Traversing the Primary Data Chasm: Your Roadmap to Getting Primary Data on Scope 3 Emissions

For most businesses on their emissions reduction journey, the most challenging step is decarbonising their supply chain. While some businesses may still believe that if they don’t manufacture, they don’t emit, research shows that the majority of business emissions often lie in the supply chain, accounting for 26 times their direct emissions.

New regulations and ongoing standards requiring scope 3 emissions reporting—such as the SBTi, CDP, and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)—are helping to level the playing field for sustainable businesses.

While there’s plenty of work to be done, the supply chain doesn’t just present emissions risks—it also offers significant opportunities. These include:

• Making better-informed procurement decisions
• Building stronger relationships with suppliers
• Cutting costs through improved efficiency
• Identifying new market opportunities
• Delivering on sustainability commitments to customers
• Meeting current and future compliance requirements
• Improving brand reputation

The Scope 3 Data Problem and Limited Emissions Reductions

So, why can’t businesses just engage suppliers, get their emissions numbers, and start reducing them? If only it were that simple. Products often have thousands of components sourced from all over the world, and in some cases, companies don’t even know where the first mile of their supply chain begins. This results in a significant lack of data about scope 3 emissions—their extent, location, and the varying risk levels across different suppliers and products.

Scope 3 encompasses suppliers, intermediaries, and traders, all of whom need support on their own emissions reduction journeys. However, poor data quality and accessibility remain significant barriers to successful scope 3 reporting, making it difficult to help these stakeholders assess their emissions and develop reduction policies.

Results need to reflect real-world impact. Businesses need accurate data on emissions from specific sources such as:

• Purchased goods and services
• Upstream transportation and distribution
• Downstream transportation and distribution
• Use of sold products
• End-of-life treatment of sold products

Even with the best intentions, suppliers and stakeholders can’t make reliable progress without primary emissions data based on actual measurements.

Traversing the Primary Data Chasm

To address the data gap, businesses often start with spend– or quantity-based approaches, estimating emissions by applying industry average emissions factors to their procurement spend. While these estimates provide a useful starting point for identifying key areas of focus, they have limitations since they aren’t based on primary data about actual emissions occurring in the supply chain.

To create an effective scope 3 emissions reductions strategy and traverse the primary data chasm, businesses need answers to the following questions:

• How do you engage suppliers efficiently to gather emissions data at scale?
• How do you engage suppliers at different sustainability maturity levels, including those that have never calculated emissions before?
• How do you overcome supplier fatigue when companies are facing multiple sustainability requests?
• How do you turn emissions data into usable information for procurement teams to drive strategic supplier collaboration?
• How do you identify carbon hotspots in your supply chain to focus your engagement efforts?

First, you need to engage suppliers based on their maturity level. While some suppliers may have ready-to-use data, others might just be starting their emissions measurement journey. Be aware that many suppliers are already facing multiple reporting requests, leading to fatigue and resource strain. That’s why Procurewise, Emitwise’s supplier engagement platform, automates scope 3 emissions assessments using publicly available data and offers suppliers free access to the platform. This mutual engagement program helps businesses gather the data they need while building supplier capacity and creating competitive advantages.

Initially, any supplier emissions data is valuable, but the ultimate goal is to progress from factory-level to product-level emissions data (PCFs). This granular data empowers procurement teams to implement reduction initiatives and integrate emissions and carbon pricing into their decision-making.

There are multiple approaches to emissions calculation, each with its own tradeoffs. In our next article on traversing the primary data chasm, we’ll explore the types of primary data businesses need to harness, examine emissions factors and calculation methodologies, and help you determine which approach best suits your business.