A Feb. 13, 2022, ERP Today article on the practical impact of the previous year’s COP26 global summit and implications for modern supply chains quoted McGuireWoods London partner Marc Naidoo.
While governments hold summits and set distant goals, the article explained, addressing climate change ultimately comes down to action and businesses must play a role for any true progress to be made. According to a study cited in the article, for most products, 80% to 90% of greenhouse gas emissions are “Scope 3,” meaning indirect emissions occurring across a company’s value chain, such as through purchased goods and services, employee transportation, and the use and ultimate fate of sold products.
Naidoo said that while Scope 3 offers companies downstream control over their carbon footprint, “the true value in Scope 3 lies in the methodology used to calculate the amount of hydrocarbons produced in the supply chain.”
He concluded: “[W]ithout a sound methodology, uniformly applied to each step of the supply chain, Scope 3 calculations could be seen as just paying lip service to sustainability. Large emphasis would need to be placed on reporting requirements through each step of the supply chain, which could prove difficult.”