questionnaire wants energy consumption per location, we only have a total

Breakdown per location is not a standard field in VSME

The VSME baseline module requests total energy consumption and the share of renewable energy at enterprise level, not per location. A questionnaire that breaks down per location therefore goes beyond the baseline module and likely follows the format of your customer itself, or the extended module of VSME for those who wish to report more detail. If you only have a total, that is sufficient for baseline reporting. How you complete that total is described in what your customer means by total energy consumption per year.

If your customer does explicitly request a breakdown per location, there are two options: provide the total with an explanation that measurement does not take place per location, or check internally whether invoices from energy suppliers already come split by address — this is more often the case than companies think, especially for electricity. The same problem applies to scope 2 emissions: if energy consumption is not known per location, scope 2 calculation cannot be done per location either. See for this what your customer means by scope 2 emissions from purchased energy. Splitting based on estimates (for example by floor area or FTE) is not a prohibited method, but then you provide an estimate as evidence, and that difference must be traceable in the answer.

Baseline versus extended module in the VSME standard

The EFRAG VSME standard distinguishes a baseline module with minimal environmental data and an extended module with additional detail level, including possible breakdown by location or branch. The GHG Protocol itself does not prescribe a reporting level: it defines scope 1, 2 and 3, but not whether the customer must report per location, per country or at consolidated level — that is determined by the questionnaire of the customer, not by the scope classification itself.