Tesla's carbon footprint is finally coming to light, and it's bigger than the company has let on in the past

Tesla released its 2022 impact report this week, providing the clearest picture yet of the electric car company's carbon footprint. Tesla has released data on its supply chain emissions for the first time, making its total carbon footprint much larger than it has reported in the past. Last year, the company only disclosed how much greenhouse gas it produced from its direct operations and from customers charging its electric vehicles. In total, this equated to approximately 2.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. But this misses the bigger picture, as supply chain pollution – considered indirect emissions – often makes up a large part of a company's carbon footprint. This year, Tesla finally released data on its supply chain emissions for 2022, which equates to roughly 30.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. That's a huge change from what the company said last year. The disclosure really highlights the importance of accounting for all direct and indirect emissions of a company. It's particularly relevant given the ongoing battle in the US between companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission over how much of these emissions should be reported by law. A company's carbon footprint is usually divided into three main groups or "ranges". Scope 1 includes direct emissions from own factories, offices and vehicles. Scope 2 includes emissions from electricity consumption, heating and cooling. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions from supply chains and the life cycle of the products that the company manufactures. There are 15 different emission categories within range 3 alone, so you can imagine how wide the range can be. It is common practice for companies to only share their scope 1 and 2 emissions, which can make their carbon footprint appear much smaller than it actually is. For example, Tesla's range 1 and 2 emissions are only 610,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2022. This is negligible compared to the company's indirect emissions in the range of 3.(

(Theverge, JUSTINE CALMA )