That’s because most companies’ emissions don’t come from what they directly control. They come from everywhere else: from the materials they buy, the production processes of suppliers, the way customers use their products, and even how those products are disposed of at the end of their life. These are known as Scope 3 emissions, the indirect greenhouse gases generated up and down your value chain, and they often account for the vast majority of an organisation’s total footprint.
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So, if you want to make meaningful progress on voluntary climate action (and demonstrate this progress to stakeholders), engaging your value chain is essential.

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What are Scope 3 Emissions and why should I care?
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To put it simply, Scope 3 emissions are all the greenhouse gases a business is responsible for, but doesn’t directly emit itself: from extraction of raw materials to transportation, use of products by customers, and waste disposal.  
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Think about it this way: even if your lights are powered by renewables (Scope 2) and your direct emissions from operations are minimal (Scope 1), your real climate impact might be hidden in:
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- Suppliers producing materials or components

- Logistics and transport partners

- Products used by customers

- Waste and end-of-life processes
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For most organisations, roughly 80–95% of total emissions live here (DESNZ 2023), outside the walls of the business itself. That’s a massive climate opportunity hiding in plain sight.
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Your value chain isn’t just a supply chain, it’s your climate force multiplier
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Here’s the challenge: you cannot reduce Scope 3 emissions on your own. You can measure them (and you must measure them to understand your real climate impact) but reducing them requires collaboration.
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That’s where value chain engagement comes in. Engagement means more than sending questionnaires to suppliers. It means forging partnerships, co-developing reduction strategies with suppliers, empowering them with tools and data, and creating incentives so that your climate goals become shared goals. Engaging with suppliers and partners also supports traceability of GHG accounting.  
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When businesses take this collaborative approach, several things happen:
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- You get better data. Estimating Scope 3 based on product averages only gets you so far. When suppliers provide actual emissions data, your carbon accounting becomes real, and prioritising reductions becomes practical.  

- You unlock reduction opportunities. Understanding value chain emissions helps you identify where reductions will have the biggest impact (hot spotting), whether that’s switching to lower-carbon materials, improving logistics, adopting renewable energy upstream, or helping suppliers reduce their own footprints.  ‍

- You build resilience. Businesses that engage their suppliers on climate issues often discover innovations they wouldn’t have found otherwise.

- You boost credibility. With regulators and investors increasingly focused on comprehensive climate action, transparent Scope 3 reporting and action is rapidly becoming the norm.  

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Common challenges, and how engagement solves them
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Helping your value chain to assess their impact, and then improve that, isn’t easy. Organisations often struggle with:

- Complexity of suppliers. Your value chain might stretch across continents, with multiple tiers or changing suppliers. Climate impacts may be increasing the need to vary suppliers or materials, making this more complex still.

- Lack of quality data. What if your suppliers don’t track emissions at all, or are applying different methodologies or language? This makes collecting meaningful, comparable Scope 3 data harder than your last audit.  

- Inertia and awareness gaps. Smaller suppliers may not know how to measure emissions, why it matters, or don’t see it as a shared problem.  

That’s exactly why engagement matters. When you bring suppliers into the process, you reduce barriers, strengthen relationships, and create shared momentum for change. Rather than pushing change upstream, you co-create it.

This is also good business
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Value chain engagement helps you:

- Better prioritise efforts where they matter most

- Find efficient, cost-effective low hanging fruit, if it exists

- Align with regulatory requirements

- Build stronger supplier partnerships that reduce risk

- Boost investor confidence through transparency

- Strengthen brand reputation with customers who care about genuine climate progress
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And, most importantly, it builds momentum beyond one organisation. When businesses work together across value chains, the cumulative emissions reductions are real, measurable, and impactful.
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We all have a role to play
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At One Carbon World, we’re on a mission to help businesses navigate this complex pathway. We believe in collective voluntary climate action: every company can reduce its emissions more effectively when it collaborates, shares data, and makes decisions together with partners across the value chain.

If you’re ready to go beyond reporting and truly reduce your Scope 3 emissions, we’d love to help you take that next step. Whether you’re just starting your measurement journey or building a comprehensive value chain engagement strategy, One Carbon World’s expert support can guide you.

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Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/652ea475697260000dccf9db/scope-3-emissions-in-the-uk-reporting-landscape.pdf  

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