Scope 3 emissions are emissions across 15 categories within the upstream and downstream activities occurring outside the organisation.
They account for the majority of emissions attributable to an organisation and can range from 70 percent to over 95 percent of its total emissions inventory. Therefore, reducing scope 3 emissions is critical to achieving decarbonisation ambitions.
The first step to reducing scope 3 emissions is to accurately measure and report the amount occurring outside an organisation. You can only begin to address an issue once you understand where it occurs across the value chain and how much it is.
However, the fact that scope 3 emissions occur outside an organisation poses a significant challenge to organisations.
First, they must ensure they have mapped out all activities across their value chain and have the correct data for measurement and reporting. Some challenges organisations must navigate for measurement and reporting on scope 3 include the following.
A significant challenge is poor data quality around scope 3 information. Reporting organisations must engage with stakeholders across their value chain to get the information required.
However, many of these stakeholders, such as suppliers, need better quality data on which the reporting organisation can rely for their scope 3 measurements. So, a proactive approach to working with stakeholders across the value chain to ensure that good quality data is available will yield tremendous benefits. Another challenge is the lack of uniform standards.
Multiple standards for reporting and measuring carbon footprint are applied with various methodologies and interpretations. These differences in approach lead to inconsistencies and make it difficult for reporting organisations to measure and report their scope 3 emissions using uniform standards.
Another major challenge is the lack of awareness on topical issues related to sustainability, climate change, decarbonisation and waste reduction.
Creating the proper awareness through stakeholder engagement workshops will go a long way in aligning efforts towards achieving the goals of the reporting organisation.
An often overlooked challenge is the amount of resources required to measure and report scope 3 emissions. Organisations will have to make adequate investments in people and technology.
