“It’s all about Scope 3”, one leader quoted in IT Channel Oxygen’s recent Channel Race to Zero report declared.
While the UK’s leading resellers and MSPs have made solid headway on reducing their Scope 1 and 2 emissions (with average tCO2e emissions per £1m revenues falling from 11.4 to 9.4 in their latest years, according to our findings), Scope 3 still looks like a mountain to climb.
Indeed, in April, Computacenter CEO Mike Norris described the concept of reaching net zero on Scope 3 by 2040 or 2050 as “a bit too nebulas” as he explained why his company has introduced new shorter-term targets around device reuse.
But that’s not to say the industry isn’t taking action on Scope 3.
They say you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and improving reporting of Scope 3 emissions is a priority for many of the IT solutions providers IT Channel Oxygen tracked in Channel Net Zero, which we compiled in association with Schneider Electric.
Bytes Technology Group’s reported Scope 3 emissions rose from 90 to 1,292 tCO2e in its fiscal 2023 as it increased the sophistication of its reporting here (the newly added ‘employee commuting’ category generated the largest proportion of this, at 860 tCO2e), for instance.
Others, including Softcat (whose Scope 3 emissions generated over 99% of its total reported emissions in fiscal 2023) are beginning to pile more pressure on their vendor and supply chain partners.
Here we round up what nine of the leading partners are doing around Scope 3…
Alastair Wynn, Business Transformation Director at Softcat
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
It is such a huge and complex topic for every organisation. Softcat is fortunate that we are relatively non-complex when it comes to Scope 3 emission categories.
It all starts with data, which is key and our focus is on receiving and being able to supply accurate data to our customers and partners. Like many others, our biggest emissions are in Scope 3, and specifically in Goods & Services, and hence, we are focusing our efforts on what we can control, manage and optimise in our supply chain to ensure our targets will be achieved.
Additionally, we will collaborate with our customer base to assist them in making their IT environments more circular and green. The future is bright, the future is green…
Sheryl Moore, Director of Sustainability at Stone
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
This year we got up close and personal with every category within Scope 3 and took the time to work with carbon specialists to fully understand the GHG protocol and calculations behind each of these. Identifying what was in scope and also understanding our level of influence on each of the categories.
Our 23/24 data identified that 92% of our carbon emissions were in Scope 3 and we are now translating this data for the benefit of our customers. As we deliver new products we also offer the service to recycle so there is no lost leg of a journey. We have also invested in telematic planning to ensure we are routing to the most efficient way, sharing the journey to and from and are proportioning this through our social value calculator and customer reports demonstrating the saved carbon impact.
Roger Whittle, Co-Founder, Jigsaw24
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3 emissions?
Some Scope 3 emissions will reduce as our suppliers improve, for instance we choose to report on the Use and EOL treatment of the Apple products that we sell, and this year we can report on the first carbon neutral product that Apple have produced (Watch series 9), but Apple are far ahead already of virtually all other vendors in this respect.
What we can do and are doing is to improve the level of detail in our reporting, particularly with regards to purchased goods and CAPEX, where we have previously been using out of date spend based emission factors that do not reflect the carbon reduction efforts of our supply chain (hence why for this year we have been studying our suppliers’ SECR reports and using their published data if we can).
Unfortunately, we have found that the percentage of suppliers which are producing carbon reports is still tiny, and a recent survey of smaller suppliers provided virtually no additional reporting for us, with the feedback being that they don’t have the resource to start a sustainability journey yet so there is a huge mountain to climb for society.
Alex Groves, Net Zero Lead at SCC
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
Collaboration, data quality & circularity. Measuring and acting on what we can.
Jon Steggles, ESG Strategic Lead at CDW UK
What’s your approach to tackling scope 3?
It centres on three core pillars. 1) ensuring data is robust, clear, accessible, and transparent providing the platform to identify improvement areas and track the impact of changes. 2) drive change across the areas where we have direct control particularly categories 5 [waste generated in operations], 6 [business travel] and 7 [employee commuting]. And 3) build collaboration throughout our value chain, and the wider tech sector, to drive reductions in emissions related to Scope 3 categories we can’t control directly.
Simone Hindmarch, co-founder and Managing Director of Commercial
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
It’s quite simple, be brave.
A lot of organisations nervous of setting stretch targets for fear of not making them. But we want to be ambitious and push ourselves to do more.
Our target is to be net zero by 2028, and to do that we need to halve our Scope 3 emissions. It’s a big task but we’ve set clear goals that will deliver on that ambition.
And while our Sustainability Team are the ones who will oversee that work, the ambition touches every corner and every person in the company. It’s something we like to call Commercial by Nature.
Tim Lancaster, Managing Director – Cloud & Sustainability at Digital Space
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
We ran a day of workshops with sustainability consultants and business experts to identify the issues and opportunities for each of the 15 areas within Scope 3. This year, we plan to re-baseline our emissions and agree the detailed plan to net zero.
Stuart Gascoigne, Head of ESG at boxxe
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
Supplier engagement is key. Identifying your strategic suppliers and outlining your company sustainability ambitions to them, and what their part is in driving down Scope 3 emissions, is a good start. Software tools and AI are becoming more central to tackle Scope 3 however building strong relationships with suppliers is vital.
Richard Behan, Chief Corporate Development Officer at CAE
What’s your approach to tackling Scope 3?
It’s a committed long-term view, with the reality being it will take time for CAE to accurately measure scope 3 emissions outside of our direct activities, such as from our supply chain partners and the use of products by our customers.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
