CCL’s Head of Sustainability, John Murray, echoes the sentiments of the recent IEMA article on the complexities of reporting Scope 3 emissions and praises its recommendations for making the process simpler for businesses to report theirs.
Many UK organisations already report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. This is common practice and provides an easily comparable figure for tracking reductions year on year, with the data for these emissions supplied through bills and energy statements.
The difficulty comes with Scope 3 emissions – what to report and how to get hold of the data. Currently, businesses tend to report the easily accessible emissions, for example, corporate travel such as air miles and hotel stays, or from employees using their own cars, but this is just a small piece of the pie(chart).
If this only scratches the surface of an organisation’s Scope 3 emissions, which can make up 80-95% of its carbon footprint, then how can they go about reporting all of them effectively? The Green House Gas Protocol details how to ascertain which emissions to report in your Scope 3 declarations, however this is just guidance and doesn’t explain how to get hold of the emissions data, which is another matter entirely.
The UK and other nations are now looking at ways to ensure that, first and foremost, this data is reported, and additionally that it’s in a common format that allows for easy comparison between companies. One way the UK is investigating is via the adoption of the IFRS standard for carbon accounting, which would ensure that carbon emissions measurement follows the same stringent requirements for financial disclosures.
Whichever method is chosen, the one thing that is certain is that reporting Scope 3 emissions will become a requirement sooner rather than later.
Greener Routes, our carbon tracking solution, makes it easy for you to access the Scope 3 transportation and distribution emissions associated with your supply chain, with data for every shipment available on our TMS, myCCL.
With CCL Logistics and Technology, you can be assured that the emissions data we provide is backed up by globally-recognised Smart Freight Centre accreditation in accordance with the GLEC Framework, which is now the foundation of a new International Standard – ISO14083, giving you peace of mind that this slice of your Scope 3 pie is one less thing to worry about.