Is the industry taking the wrong approach to Scope 3 emissions reporting?

How can we reimagine Scope 3 in order to make faster progress?

The intention of the original framing of Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions reporting was to support business understanding of their broader impact on the climate, so they would take responsibility for transformation to net zero and the impact of the complete value chain. Scope 3 emissions reporting in particular has become more of a focus of progressive companies that have developed robust plans for - and taken meaningful steps to address - scope 1 and 2 emissions. As they dig into scope 3, they are often overwhelmed by the accounting that’s required and struggle to develop strategies to meaningfully address impacts in their value chains, especially in ways they can quantify and count towards targets.

So how can the industry streamline this process? To find out we are joined by Jenny Ahlen, Managing Director at the We Mean Business Coalition. Jenny directs the strategy, coordination, and execution of their net zero programs and campaigns; these include a focus on improving the way scope 3 emissions are approached. We Mean Business were introduced to Ed Crooks - host of our sister podcast The Energy Gang - at COP28, where CEO Maria Mandiluce outlined their mission. That conversation, which also examined the pledge to phase out fossil fuels, you can find on The Energy Gang podcast, wherever you're listening to this.

The argument is that the reporting standards have created a huge amount of work for organisations without any real benefit to decarbonisation efforts. Companies need to draw up net zero plans, understand Scope 3, manage their supply chain emissions and so on, but to what goal? So, the key question we discuss in this week’s episode: is it possible that in focusing so much on the influence big corporations can have on their value chains, we’ve let many companies and stakeholders in the global north off the hook for proactively reducing emissions without that prompt from customers?

Jenny explains why the need for new, alternative approaches to reporting is crucial to accelerating the energy transition. Scope 3 is about global climate impacts and getting companies engaged to catalyse the system transformations needed. What would this then need to look like to incentivise that type of action at scale? And how do we create an ecosystem to reward those participating and making meaningful progress? Listen to find out.

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