White Paper: Decide to Reduce

Breaking the Scope 3 Analysis Paralysis – a white paper by Sustainable and ctrl+s

Supply chain emissions fall when procurement and R&D change their recurring decisions – a more detailed Scope 3 inventory alone does not cut them.

Halfway to their 2030 targets, many companies have invested heavily in more detailed inventories, yet their supply chain emissions remain essentially flat. With a 30% reduction target against a 2020 baseline and flat emissions in 2025, the required pace roughly doubles, from about 3.5% to about 6.9% a year.

Decide to Reduce shows how to build the two things that change this: an organization that can decide, and data that supports decisions, not only reporting.

• The five levers for cutting supply chain emissions and who typically owns each – from passive supplier alignment to product redesign
• The three organizational conditions that let procurement and R&D act on these levers: mandate, capability, and governance
• A data approach for each lever: product carbon footprints (PCFs) for strategic hotspot categories, and supplier-adjusted emission factors where supplier corporate carbon footprints (CCFs) fall short
• A composite case study of a manufacturer that turned one corporate target into 14 category targets and cut Scope 3 emissions year-over-year for the first time in five years