Scope 3 Assessment
Measuring, managing and reducing your Scope 3 emissions
Understanding Your Complete Carbon Footprint
For growing businesses serious about sustainability, measuring your full environmental impact means looking beyond your own four walls. While you may track the emissions from your facilities and energy use, the reality is that most of your carbon footprint lies hidden within your value and supply chain.
What Are Scope 3 Emissions?
Scope 3 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gases generated throughout your value chain - from the raw materials your suppliers extract, through to how your customers use and dispose of your products. For most organisations, these value chain emissions account for 70-90% of their total carbon footprint.
These emissions span 15 distinct categories within the GHG Protocol across your upstream supply chain and downstream customer activities. Understanding which categories apply to your business, and measuring them accurately, is essential for meaningful climate action, reducing your carbon footprint and meeting stakeholder expectations.
Why This Matters for Your Business
For environmentally conscious organisations, Scope 3 reporting is no longer optional. Your customers, investors, and partners increasingly expect transparency about your full environmental impact. Many are already asking for product carbon footprints and supply chain emissions data as part of their own reporting requirements.
Beyond compliance, understanding your Scope 3 emissions unlocks commercial opportunities: identifying efficiency gains, strengthening supplier relationships, differentiating your products and future-proofing your business against climate-related risks.
Our Collaborative Approach
At Optopia, we've helped organisations across multiple sectors in the South of England tackle their Scope 3 emissions reporting. We understand that every business is unique, which is why we take time to understand your operations, your sector and the specific challenges you face.
We work alongside your team to identify which of the 15 Scope 3 categories are material to your business, develop practical measurement methodologies and build a roadmap that fits your resources and ambitions.
Working with Incomplete Data
In our experience, few organisations have complete datasets covering all their value chain activities. That's perfectly normal, and it's something we're equipped to handle.
We employ various methodologies to fill data gaps appropriately - from targeted staff surveys and industry-specific emission factors, to advanced datasets and sector research. Our aim is to give you a robust, credible baseline that meets Scope 3 reporting standards whilst being practical to maintain and improve over time.
Engaging Your Supply Chain
The quality of your Scope 3 calculations depends heavily on data from your suppliers and partners. We can work directly with your supply chain to help them understand what's needed, improve data quality, and establish efficient reporting processes that benefit everyone.
Many of your suppliers will be facing similar requests from other customers. By helping them build capability, you're not just improving your own data - you're strengthening your supply chain's competitiveness and resilience.
