Asking your own suppliers

How do I ask my own suppliers for emissions data?

The same way you wished your customer had asked you. Start by finding what your suppliers have already published, so you only ask for what is missing. Ask the few suppliers that make up most of your purchases, not all of them. Make the request small and specific: their company figures and, for your biggest material lines, a product footprint. Say why you are asking, what you will do with the answer, and that a first estimate is fine. Give a date. That request gets answered; a forty-question form sent to every supplier does not.

Which suppliers should I ask?

The ones behind the largest lines in your footprint, which for most manufacturers is a short list: the suppliers of your main materials, your haulier, and your energy supplier (who you have already dealt with). Rank your suppliers by spend or by weight bought and you will usually find that a handful account for most of it. Ask those first. The long tail of small suppliers stays on a published industry factor, labelled, until there is a reason to ask.

What should I ask for, in what order?

The same four things your customer asked you for, in the same order, and no more than you need.

1. Their company emissions figures (Scope 1 and 2, Scope 3 if published) and the year. Many larger suppliers publish these; check their website before asking.
2. Whether they have a target or a commitment. A yes or no with a link.
3. For your largest material lines, a product footprint for the grade you buy, or their company figure per tonne of output if they do not have one.
4. Their renewable electricity share, if their product is energy-intensive, because it tells you which way their figure is heading.

Do not ask for a full questionnaire, a certificate, or verification in a first request. Ask for what exists.

Your customer will accept: evidence that you have asked your main suppliers and labelled the lines accordingly. That is the supplier engagement they are looking for from a supplier your size, and it also moves your own figures up the ladder.

What does a good request look like?

Short. Adapt this.

Dear [name],

[Our company] is measuring its carbon footprint because our customers have asked us to, and [your company] is one of our largest suppliers. We would like to use your own emissions figures rather than an industry average, so that your improvements show in our numbers.

Could you send us, or point us to:

• your company's Scope 1 and 2 emissions for [year], and Scope 3 if you publish it;
• whether you have a reduction target or commitment;
• a product carbon footprint for [product or grade], if you have one, or your emissions per tonne of output;
• the share of your electricity that is renewable.

A first estimate is fine. We will use the figures in our own footprint and will not share them with anyone else without asking you. If you have published any of this already, a link is enough. Could you reply by [date]?

Kind regards, [name, role]

What do I do with the answers?

Put each figure into your footprint on the line it belongs to, relabel the line from "industry average" to "supplier's own figure", and keep the document or link as evidence. Where a supplier sends a product footprint, run it through the free PCF Evaluator before relying on it, as your customers do with yours. Thank the supplier and tell them the figure is in use; suppliers who hear nothing back do not answer the second time.

What if a supplier does not reply?

Leave the line on the published factor, labelled, and ask again next year with a copy of your own published footprint attached, which shows them you are doing the same work. Do not chase small suppliers hard: the burden you felt is the burden they feel, and a line on an industry average is an honest state for a supplier that has not yet started.

How do I avoid becoming the help desk?

Point them here. This section was written for suppliers in exactly their position, and every guide in it applies to them as it applied to you. A supplier who receives your request with a link to "Replying when you have little or no data" has somewhere to start that costs you nothing. Free public help on this step exists in other countries too: Japan's Ministry of the Environment publishes a collection of supplier engagement examples in Japanese, and ECO Canada's GHG Decarbonization Toolkit has pages on engaging your own suppliers.

Do this week: rank your suppliers by spend, take the top five, check their websites for a published footprint, and send the request above to the ones with nothing published.

What should I do next?

Your first year, month by month places this in the sequence (month eight). If your customer uses DitchCarbon, claim your profile; public profiles exist for your suppliers as well as for you, built from what each has published and from industry data, so some of the figures you are about to ask for may already be there.