Scope 3: Reporting; Goods and Services

Moving beyond spend based reporting.

Background
The Net Zero Carbon (NZC) Supplier Tool Action Research Project has brought together over 100 sustainability and procurement professionals from 32 different UK universities to explore how best to use the NZC Supplier Tool to drive sustainable procurement in higher education.

The Net Zero Carbon Supplier Tool (the ‘Tool’) was developed by Nottingham Trent University in partnership with NETpositive Futures. It was designed to support universities to capture actual carbon data at the same time as building sustainable supply chains. The Tool enables procurement and sustainability teams to engage with suppliers in a way that helps them to both understand their carbon footprint and to develop a free net zero carbon action plan.

The aim of the project was to provide a simple, universal way to engage with a large number of suppliers on carbon reduction. The collection of supplier carbon data allows universities to develop a robust supply chain carbon footprint, based on actual carbon data, to inform their scope 3 reporting and help them meet their Net Zero ambitions.

Impact
In the last 9 months, the Tool has supported 700 suppliers from across university supply chains on net zero, including the creation of 415 bespoke supplier carbon reduction plans containing over 15,000 individual actions to tackle climate change. The project is supporting universities to gain insight into the impact of their purchasing decisions, through the collation of carbon data, the development of supporting guidance and the sharing of best practice.

Case Study: Nottingham Trent University
Data from 56 suppliers in the NZC Supplier Tool was used in NTU’s 22/23 carbon footprint reporting, alongside embodied cradle-to-gate carbon data from five ICT suppliers, this information accounted for 18% of expenditure on goods and services analysed in scope 3 supply chain reporting.
The remaining 82% of expenditure was analysed using the traditional spend-based calculation methodology analysed in-house. The result is that the NZC Supplier Tool and embodied carbon data reduced NTU’s 2022/23 carbon footprint by 8,221 tCO2e.
An additional 8,000 tCO2e was saved by carrying out spend-based calculations in-house, and due to more rigorous analysis of the data, NTU was able to analyse an additional £17m within of the supply chain carbon footprint.
Overall, NTU saw a 29% reduction in supply chain carbon emissions compared to the previous year, and enabled emissions to be de-coupled from spend for the first time.

Want to get involved?
There is power in numbers and strength in collaboration. Currently there are a further 13 universities exploring the opportunity to join the 32 at the end of October. If you would like to join this exploration and at the very least find out what is going on and how the data is being used for scope 3 reporting, then why not join one of the information sessions we have scheduled.
In the sessions we will demonstrate the supplier system, the data been gathered and outline how to get involved.

Introductory sessions will be held on the following dates:
Thursday 12 September, 10:30-11:30
Wednesday 18 September, 13:00-14:00
Tuesday 24 September, 11:00-12:00

If you are interested in joining one of the sessions and finding out more email Sandra on admin@netpositivefutures.co.uk

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