A Responsibly alternative for auditable Scope 3 emissions data

The supplier risk profiles are in place. The SBTi flags are there. And the Category 1 figure for the report is still a sector average on a spreadsheet, because a risk platform's emissions data is a high-level guide, and most suppliers have published nothing to guide with. If that is where you are, the alternative you need is not a second risk platform. It is a specialist emissions tool that calculates the figure and shows its working.

Why look for a Responsibly alternative for emissions data?

Responsibly is a supplier risk platform: it reads what suppliers have published and returns a risk score across ESG, cyber and financial parameters. On emissions, it finds high-level emissions data where a supplier has published it, a headline figure or a target, enough to guide a procurement conversation. It does not calculate a figure, allocate one to what you buy, or produce one where the supplier has published nothing. Its decarbonisation page lists "Recalculate using actual supplier data" as a use case and marks "Emission estimates and granular LCA data" as coming soon, and no emission factor library appears in its published material.

For a due diligence brief that is fine. For a Category 1 figure that an auditor will sample, it is the gap. The number the CFO signs has to be calculated, sourced and defensible, and a disclosure indicator is none of those. That is the brief a Responsibly alternative has to answer, and it is a different product category rather than a better version of the same one.

What does DitchCarbon hold?

DitchCarbon provides verified emissions data for over 2 million organisations, so procurement, sustainability and finance teams can measure and act on supply chain and portfolio emissions from one source. It is a specialist Scope 3 carbon accounting platform, and what it holds has three layers.

Company emissions data for over 2 million organisations, including corporate-level GHG inventories: up to fifteen years of reported history per organisation, eighteen attributes deep per year, with restatements merged into one series and every figure deep-linked to the page of the source document it came from. Supplier-specific emissions at spend, activity and product level, including a product carbon footprint library that records the standard, the verifier, the cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave boundary and a quality score for each footprint. And a generic emission factor library drawn from ecoinvent, CEDA, EPA, DEFRA and EXIOBASE, which closes the rest of the inventory with the gap shown rather than hidden.

How is the figure produced when a supplier has not reported?

By a fixed hierarchy, recorded per organisation. Each organisation's figure comes from one of four methods in order: its own reported data first, product data from a published carbon footprint second, activity data from what was actually consumed third, and industry data fourth of four, used only where the first three could not be found or captured. The default factor set is CEDA 2025, EPA is also available, and a line item breakdown behind every figure shows which lines used which method.

The rank matters more than the presence of a factor library, because every serious platform has one. What differs is when a generic factor is reached. Here it is the last resort, and it is visible: the emission factor method is a filterable column on every organisation, and one toggle switches the headline between organisation-specific and industry factors, so the share of your baseline still resting on a sector average is a number rather than a claim. The full argument for that axis is in Spend-based or supplier-specific? Your Scope 3 number is probably both.

Most of that work happens before anyone is asked. A company-specific figure already exists for a great many organisations on a typical Category 1 list, so the baseline is calculated and the largest non-disclosers identified before a request goes out. A recent deployment reached about 60% of a large supplier base within 2 weeks. Requests then go out prepopulated from what each organisation has already published, targeted by a maturity ladder sorted against embodied emissions, and where nothing comes back the generic layer holds the line with its method shown.

How do you explain the number to your auditor?

Start from the document. Every figure carries its source and change history: the report page it came from, the assurance level found for that scope, and what changed since the last read. Where a figure was calculated rather than read, the line item breakdown shows the spend line, the factor and the method, and an emissions calculation audit workbook exports the chain of decisions so the sample can be traced without a call to us. That is the mechanism an auditor uses, and it is the reason the verification below is worth having.

The DitchCarbon calculator is verified to ISO 14064-3, limited assurance, by UL Solutions, renewed annually. DitchCarbon was the first company to earn UL Solutions' Sustainability Information Calculator Verification, in June 2025. The emission factor methodology was independently assessed by Globus Thenken in August 2025, with an independent recalculation of a 10% sample and every deviation inside a 1% tolerance. DitchCarbon data has been used in emissions reports that were subsequently assured by ten different third-party assurance providers, including Big Four firms. The documents are downloadable from the trust centre, and the picture across the market, vendor by vendor, is in Who's really verified? A reality check on carbon software assurance.

A risk platform's ISO 27001 says the data was stored safely. Calculator verification says the number was produced correctly. Your auditor will draw that distinction whether or not the vendor does.

What does the platform do once the baseline exists?

A baseline nobody acts on is an expensive spreadsheet. DitchCarbon runs each organisation's actuals forward to 2050 against the trajectory its own target requires, with a reliability notice where the disclosure is patchy. A targets register keeps each target's original wording and flags SBTi-validated targets separately from self-declared ones; climate goals are tracked as behind, at risk or on track; and SBTi progress across a portfolio can be weighted by count, by spend or by embodied emissions. Reduction recommendations are ranked per organisation and category by the tonnes acting on each would move, with a named peer already reducing at that rate as the precedent. The 0 to 100 score shows every criterion, weight and source, so filtering to unearned criteria turns a scorecard into an engagement list.

Forecasting is projection rather than measurement, and the UL Solutions verification does not extend to it or to the score. The platform says so where each appears, which is more use to an audit than a chart that never warns anyone.

Does the emissions data fit the systems you already run?

Yes, and that is the usual shape of the switch. Nobody replaces a supplier risk platform to fix an emissions problem. Where a team already runs one for human rights and compliance, DitchCarbon emissions data feeds it: integrations with SAP Ariba Risk, SAP 360, HICX, SpendHQ, TraceGains, Salesforce, Snowflake and Google Sheets, thirteen export datasets, and a documented API. The risk platform keeps the supplier record. The emissions column on it comes from a source that calculated the number. Run on its own, DitchCarbon is the platform: measure, engage where it will move the number, forecast against each organisation's own target, then track at supplier, group, account or portfolio level.

Where DitchCarbon is not the alternative

If the brief is human rights, forced labour, deforestation, cyber or financial due diligence across a supplier base, with CSDDD, LkSG or EUDR reporting on top, a supplier risk platform is built for it and DitchCarbon is not. The two categories are set out side by side in Supplier ESG risk platform or supplier emissions data: which does your brief need?, and the head-to-head on what each read produces is in the comparison of a risk profile against an emissions figure.

How do you test the alternative?

Take a sample of your Category 1 suppliers, weighted the way your spend is weighted so the tail is represented, and ask for two things: how many carry an emissions figure today, before any supplier is contacted, and where each figure came from; and for the suppliers who have published nothing, what number you get and how it was produced. DitchCarbon publishes its pricing and does not charge per supplier or per integration, so the test costs nothing to scope.

Send the sample to the coverage check and you get back what already exists for each organisation, the source behind every figure, and the gaps marked rather than filled in quietly. Numbers you can defend within 2 weeks.

Last reviewed September 2026.