C-DRONE GUIDE · 22 AUGUST 2026
Corporate Carbon Footprint (BEGES): What Drone Data for the Energy and Forest Carbon Categories?
A warehouse roof leaking heat with nobody measuring it, a forest tract owned by the group with nobody knowing its carbon stock, a GHG report rolled over every four years on the same default estimates for lack of anything better : for a company subject to France's greenhouse gas emissions report (BEGES), two categories lend themselves particularly well to a measured figure rather than a default coefficient — the energy performance of the built estate and the carbon stored on wooded land. Here is what the drone concretely brings to this regulatory exercise, what it does not do, and at what price.
Published on 22 August 2026, reviewed on 22 August 2026 — regulations in force as of August 2026.
BEGES: a recurring obligation — and a data challenge
France's greenhouse gas emissions report (BEGES) is mandatory, under articles L. 229-25 and following of the environmental code, for private companies with more than 500 employees in mainland France (250 in the overseas departments and regions), as well as for the State, local authorities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and certain public bodies. It must be published every 4 years on the ADEME public platform (bilans-ges.ademe.fr), cover at minimum direct emissions (scope 1) and energy-related indirect emissions (scope 2), and, since decree n° 2022-982, include the scope 3 categories (purchases, travel, freight, end of life…) the company identifies as significant. Failure to publish carries a fine of up to €50,000, rising to €100,000 for repeat offences.
The drone never produces this report : the method, the emission factors from ADEME's Base Empreinte database and the final synthesis remain the job of the engineering firm or CSR manager running the exercise. What it brings, on two specific categories where the default estimate is the roughest, is measured and localised data : the built estate's actual thermal condition rather than a per-square-metre ratio, and a measured forest carbon stock rather than a regional average.
Energy category (scopes 1 and 2): evidencing losses across the built estate
For a multi-site company — head offices, warehouses, workshops, branches — the BEGES energy category often rests on gas and electricity bills, converted through generic emission factors, with no link to the actual condition of each building's envelope. A drone thermography campaign across the roofs and facades of the property portfolio evidences, site by site, the heat losses behind part of the reported consumption : degraded insulation, thermal bridges, weak points on the roof. This data does not replace consumption records, but it tells the engineering firm which sites hide a correctable inefficiency behind the same volume of emissions, rather than an unavoidable use.
A review published in 2024 in the Quantitative InfraRed Thermography Journal by Zhang, Zhan, Chen, Wang and Li, based on a bibliometric analysis of the field's publications, highlights the growing role of drone-based aerial thermography in assessing a building envelope's thermal performance, as a lever for cutting energy consumption and, ultimately, carbon emissions (see the study on Google Scholar). This mission directly overlaps with two exercises already covered on this site : the tertiary decree, aimed at cutting the consumption reported on OPERAT, and the CEE scheme, which funds the insulation works identified ; the BEGES is the third strand, an accounting one this time, where the same flight campaign documents the physical origin of an emissions figure rather than triggering works or financing. Our drone thermography page details the service.
Carbon sink category: forest stock and hedgerows
A company that owns or manages wooded land — a forest tract, a landscaped park, a hedgerow network bordering an agri-food site or an industrial plant — can document this asset by drone LiDAR : canopy height and cover, above-ground biomass, conversion into tonnes of carbon equivalent. Strictly speaking this is not a mandatory BEGES category — the framework does not require inventorying the carbon sequestered on a company's own land — but it is useful data for the voluntary part of the report (transition plan, reduction trajectory, communicated offsetting) and for a Label bas-carbone project backed by the same tract. A wine estate or a farm can, on the same principle, have the length and volume of its hedgerows measured — a modest but real carbon sink, increasingly valued in farm carbon assessments.
A study conducted in the cork oak forest of Maamora, Morocco, modelled biomass and carbon stock from drone-borne LiDAR metrics combined with a ground forest inventory, with an error of roughly 1.5 to 2.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare depending on the model used (Fadil et al., 2024 — see the study on Google Scholar), a precision sufficient to document a trajectory rather than a figure to the gram.
What the drone does not do: emission factors, purchases, verification
Three limits to keep in mind so as not to overstate what the drone contributes. First, it computes no emission factor : a thermal image or a LiDAR point cloud is raw physical data (surface temperature, volume, biomass) that the engineering firm must convert into tonnes of CO2 equivalent using the Base Empreinte coefficients or a recognised method (Bilan Carbone®, GHG Protocol). Second, it covers none of the scope 3 categories linked to purchases, staff travel, freight or product end-of-life — by volume, the bulk of the footprint for a services or trading company. Lastly, for companies whose BEGES undergoes third-party verification, the drone data must be delivered with full traceability (date, method, equipment, stated accuracy) to be usable as supporting evidence.
In this exercise the drone remains a measurement tool serving one specific category — never a carbon-accounting method on its own.
Method, timeline and price
The mission is best timed against the BEGES calendar : a campaign launched 3 to 6 months before the publication deadline gives the engineering firm time to fold the results in. For a multi-site property portfolio, thermography is scheduled in the cold season, early morning, to maximise the indoor-outdoor temperature gap; for a forest tract or a hedgerow network, the LiDAR flight is flown either outside the leaf-on period or at full growing season depending on the metric sought, calibrated against a few ground reference plots. The deliverable pairs a thermography report per site (orthophoto, hot-spot map, qualitative loss estimate) with, if the mission includes it, an estimate of the forest carbon stock or hedgerow length, in a format usable by the engineering firm or the CSR consultancy.
2026 prices (excl. VAT) : €800 to €1,800 per site for a roof-and-facade thermography campaign; €1,500 to €4,000 for a forest carbon inventory or hedgerow survey depending on the area, consistent with the prices detailed in our dedicated guides. Request a quote stating the number of sites, any wooded area and your BEGES deadline.
Frequently asked questions about drone data and corporate carbon footprint
Does the drone replace the engineering firm producing the BEGES? No : it supplies measured data on one specific category (building energy, forest carbon) ; the method, the emission factors and the final synthesis remain the responsibility of the engineering firm or the CSR manager.
Does every company subject to the BEGES benefit from this service? It mostly benefits companies with a sizeable property portfolio or wooded land ; a services company with little built estate will find less value in it, since most of its footprint sits in scope 3 (purchases, travel).
Is drone data enough for third-party verification? It is a useful piece of supporting evidence when delivered with full traceability (date, method, equipment), but final acceptance depends on the verifier and the carbon-accounting method used.
Can several sites be grouped into one mission? Yes : that is in fact the main benefit for a multi-site group, which gets comparable data from site to site with a single provider and a single flight protocol.