David Picton, SVP of sustainability at Alcumus, says businesses need to get a handle on Scope 3 emissions
Tracking and managing Scope 3 carbon emissions is the latest ESG and sustainability challenge for UK companies. True insight into supply chain activity, on this and other aspects, remains a major hurdle for most organisations.
Scope 3 emissions can be up to 10 or 11 times more than the carbon footprint from direct emissions, which matters because that is where scrutiny and attention are now being applied.
Only when organisations are tracking such emissions and engaging with suppliers to cut carbon can they genuinely claim to be tackling their climate change impacts. Otherwise, they could be accused of greenwashing or failing to properly account for their carbon footprints. It is time consuming and expensive but is starting to become part of the right to do business.
Companies experiencing the biggest difficulties are those with complex, international, multi-tiered supply chains, like manufacturing, heavy engineering and fashion. When companies get to the fifth or sixth tier of their supply chain, that supplier has next to no idea who they’re eventually supplying to because their customer is just the one above them.
This means blind spots are likely, and drives the need for effective data visibility to support engagement all the way through the supply chain. In the past, supply chain relations have mostly been focused on cost and efficiency. Now, and for the future, they will focus on risk.
As society evolves, not knowing and tackling your true, full carbon footprint as an organisation will simply become unacceptable.”
