Scope 3 guides for procurement, sustainability and finance teams

PCAF data quality scores explained: what DQ 1 to DQ 5 mean, why most portfolios sit at DQ 4 and 5, and what moves a DQ score toward verified, reported data.

Scope 3 is the part of a footprint that sits inside other organisations. The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard defines fifteen categories across the value chain, and the figures for most of them belong to suppliers, portfolio companies, logistics providers and customers rather than to you. This guide sets out the eight reasons that makes the data hard, and what changes each one.

Spend-based emissions estimate a footprint from what an organisation spent. Primary data comes from the organisations it buys from or invests in, reporting their own figures. The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard allows both, and a single inventory can combine them. This guide sets out what each method measures, what it cannot show, and how to choose between them for a given category of spend.

Supplier engagement is how a Scope 3 number turns into a reduction. This guide covers setting objectives your teams agree on, segmenting suppliers by impact and readiness, making the request worth answering, and moving a programme on from collecting data to cutting emissions.

Most supplier data programmes stall in the same place. A survey goes out, a fraction of suppliers reply, and the rest of the footprint stays on proxy data for another year. This guide covers which suppliers to ask, what to ask for, how to standardise what comes back, and how to close the gaps without chasing.

Where reductions come from: hotspot mapping, collaboration with high-impact suppliers, carbon criteria inside sourcing decisions, and product design changes.