Replying when you have little or no data

What should I say if a customer asks for emissions data and I don't have any?

Reply within a week, in four parts: confirm you have received the request and who owns it on your side; say what you can provide now; say what you will do and by when; and ask one question if anything in the request is unclear. Customers are used to suppliers starting from zero. What they cannot work with is no reply, because a supplier who says nothing stays on an industry average and looks the same as one that has decided not to engage.

What can I provide now, even with no footprint?

More than you think. Most suppliers hold the raw material for a first answer already.

1. Last year's energy use. Electricity in kilowatt hours from your bills, gas or heating fuel, and fuel for company vehicles. This is the input for Scope 1 and 2 and is worth sending on its own.
2. A first estimate. Put those figures into a free calculator and you have a Scope 1 and 2 number within an afternoon. The SME Climate Hub's small business calculator is built for companies with one site and up to 50 people.
3. What you already do. Renewable electricity tariff, LED lighting, a newer boiler, electric vehicles, waste reduction. Customers count these as action even before they are measured.
4. A commitment. Signing the SME Climate Commitment takes minutes and gives your customer a public statement of direction.
5. Existing documents. An EcoVadis scorecard, an ISO 14001 certificate, an energy audit, a previous customer's questionnaire. All of these carry data a customer can use.

Your customer will accept: energy use for the last year, a first calculated estimate, a list of what you already do, and a date for a measured figure. Sent together, these are a strong first reply.

What should the reply actually look like?

Short. Here is a version you can adapt. Replace the bracketed text.

Dear [name],

Thank you for your request about [company]'s emissions. I own this on our side and will be your contact for it.

We have not yet produced a full carbon footprint. Here is what we can provide now:

• Our electricity use for [year] was [x] kWh, of which [y]% is on a renewable tariff.
• Our gas and vehicle fuel use for [year] was [z].
• A first estimate of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, calculated with the SME Climate Hub tool, is [n] tonnes CO2e.
• We already [list two or three actions].

We will have a measured Scope 1 and 2 figure by [date, usually within three months], and we have committed to set a reduction target by [date].

One question: [for example, do you need figures for our whole company or only the site that supplies you?]

Kind regards, [name, role]

If you have none of the numbers yet, send the message without them and keep the dates. The reply still does its job.

What if the request is a long questionnaire?

Answer the questions you can, mark the rest as "not yet measured, planned for [date]", and submit. A partially completed questionnaire with dates is read as a supplier in progress. A questionnaire left blank for months is read as a supplier not engaging. If the questionnaire asks for documents, attach what you have, even if it is an energy bill summary rather than a report.

What if the request came through a platform?

Some customers send the request through a platform that already holds a profile of your company. In that case your first task is to check what is already there and correct it, which is quicker than answering from scratch. A DitchCarbon request works this way: the profile is built from what you have published and from industry data, and the request asks you to check and correct it rather than fill in a form. Claiming the profile is free and takes about 30 seconds. Other platforms and rating schemes have their own routes; the content of your answer is the same.

How do I avoid doing this again for every customer?

Write the answer once, keep it somewhere you can find it, and update it when the numbers improve. Most of the questions in every request are the same four: figures, target, action, product data. Free public templates help you write it once: Malaysia's Simplified ESG Disclosure Guide (SEDG) for SMEs comes with Excel templates aligned to the GHG Protocol, and the EU's VSME standard is a short report format customers increasingly ask suppliers to use. If you publish your figures and your commitment, on your own website or on a public profile, you can point every customer to the same place and spend the time on reducing rather than reporting.

Do this week: send the reply. Pull last year's electricity and fuel figures from your bills, run them through a free calculator if you have an hour, and give two dates: one for a measured figure, one for a target.

What should I do next?

If you are now producing your first figure, the Measure stage starts with Scope 1, 2 and 3 for a company your size. If your customer uses DitchCarbon, claim your profile so your reply is read from the place they look.