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emission reductions

Value Chain

Overview

Carbon Accounting requires you to report data not only from your own operations (scope 1 and 2) but also from operations in your Value Chain. The products and services your purchase and sell have a life before you receive them, and they have a life after you are finished with them. Thus, within scope 3, you are responsible for reporting the extended value chain emissions of your company.

There are 15 categories within scope 3, which can be found in detail in our Scope 3 Spotlight. Some of these categories require you to collect data from your value chain in order to accurately report your emissions. For example:

  • Category 1: Purchased Goods and Services. Data needs to be collected at for each product / service that is purchased, based on the emissions intensity of each purchase.
  • Category 7: Employee Commuting. Data needs to be collected directly from employees, based on their commuting habits and work from home hours.
  • Category 15: Investments. Data needs to be collected from portfolio companies in which you are invested, based on their corporate carbon footprint.
Product Carbon Footprint
Add-On Module

CarbonSuite offers a Value Chain Module as an add-on feature. This feature enables you to automate collection of data within your value chain through surveys, website scraping, and document scanning.

CarbonSuite also offers a stairway approach to scope 3 that involves 3 different approaches:

  • Level 1: Spend Based, Secondary Data. Using this approach, you can automatically estimate your scope 3 emissions based on the financial value of purchase transactions in your ERP system. This can be accomplished using the Emission Workbench feature within CarbonSuite. This is a great way to get a high level estimate of your emissions. You can identify hot spots and target high-emitting vendors from which you purchase. This can be done using the Corporate Carbon Accounting product.
  • Level 2: Industry Averages, Secondary Data. Using this approach, you can estimate your scope 3 emissions using industry average emission factors based on your sector. This typically involves using a combination of standard emission factors within CarbonSuite and adding your own custom emission factors. This is generally considered a more accurate approach than spend based method. This can also be done using the Corporate Carbon Accounting product.
  • Level 3: Activity Based, Primary Data. Using this approach, you can use CarbonSuite’s value chain module to collect data directly from your value chain (vendors, employees, customers, companies). This add-on feature allows you to automatically generate surveys, analyze value chain documents, and scrape the web for data relevant to your scope 3 emissions. This is the most accurate method for reporting scope 3.

Ready to learn more about this add-on feature? 

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