Why the method you use to collect Scope 3 data matters more than most businesses realise

Scope 3 is shaping up to be the hardest part of sustainability reporting for most businesses with agricultural supply chains. The data is difficult to collect, and the method used to collect it has real consequences for what can actually be reported and demonstrated over time.

Most businesses are currently working with one of two approaches.

The first is national averages, using emissions factors based on industry or national data to estimate supply chain emissions. It's accessible and produces a number. The problem is that unless the national emissions factor itself reduces, it's very hard to show any year-on-year improvement in your supply chain regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. The only reliable way to demonstrate a reduction under this method is to buy or finance less, which isn't a strategy most businesses are planning their sustainability reporting around.

The second approach is collecting emissions data directly from the businesses in your supply chain. It's the only method that can reflect real change. If your suppliers are running more efficient operations, supplier-based data can show that. National averages can't.

The challenge has always been practicality. Getting producers to measure and share emissions data at scale is genuinely difficult, and the cost of doing it properly has been a real barrier across the industry. That's starting to change as platforms become more accessible and the service provider model (where agronomists, accountants and advisers complete reports on behalf of their producer clients) becomes more common. The data that flows from that is calculated from real farm inputs, and it can be filtered by region, commodity or enterprise type to give a picture of what's genuinely happening across a supplier base year on year.

The shift from national averages to supplier-based data isn't straightforward, and it takes time to build meaningful coverage across a supply chain. But the businesses working on it now are the ones that'll have something credible to show as reporting requirements tighten.

If you want to understand what that looks like in practice for your supply chain, reach out to our team at hello@ruminati.com.au.