Construction companies need to be aware of their Scope 3 emissions – it aids assessing their carbon footprint and enables constructors to win business in the drive to net zero. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities of an organisation.
A new guide from the UK Green Building Council is helping constructors plan for the future and support he drive for net-zero across the sector.
The free guide Embodied Carbon: Scope 3 Measurement and Reporting’ seeks to align organisational GHG Scope 3 reporting and project-based embodied carbon assessments to show how establishing a coherent link can support emissions reductions efforts.
The guidance demonstrates that integrating embodied carbon assessments directly within Scope 3 reporting would represent an easier, more centralised and more detailed solution than typical practices for GHG Protocol reporting.
To do so, the report outlines guidance for various stakeholders:
- How Developers, Owners, Contractors, Facilities Managers can use embodied carbon assessments to report Scope 3 emissions across an asset’s lifetime,
- How Architects and Engineers should adopt a project-based emissions disclosure for embodied carbon, due to the challenge of designing embodied carbon emissions that do not easily fit within the GHG Protocol.
Dicover more and download your free copy of the guide HERE
Measuring Scope 3 emissions has several benefits. For most businesses and public bodies, the majority of their GHG emissions and cost reduction opportunities are outside their own operations. Addressing Scope 3 emissions can help advance an organisation’s decarbonisation and sustainability journey.
The benefits to businesses
Next to meeting changing regulatory requirements, measuring Scope 3 emissions allows businesses to:
- Assess where the emission hotspots are across their value chain to prioritise reduction strategies.
- Identify which suppliers are leaders and which are laggards in terms of their sustainability performance.
- Inform decision making across procurement, product development and logistics teams regarding which interventions can deliver the most significant emission reductions.
- Encourage product innovation to create more sustainable and energy-efficient products.
- Advance their climate strategy to create genuine, quantifiable, and visible change.
- Positively engage with employees to reduce emissions from business travel and employee commuting.
About the UK Green Building Council
UKGBC is the membership-led industry network radically transforming the sustainability of the built environment. Powered by 700+ members, UKGBC is at the forefront of positively influencing policy, identifying the pathways to propel the sector forward sustainably and driving the solutions to transform our buildings, communities, cities and infrastructure so that people and nature thrive.
