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Many companies set ambitious climate targets, but few can achieve them on their own. For the vast majority, most of the climate footprint lies outside their own cadastre.
If the reductions are to really hit, it is scope 3 emissions that need to be addressed: emissions from suppliers, transport, use and disposal of products.
This means that you as a company can manage your own emissions well, but without your suppliers making an effort, you can't really reduce your overall climate footprint. And this is where many companies today face a major challenge.
Are the suppliers not ready?
Many suppliers still lack the basic prerequisites to get started. Suppliers - especially small and medium-sized enterprises - often lack the maturity both in terms of knowledge, experience and data, but also the resources to measure, understand and reduce their climate footprint.
For some, efforts are downplayed altogether because they do not experience a clear business incentive. Perhaps price and delivery time still have a much higher priority than climate. The result is that companies are faced with climate targets they cannot actually achieve unless they help their suppliers get started.
From Challenge to Joint Effort
As a company, you have a responsibility to ensure that suppliers can be actively involved in the effort. You can of course choose to hope and wait for them to take the step themselves, or you can take the lead and help them get started. By offering knowledge and solutions, you can make your suppliers smarter and better equipped to contribute to your common climate goals.
This is where vendor programs become crucial. A program can provide suppliers with insights, knowledge, tools and practical guidance that enable them to measure their emissions, understand the results, and work on reductions. In this way, they can actively contribute to your company's climate goals.
When suppliers become highly qualified and engaged, they can deliver better data, develop solutions, and collaborate on real reductions in the value chain. It is not about making unattainable demands, but about seeing the value chain as a central part of the solution.
When the Big Ones Go Ahead
Several major players are doing just that and are already showing the way.
LEGO has launched their Supplier Sustainability Programme, and Schneider Electric operates a Zero Carbon Program. Both programs help thousands of suppliers reduce their climate footprint. And in addition, we see that many large companies today are working purposefully with supplier engagement because they have committed to climate targets under the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Here the requirement is often that a large proportion of suppliers also set climate targets themselves, which is why supplier programmes are most likely to stay, and we will see many more similar programmes in the future. And for good reason. For you to succeed in your climate action, it requires your suppliers to be on the journey. And it happens faster when you take the tea and show the way.
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