As the global food industry faces growing scrutiny over its environmental impact, engaging suppliers in order to understand and manage Scope 3 emissions has become a critical priority.
These emissions — indirect emissions stemming from supply chain activities like production, transportation, and waste — often represent the largest share of a company’s carbon footprint. If you’re a food company looking to report and reduce your Scope 3 emissions, you need a well-thought-out supplier engagement plan.
In this guide, we’ll explore the importance of supplier engagement and how food companies can take practical steps to streamline the process.
What is supplier engagement?
Supplier engagement refers to the process of communicating and collaborating with suppliers to achieve shared goals — such as sustainability, efficiency, or compliance. For food companies, it’s the foundation of collecting high-quality Scope 3 emissions data, ensuring transparency throughout the value chain, and taking the first steps to reducing the environmental impact of their supply chains.
Engaging suppliers effectively involves building relationships, setting expectations, and building systems to make data collection as simple as possible, so as not to place undue burdens on valued suppliers. Ultimately, your supplier engagement strategy should help to move both the company and your suppliers closer to sustainability goals. Working collaboratively with suppliers on sustainability and carbon accounting doesn’t just ensure you meet your Scope 3 targets; providing sustainability support and resources to suppliers (particularly smaller ones) can help move the entire industry forward.
Why is supplier engagement important for scope 3 data collection?
What counts as Scope 3 emissions in the food sector
A food company’s Scope 3 emissions include all indirect supply chain emissions, including:
- Agricultural production of raw materials
- Transportation and logistics
- Waste generation from unsold or spoiled food
For food companies (and indeed most companies), Scope 3 emissions often dwarf Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
Why primary data matters for Scope 3
Accurate Scope 3 reporting depends on collecting primary data — real-world data provided by suppliers about their activities. Getting hold of primary data allows companies to:
- Comply with sustainability reporting frameworks like the GHG Protocol
- Get an accurate picture of their carbon footprint
- Make informed decisions about where best to start with decarbonization efforts
However, obtaining this data can be challenging due to the complexity and fragmentation of global supply chains, varying data standards, a lack of existing data and reporting infrastructure among suppliers (particularly smaller ones), and the sheer number of suppliers involved in food production.
The role of supplier engagement
If you care about your Scope 3 emissions, then supplier engagement is critical. Because suppliers are the source of primary data, building trust and collaboration ensures timely and reliable data collection, and most importantly, it opens the door to far more accurate Scope 3 reporting.
Open communication with suppliers leads to a better understanding of your company’s upstream and downstream impacts, improving transparency and amplifying your climate action. And finally, when done well, supplier engagement aligns suppliers with your sustainability targets and carbon reduction goals, allowing your company to better manage Scope 3 emissions and amplify its climate action.
What to include in supplier engagement strategy and plan
Getting started with supplier engagement doesn’t have to be overwhelming. For food companies, an effective supplier engagement strategy should start with clear communication, explaining the importance of emissions data and how suppliers’ contributions fit into the bigger picture. It should also offer incentives for participation rather than punishment for noncompliance.
It’s also critical that your supplier engagement plan supports your suppliers with the right training and resources to help them up-skill and set up the right systems for collecting emissions data. The best way to do all of this is by integrating the right infrastructure and technology. For example, a supplier engagement platform like CarbonCloud can automate data sharing between a company and its suppliers, making the supplier collaboration process seamless.
Getting started with the supplier engagement process
With this in mind, here’s a step-by-step guide that can help you get started with supplier engagement and set you up for Scope 3 success.
1. Identify key suppliers
Focusing on the right suppliers is critical to making supplier engagement manageable and impactful. Here’s how:
- Conduct a spend analysis: Identify suppliers that represent the largest percentage of your purchasing spend. These suppliers are likely to have the biggest impact on your emissions profile.
- Assess emissions hotspots: Use a lifecycle analysis (LCA) or consult available sector-specific emission factors to pinpoint where the largest Scope 3 emissions occur, such as agricultural inputs, transportation, or packaging materials.
- Segment suppliers: Create categories based on emissions significance and data availability to tailor your approach (e.g., Tier 1 suppliers, regional suppliers, high-emission contributors).
💡 Practical tip: Begin by targeting your top 10% of suppliers by emissions or spend. This group will likely account for the majority of your Scope 3 emissions.
2. Set clear goals
Defining what you want to achieve ensures focus and alignment across the supplier engagement process.
- Define the scope of your data collection: Specify the types of data you need (e.g., emissions factors, energy consumption, waste metrics) and at which stage of the product lifecycle.
- Align goals with frameworks: Tie your goals to standards like the GHG Protocol or Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to ensure relevance and credibility.
- Set realistic targets: Don’t set unrealistic goals or take punitive measures for suppliers that fail to comply initially. Work with your suppliers, not against them. Break your ultimate emissions reduction goals into measurable milestones (e.g., achieving 80% supplier participation within 12 months).
- Communicate the ‘why’: Ensure suppliers understand why the data is important — not just for your company but also for improving their operations and environmental impact.
💡 Practical tip: Share examples of how suppliers’ data has led to positive sustainability outcomes in similar contexts, emphasizing the shared value.
3. Engage suppliers
Effective supplier engagement is about building trust, providing support, and making the process as seamless as possible.
- Make a communication plan: Regularly share updates and expectations using emails, webinars, and one-on-one meetings. Include a clear timeline and steps to follow.
- Educate and train: Host workshops or training sessions to help suppliers understand carbon accounting concepts and the tools they’ll use.
- Personalize engagement: Tailor your messaging for different supplier types. For example, larger suppliers may appreciate detailed reporting guidance, while smaller suppliers may need extra support to get started.
- Incentivize participation: Offer incentives such as preferred supplier status, public recognition in sustainability reports, or access to shared sustainability resources.
4. Use the right tools
Technology can drastically simplify supplier engagement by automating manual processes and ensuring consistency.
- Choose the right platform: Select a supplier engagement tool like CarbonCloud, which offers automated data collection, user-friendly interfaces, and real-time analytics.
- Centralize data collection: Use the platform to streamline the flow of emissions data, ensuring all suppliers report in a consistent format.
- Enable supplier access: Provide suppliers with secure, self-service portals to input their data, view guidance, and track progress.
- Provide technical support: Set up a helpdesk or dedicated point of contact to address supplier questions about the tool.
💡 Practical tip: Begin with a pilot program, involving a small group of suppliers, to test the tool and refine your processes before scaling up.
5. Monitor progress
Tracking progress helps you identify which suppliers might need extra support and maintain momentum on your Scope 3 journey, which is not something that happens overnight.
- Establish metrics: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) like supplier participation rate, data completeness, and data quality.
- Regular check-ins: Schedule periodic reviews to assess progress and address supplier challenges.
- Provide feedback: Share insights with suppliers about how their data contributes to your sustainability goals and any areas for improvement.
- Reward success: Don’t punish non-compliance (at least not initially). Instead, support those that need extra help while recognizing suppliers that consistently meet expectations, either through public acknowledgment or business incentives.
- Adapt and iterate: Use the data you collect to refine your supplier engagement strategy, focusing on areas where engagement is lagging or data quality is low.
Ready to engage suppliers to address your Scope 3 emissions?
The CarbonCloud platform makes scope 3 data collection simple and straightforward. Rather than manually following up with individual suppliers for their data, CarbonCloud lets you automatically request climate footprints from your suppliers and increase your data granularity. Your suppliers can do the same with their suppliers and your emissions map will be automatically updated with their results. No more emails, no more spreadsheets!
Get in touch with our team today to get started.
