Refrigerants and fugitive emissions

What are fugitive emissions?

Fugitive emissions are releases that are not deliberate and do not pass through a stack or exhaust: refrigerant escaping from leaking joints and valves, methane from gas pipelines and coal mines, sulphur hexafluoride from switchgear, and gases from fire suppression systems. For most companies outside energy and mining, refrigerants are the main fugitive source. See calculating scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Which scope do refrigerant emissions fall in?

Leaks from equipment a company owns or controls, including leased equipment within its boundary, are scope 1. Leaks from a landlord's central system in a leased building, outside the company's control, fall in the landlord's inventory and may be in the tenant's scope 3. Manufacturers of equipment containing refrigerants report expected leaks during customers' use in scope 3, category 11. Older ozone-depleting refrigerants, such as R-22, are covered by the Montreal Protocol rather than the GHG Protocol's seven gases, so they are reported separately if at all. See operational boundaries.

How are refrigerant emissions calculated?

• Mass balance: refrigerant purchased, less refrigerant added to new equipment or sold, plus the decrease in stock, adjusted for refrigerant recovered at disposal. The most accurate method where records exist.
• Top-up method: the amount added to existing equipment during servicing approximates the amount that leaked, since equipment is refilled to its full charge.
• Screening method: total charge multiplied by a default annual leak rate for each equipment type, used where no service records exist and as a check on the other methods.

Each kilogram is multiplied by the gas's global warming potential to give CO2 equivalent. See emission factors and global warming potentials.

Fugitive emissions in practice: a supermarket chain's refrigerants

A supermarket chain's store refrigeration holds 12,000 kg of R-404A. Its contractors' service logs show 2,400 kg added during 2026 to top up leaking systems, a leak rate of 20%.

Moving from AR5 to AR6 values, as IFRS S2 requires, adds 1,884 tonnes without any change in leaks. The chain's transition plan converts 40% of stores to transcritical CO2 systems, whose refrigerant has a global warming potential of 1, which would cut these emissions to about 6,809 tonnes at the same leak rate. Meanwhile, fixing the worst-leaking systems is the fastest saving. See climate transition plans.

Which global warming potentials apply to refrigerant blends?

A blend's global warming potential is the mass-weighted average of its components. R-404A is 44% HFC-125, 52% HFC-143a and 4% HFC-134a, so using AR6 values of 3,740, 5,810 and 1,530 gives about 4,728, against 3,943 using AR5 values. IFRS S2 requires values from the latest IPCC assessment available at the reporting date, currently AR6, with a December 2025 amendment allowing values required by a jurisdiction or exchange for the affected part of the business. Many government factor sets and regulations still use AR4 or AR5, so a company should record which values it uses. See the IFRS S2 amendments.

What do the F-gas and AIM Act rules require?

The EU F-gas Regulation 2024/573, applying since 11 March 2024, phases down the quantity of HFCs placed on the EU market to zero by 2050, bans HFCs in more new equipment, restricts servicing with high-GWP refrigerants, and requires leak checks, leak detection systems for larger equipment and records. In the US, the AIM Act directs the EPA to cut HFC production and consumption by 85% from historic levels by 2036. The EPA's 2024 Emissions Reduction and Reclamation rule extends leak repair duties, from 1 January 2026, to appliances with 15 pounds or more of an HFC or a substitute with a global warming potential above 53, with leak rate triggers such as 20% for commercial refrigeration, and requires automatic leak detection for large systems.

How can companies cut refrigerant emissions?

Find and fix leaks quickly, using automatic leak detection on large systems; improve maintenance contracts so contractors report every top-up; recover refrigerant at disposal; and replace high-GWP systems with natural refrigerants, such as CO2, ammonia or propane, or lower-GWP alternatives when equipment is renewed. The cost and timing belong in the transition plan and capital budget, and the savings can be large relative to the spend. See building a GHG inventory.

This guide is general information. It is not tax or legal advice for your situation.