturing (Light Industry)
Typical range: 8–25 tCO₂e per employee per year
Light manufacturing has significant Scope 1 emissions (industrial gas, process heat) and Scope 2 (machinery electricity). A 50-person light manufacturing operation:
- Natural gas (process and heating): 30–80 tCO₂e
- Electricity (machinery, lighting): 20–60 tCO₂e
- Company vehicles and logistics: 10–30 tCO₂e
- Typical total: 60–200 tCO₂e
Heavy manufacturing (steel, cement, chemicals) is excluded from SMB benchmarks — those sectors have fundamentally different emission profiles.
Logistics and Transport
Typical range: 15–50 tCO₂e per employee per year
Logistics businesses are Scope 1 intensive — diesel in the vehicle fleet is the dominant emission source. A 20-person courier or logistics SMB:
- Diesel fleet (10 vans × 25,000 km/year): 70–110 tCO₂e
- Depot electricity and heating: 5–15 tCO₂e
- Typical total: 80–130 tCO₂e
Electrification of the fleet is the single largest lever for logistics companies to reduce their Scope 1 footprint — replacing diesel vans with EVs can cut fleet emissions by 60–80% depending on the country grid.
Hospitality (Hotels, Restaurants, Catering)
Typical range: 4–12 tCO₂e per employee per year
Hospitality businesses have high energy intensity relative to headcount — kitchens, hot water, laundry, and HVAC are continuous loads. A 15-room hotel with a restaurant:
- Natural gas (kitchen, hot water, heating): 20–45 tCO₂e
- Electricity (lighting, appliances, HVAC): 15–35 tCO₂e
- Staff travel and waste: 5–15 tCO₂e
- Typical total: 40–100 tCO₂e
Construction and Trades
Typical range: 5–20 tCO₂e per employee per year
Construction SMBs have significant Scope 1 from diesel plant and vehicles, plus Scope 3 from materials (cement, steel) — though materials Scope 3 is complex to calculate and not required under ESRS VSME basic level.
How Country Affects Your Benchmark
Your Scope 2 (electricity) emissions vary dramatically by EU country due to different grid mixes. The same 10,000 kWh of electricity produces:
- France: 0.52 tCO₂e (nuclear-heavy grid)
- Sweden: 0.13 tCO₂e (hydro and nuclear)
- Germany: 3.64 tCO₂e (mixed with coal)
- Poland: 7.42 tCO₂e (coal-heavy grid)
A Polish business with identical energy use to a French business will have a Scope 2 footprint 14× higher. This is why country-specific grid factors matter and why generic “EU average” benchmarks can be misleading.
How to Calculate Your Own Footprint
Use the EmissionPlan free calculator to get your Scope 1, 2, and 3 totals in under 5 minutes. The calculator applies country-specific grid factors automatically for 14 EU countries and uses DEFRA 2024 official emission factors for all inputs.
Once you have your total, divide it by your headcount to get your tCO₂e per employee and compare it to the benchmarks above. If you are above the typical range for your sector, your energy bills and commuting data are the best places to start reducing.
What Counts as a “Good” Carbon Footprint?
There is no single definition of “good” — it depends on your sector, country, and what stakeholders are asking for. However, a useful framing is:
- Below sector average — you are already in a competitive position on ESG metrics relative to peers
- Year-over-year reduction — demonstrating a downward trend matters more to auditors and investors than the absolute number
- Measured and reported — companies that measure and report, even with higher footprints, are viewed more favourably than companies that do not report at all
The most important step is not having a low footprint — it is having a measured one. You cannot manage what you do not measure.