DitchCarbon vs Watershed: Choosing Your Scope 3 Platform

DitchCarbon vs. Watershed: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Choosing a platform to manage your organisation’s climate impact is a critical decision. Two prominent names in the market are DitchCarbon and Watershed, but they serve different core purposes. Watershed offers a broad, all-in-one climate platform covering Scopes 1, 2, and 3, while DitchCarbon provides a specialised, powerful solution designed to master Scope 3 supplier emissions and drive procurement-led decarbonisation.

This comparison breaks down the key differences to help you decide which approach best fits your organisation’s goals-whether that’s comprehensive reporting across all emissions sources or targeted, measurable reduction within your supply chain.

At a Glance: DitchCarbon vs. Watershed

FeatureDitchCarbonWatershedPrimary FocusScope 3 supplier decarbonisation, especially Purchased Goods & Services (Cat 1).All-in-one climate platform for Scopes 1, 2, and 3.Core StrengthScalable supplier data collection, verification, and procurement integration.Broad regulatory reporting (e.g., CSRD) and carbon removal marketplace.Data MethodologySupplier-specific data first, prioritising verified primary data and high-quality public disclosures.Hybrid model, often starting with spend-based estimates before moving to activity or supplier data.Ideal UserSustainability and procurement teams focused on making measurable reductions in their supply chain.Organisations needing a single platform for enterprise-wide climate compliance and reporting.

Data Accuracy and Methodology

The foundation of any credible climate programme is trustworthy data. How each platform sources, verifies, and manages this data reveals a fundamental difference in philosophy.

DitchCarbon: A Focus on Verifiable Supplier Data

DitchCarbon is built on the principle that the most effective way to reduce supply chain emissions is to work with accurate, supplier-specific data from the start. The platform avoids relying on spend-based estimates, which are notoriously imprecise and offer no clear path to reduction.

The methodology centres on:

• A Massive Data Universe: DitchCarbon has already mapped over 2 million  organisations, leveraging existing public disclosures to provide up to 70% data coverage for many customers before a single supplier survey is sent.
• Scalable Data Collection: For suppliers not already covered, the platform provides a streamlined portal for data submission, complete with reminders, localisation, and quality assurance to boost response rates and data quality.
• Provenance and Assurance: Every data point is tracked with full provenance, version history, and evidence. This audit-ready approach minimises back-and-forth with auditors and builds trust with stakeholders.

This approach moves teams away from the old world of chasing suppliers with spreadsheets and using unreliable averages, and into a new model of a single, verified source of truth for supplier emissions.

Watershed: A Hybrid, Spend-First Approach

Watershed offers a comprehensive data model that covers all emissions sources. For Scope 3, it typically begins with a spend-based analysis, using a company’s financial data to create an initial emissions hotspot map. This can be a fast way to get a high-level overview.

From there, the platform encourages users to refine these estimates by layering in activity-based data (e.g., tonnes of material purchased) or collecting primary data directly from suppliers. While flexible, this hybrid model has potential drawbacks. Spend-based calculations can embed inaccuracies deep within a company’s baseline, and shifting from spend to activity or primary data can cause significant, hard-to-explain fluctuations in reported emissions year-over-year.

Scope 3 Coverage and Specialisation

While both platforms address Scope 3, their depth and focus differ significantly. Watershed aims for breadth across all 15 categories, whereas DitchCarbon targets depth in the categories that matter most for most businesses.

DitchCarbon: Deep Expertise in High-Impact Categories

DitchCarbon specialises in Scope 3 Category 1 (Purchased Goods & Services) and Category 2 (Capital Goods). For most companies, these two categories represent the largest source of emissions and the greatest opportunity for reduction. By focusing here, DitchCarbon provides deeper, more actionable functionality:

• Supplier Engagement Tools: Features like supplier scorecards, peer benchmarks, and shareable summaries are designed to motivate suppliers to improve.
• Procurement Enablement: The platform is built to integrate sustainability into the procurement process, giving buyers the emissions data they need *before* a purchase order is signed.

This specialisation means DitchCarbon is not just a reporting tool; it’s an active decarbonisation platform designed to help you hit your reduction targets.

Watershed: Comprehensive Coverage for Reporting

Watershed provides coverage for all 15 Scope 3 categories, from business travel and employee commuting to waste and investments. This breadth makes it a strong choice for organisations whose primary goal is comprehensive disclosure for regulatory frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

The trade-off for this breadth can be a lack of specialised tools for the most complex area: the supply chain. While it can calculate emissions for Category 1, it is less focused on providing the deep supplier engagement and procurement workflow tools needed to actively reduce those emissions at scale.

Integrations and Workflow Enablement

A climate platform’s value is measured by how well it fits into your existing workflows and empowers teams to act.

DitchCarbon: Embedding Emissions into Procurement Decisions

DitchCarbon’s key differentiator is its focus on procurement enablement. The platform is designed to move climate action upstream, from an annual reporting exercise to a key consideration in day-to-day purchasing decisions. It integrates with existing sourcing and ERP systems to provide buyers with a clear emissions signal when it matters most-before a contract is awarded.

This transforms procurement from a transactional function into a strategic lever for decarbonisation, creating a direct link between purchasing choices and climate outcomes.

Watershed: Integrating with Financial and HR Systems

Watershed’s integrations are built to support its all-in-one model. It connects to ERP, finance, and HR systems to automate the collection of activity data for a wide range of emissions sources. For example, it can pull travel data from expense systems, utility data from financial records, and headcount data from HR platforms.

These integrations are powerful for calculating a comprehensive corporate footprint across Scopes 1, 2, and the less supplier-intensive categories of Scope 3. However, they are primarily focused on post-hoc data collection for reporting rather than pre-purchase decision support.

The Verdict: When to Choose Which Platform

The right choice depends entirely on your primary goal. The two platforms are designed to solve different core problems.

Choose Watershed if:

• Your primary need is a single, integrated platform for reporting on Scopes 1, 2, and all 15 categories of Scope 3.
• Compliance with broad frameworks like CSRD is your main driver.
• You want an all-in-one solution that includes features like a carbon removal marketplace and policy tracking.
• You are comfortable starting with spend-based estimates and refining them over time.

Choose DitchCarbon if:

• Your biggest climate challenge and opportunity lies within your supply chain (Scope 3, Category 1).
• Your goal is to move beyond reporting to actively reducing emissions by engaging suppliers and empowering procurement.
• You need audit-ready, verifiable supplier data you can trust to set targets and track progress against.
• You want to turn your decarbonisation strategy into a concrete action plan, with clear pathways and measurable results.

Ultimately, Watershed is a strong choice for broad climate accounting and reporting. DitchCarbon is the specialist’s choice for mastering supply chain decarbonisation-turning the most complex part of your footprint into your biggest climate success story.