How do you measure emissions across a more complex supply chain?

Understandably, measuring your organisation's emissions becomes much more complex when you factor in the emissions of your whole supply chain. A straightforward way to measure (and therefore reduce) these wider emissions by separting them into two groups; emissions which are under your control, and those that are outside of your control.

When considering emissions under your control, these can be split into two different types; direct (those that we emit directly from our business, such as carbon dioxide emissions from boiler, fuels from transport etc) and indirect (CO2 emitted from suppliers, such as the power station that provides your electricity). 

When considering emissions which are outside of your control, these can be upstream from your organisation (emitted during the transfer of goods and services into you - this includes the provision of services and goods, and transportations of those goods to you), as well as downstream from your organisation (emitted during the transfer of goods and services away from you, such as waste treated outside of your business, distribution of goods to your customers, and the ongoing use of your products). 

To determine our total carbon footprint, with the aim of hitting the 1.5°C warming limit, we have to be able to measure it accurately. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides an accountancy method for quantifying emissions throughout an organisation, which are categorised into scopes 1, 2 and 3. You can read more about the types of emission categories and how they can help you measure your carbon footprint in our guide to Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.