April 2021

by Pam Styles – Fellow, G&A Institute and Principal & Founder of Next Level Investor Relations LLC

There may be a converging opportunity for companies to accelerate total carbon emissions reductions (Scopes 1, 2 and 3) in collaboration with critical efforts to better understand and mitigate multi-tier supply chain risks that were revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expansive coverage of emerging trends supporting this thesis is presented in the Resource Paper, The Carbon Key: Transcending ESG Disclosure Frameworks Consolidation and Accelerating Supply Chain Awareness, newly published on the Governance & Accountability Institute website.

HIGHTLIGHTS

✔  A noticeable increase in the number of new articles combining observations about CO2 and supply chain, including articles from the World Economic Forum, The Wall Street Journal and CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.

✔  Articles supporting the idea that conditions may already exist for the commercial business sector to make real and lasting emissions reductions on its own – sooner and better – than to wait for geo-political negotiations and distant reduction target dates.

✔  Introduction to complementary opportunities for individual companies and the commercial business sector to focus on supply chain CO2 contributors and reductions that are material.

✔  A challenge to imagine if carbon emissions disclosure and performance tracking were prerequisites to resume sourcing from pre-Covid suppliers.

Thinking of these trends from an Investor Relations and ESG communications vantage, with some rudimentary optimization modeling exposure, it is suddenly compelling to take a look at Scope 3.

SCOPE 3 – “THE CARBON KEY”

Scope 3 CO2 emissions include both upstream and downstream categories.

Using guidelines published by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for layman’s interpretation, Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) CO2 emissions are defined as coming from sources owned or controlled by an organization; Scope 3 CO2 emissions are a consequence of an organization’s activities, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the organization.

An excerpt from the Scope 3 guidelines points to, “The reporting organization can identify other indirect (Scope 3) emissions by assessing which of its activities’ emissions… contribute to climate change-related risks, such as financial, regulatory, supply chain, product and customer … “

Upstream categories, at least the first four listed below, could be constructive additions to supply chain optimization models. In this way, companies could assess Scope 3 emissions improvement performance indicators for each potential supplier in a similar way as cost inputs are compared for low-cost sourcing optimization in supply chain modeling and actual procurement decision-making.

SCOPE 3 – CO2 EMISSIONS

Source: Global Reporting Initiative Standards GRI KPI 305 – Emissions

CONTEMPLATE & CONSIDER
The Carbon Key article introduces several questions and things to contemplate:

1. How might companies quickly re-evaluate their supply chain optimization decisions in the immediate post-Covid recovery?
   
   
2. Imagine how different management decisions might be if all layers of CO2 emissions were factored into the total cost of ownership (TCO) in supply chain decisions and risk mitigation.
   
   
3. Notice similarities between companies’ struggle to capture and report Scope 3 CO2 emissions and of supply chain tiers mapping challenges.
   
   A recent study found, that while 91% of companies can identify the physical location of most or all of their Tier 1 supplier facilities, only 17% could do so of their Tier 3 supplier facilities.
   
   
4. Companies’ leadership and understanding of its complete carbon footprint may be rapidly put to the test as capital markets and respective raters’ increase their attention on this issue.

The ESG/Sustainability field has been quietly maturing in the business sector, while the U.S. and global government sector has been distracted by the pandemic.

✔  The latest annual trends tracking conducted by the Governance & Accountability Institute shows 90% of S&P 500 and 65% of Russell 1000 companies produced sustainability reports as of 2019.

✔  In September 2020, five of the most globally recognized ESG voluntary reporting frameworks – GRI – CDP – SASB – IIRC – TCFD – announced they have pledged to work together in harmonizing ESG framework guidelines.

✔  As these five entities attempt to harmonize guidelines, other entities and collaborations have recently announced development of new ESG disclosure frameworks, i.e., CFA, the Big Four accounting firms, International Business Council (IBC).

✔  ESG-related data suppliers and aggregators continue to assert influence with frequent announcements of new ESG ratings and syndication arrangements to meet the growing information demand.

✔  Carbon emissions is one topic that transcends differences across most of the major voluntary ESG reporting frameworks. No matter which framework guideline(s) a company chooses to use, Scope 1, 2, or 3 CO2 emissions guidelines generally refer to the globally accepted methodology referred to as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol. The carbon key can unlock interconnections to aid ESG framework harmonization.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Talk to each other! Forget about internal silos and collaborate between teams.

There is every reason to believe that company experts can look at the carbon key to find faster, focused and efficient ways to mesh two seemingly different challenges – supply chain tiers risk and Scope 3 CO2 emissions reduction – for optimization that delivers real return on investment.


Pamela Styles – Fellow, G&A Institute – is Principal and Founder of Next Level Investor Relations LLC, a strategic consultancy with dual Investor Relations and ESG / Sustainability specialties.