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Setting a Science Based Target on your most relevant Scope 3 emissions categories

05-07-2016

More and more companies calculate part of their Scope 3 emissions, conscious that the GHG emissions they are responsible for are not only caused by their direct energy consumption.

 

However, they are often not focusing on the most relevant categories. The chart hereunder comes from the CDP and shows the relationship between the cumulated Scope 3 emissions of the responding companies and the share of the reported Scope 3 categories.

 

It appears from this figure that although less than 25% of the companies report their “Use of sold products” emissions, this category represents more than 76% of reported scope 3 emissions.

 

Therefore, when looking into the value chain and its relevant scope 3 categories, a company should consider the relevancy of the categories for its own business. For instance, for an energy-intensive company, Scope 1 and 2 are most of the time highly significant.  On the other hand, companies producing energy-consuming products will have a very significant “Use of sold products” Scope 3 category.  According to the CDP, “companies often focus on relatively insignificant opportunities for carbon reductions” (CDP, 2013).

 

 

In the context of the Science-Based Targets (SBT)

Before setting a Science-Based Target, a company needs to look first into its value chain and analyze   the most relevant emissions categories.

 

Thanks to more than 9 year experience in helping companies calculate their carbon footprint and reduce their emissions, CO2logic can support organizations with the analyze of their value chain and quantify the CO2 emission of their most relevant steps.

 

Afterwards, CO2logic can assist in the Science Based Targets calculation and formulation, in accordance with the Sectorial Decarbonization Approach (SDA).

For more information concerning the Science-Based Targets of the impact of the value chain, please contact Carlos Garcia-Borreguero (carlos@co2logic.com).