Actionable Insights

Summary of Actionable Insights

What you can do now to implement learnings from this guide

Creating internal momentum is essential for driving aligned climate actions that lead to meaningful reductions. Corporate climate teams can:

• Secure senior leadership buy-in by highlighting climate initiatives as a clear business opportunity.
• Help shape an effective internal climate governance structure, often benefiting from a decentralized and distributed approach.
• Sustain momentum by progressively embedding climate KPIs, creating internal incentives, and integrating carbon pricing into business decision-making.

When addressing Scope 3 emissions transparency, corporate climate teams can:

• Set clear reporting goals (e.g., disclosure or reduction) and develop a methodology selection decision tree (or use the proposed one) to navigate complex requirements.
• Manage GHG data uncertainties by leveraging industry-specific sources to understand typical emissions ranges. When evaluating green products, verify scope boundaries, certification schemes, recycled content, and additionality to minimize greenwashing risks.

Moving beyond transparency for effective supply chain emissions reduction, corporate and procurement teams can:

• Incorporate material-specific indicators into existing supplier segmentation frameworks to accurately identify suppliers by climate impact and maturity.
• Tailor engagement strategies for different supplier groups, focusing on achieving reduction outcomes with innovation suppliers and building capacity with intervention suppliers.
• Prioritize financial incentives for suppliers with high climate impact and maturity, while organizing abatement levers across various supplier segments.
• Track climate progress using sector-specific metrics aligned with supplier maturity to capture actual emissions from major sources.

When exploring lower-carbon procurement options to concretely support decarbonization, procurement teams can work with corporate climate teams to:

• Understand green product choices, from standard-certified products and low-carbon product brands to advanced products from new projects or net-zero technologies.
• Incorporate climate factors in procurement decisions, such as assessing product-level and industry-level emission impacts, what reduction actions will be enabled, technology costs, risks, and the knowledge requirement.
• Leverage flexible purchasing mechanisms (e.g., small-batch contracts, long-term agreements, group purchases, direct investments, or book and claim) to balance near-term cost-effectiveness with long-term decarbonization investments.

Appendix

Supplier capacity-building overview

Supplier capacity-building resources

Listed by training content for general training, sector-specific initiatives, and corporate programs.

General training

Awareness-raising

• Foundations of GHG accounting for Organizations (ASU)
• UN Global Compact Academy E-learning Course on Science-based Targets

Carbon accounting fundamentals

• Greenhouse Gas Protocol: E-learning Opportunities
• GHG Management Institute: E-learning courses

Implementations (how-to)

• United Nations Global Compact Academy (Network Singapore)
• WBCSD Bespoke Learning Program & Online Academy
• ISCC Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Training

Other

• The Climate Drive Net Zero Guidebook (WBCSD)
• The Climate Drive Action Library (WBCSD)
• Ultimate Guide: Collecting Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Data from Suppliers (Ecochain)

Sector-specific

Carbon accounting and implementation – training

• Aluminum Stewardship Initiative (ASI) – ASI Standards and GHG Emissions Training
• Together for Sustainability (TfS) – Scope 3 GHG Emissions Programme
• Together for Sustainability (TfS) – TfS Academy

Other – written resources

• International Aluminum Institute (IAI) – Aluminum Industry GHG Emissions Training
• World Steel Association – Steel Industry Climate Action Training
• Aluminum Association – Sustainability and GHG Training
• TfS PCF Guideline

Corporate programs

• Together for Sustainability (TfS) – Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) Supplier Toolkit
• Walmart Sustainability Hub: Trainings and Webinars
• Unilever: Supplier Climate Training
• Apple: Clean Energy Program
• Coca-Cola: Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition
• Nike: Supplier Climate Action Plan (SCAP)
• Target: Supplier Sustainability Training
• PepsiCo: Sustainable Agriculture and GHG Training
• BMW Group: Sustainable Supplier Engagement