Resources for Reducing Supply Chain GHG Emissions

• Scope 3 Accounting Standard
• Third-Party Reporting Programs and Frameworks
• Supplier Engagement Guidance

Scope 3 Accounting Standard

World Resources Institute/World Business Council for Sustainable Development GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. WRI and WBCSD developed the GHG Corporate Protocol Standard, which is widely used to account for corporate-wide GHG emissions. The companion Corporate Value Chain Standards allows companies to assess their entire value chain emissions impact. The GHG protocol also has a number of freely available tools and guidance such as the Scope 3 Evaluator Tool.

Third-Party Reporting Programs and Frameworks

The following resources have developed reporting frameworks and questionnaires for suppliers to report on GHG emissions and other indicators.

• CDP and its CDP Supply Chain Initiative project are programs for voluntary, public reporting of corporate GHG emissions inventories and other climate related information. The flagship CDP Climate Change Information Request questionnaire allows S&P 500 corporations to disclose their climate risks, opportunities, strategy and emissions, whereas CDP Supply Chain serves its member companies by collecting this same information in addition to a supplier specific module requesting that suppliers allocate their emissions to the requesting company as well as additional information about the supplier.
• The Electric Utility Industry Sustainable Supply Chain Alliance (EUISSCA) is a collaborative of electric utilities in the United States that develops standards and frameworks to collect supply chain data and share best practices.
• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) presents the most widely used standards for sustainability reporting, including reporting on a company’s supply chain. The GRI guidelines provide examples of relevant information and data to collect from suppliers and presents a framework for identifying importing suppliers and reporting on the impacts of a company's supply chain.
• LMI's GAIA Sustainable Supply Chain Maturity Model provides companies with a framework to assess the maturity of their own organizations and programs for engaging suppliers on managing their GHG emissions, based on industry research.
• The Responsible Business Alliance (RBA; formerly the EICC Environmental Reporting Initiative), developed a standardized questionnaire and a reporting system that allows suppliers common to multiple customers enter their data only once and specify which of their customers are permitted to access the information.
• The Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) also offers member companies a secure, online database to store, share, and report information on their supply chain. SEDEX provides suppliers with an online questionnaire on a broad range of topics such as labor, health & safety, and environmental standards.

Supplier Engagement Guidance

• The GHG Protocol has published a guide to engaging suppliers.
• Renewable Electricity Procurement on Behalf of Others: A Corporate Reporting Guide (pdf). As companies set ambitious GHG reduction targets that include their value chains, they may evaluate procuring renewable electricity on behalf of value chain partners. This paper discusses guiding principles and provides examples for several procurement scenarios as a supplement to guidance offered under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Scope 2 Guidance for renewable electricity procurement within a reporting entity’s value chain.