HowGood’s Scope 3 Report measures the upstream Scope 3 emissions associated with a company’s sourcing portfolio. It includes the two categories that make up the majority of a company’s total emissions:
Category 3.1: Purchased Goods and Services
Category 3.4: Upstream Transportation and Distribution
These two categories are the only categories that the CDP recommends companies in the food and beverage sector report on, and which are required for a company to achieve any higher than the basic “Disclosure” status.
HowGood measures Scope 3 emissions using its Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) methodology, which is third-party verified by Carbon Trust, the world’s leading authority on carbon footprinting. It is also ISO 14067 Carbon Footprint compliant and aligned with the GHG Protocol’s Product Life Cycle and Reporting Standard (also known as the Product Standard).
HowGood measures a product’s carbon footprint across 12 distinct stages of the product life cycle, according to the graphic below. This article specifies which stages of the product life cycle pertain to HowGood’s Scope 3 Report and addresses frequently asked questions on Scope 3 reporting data requirements.
Scope 3 Reporting Data Requirements
HowGood has spent more than 17 years mapping global supply chains and building the world’s largest database of emission factors for the food industry. We are able to meet customers where they are in their sustainability journey, and measure their impact using only back-of-pack ingredient lists. The minimum data requirements to calculate a company’s Scope 3 emissions are aligned to the system boundaries for where the company’s product sits in the supply chain. Generally speaking, these data requirements are outlined in the table below.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why is the Transportation to Manufacturing column empty?
Why is the Transportation to Manufacturing column empty?
Upstream Transportation includes emissions associated with all of the transportation of a raw material from the farm to the first processing facility (if applicable) and on to the initial manufacturing stage.
Transportation to Manufacturing includes emissions associated with the transportation of processed materials from Processing to Manufacturing.
For products or materials that rely on only the minimum data inputs (ingredient name, annual amount purchased and manufacturing location), Transportation to Manufacturing will almost always be zero. Customers that have greater supply chain visibility will be able to model the Transportation to Manufacturing emissions of any nested products or materials and therefore calculate the emissions associated with this stage of the product lifecycle.
HowGood enables its customers to share Product Reports with their own customers who are existing Latis users. They can also request their suppliers to share their PCFs using Latis SupplierConnect. Leveraging the interconnectivity of Latis and fostering supply chain collaboration can help to achieve a more granular product carbon footprint and in turn, provide more accurate measurement of Scope 3 emissions associated with the Transportation to Manufacturing stage of the product life cycle.
Why is Manufacturing included in the Scope 3 report? Shouldn’t it be part of Scope 1 and 2?
Why is Manufacturing included in the Scope 3 report? Shouldn’t it be part of Scope 1 and 2?
The manufacturing of a company’s own products is NOT included in Scope 3 Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services) calculations, but any manufacturing of materials or products that occurred upstream in the supply chain IS included.
The scope of Purchased Goods and Services varies greatly depending on the type of goods being purchased. Consider this example:
An ingredient supplier might purchase raw (unprocessed) commodities straight from a farm, or from a wholesaler/supplier to make their top selling ingredient. A CPG might then purchase this ingredient from the ingredient supplier to include in their product which is then sold to a distributor or retailer.
Raw commodity > Ingredient supplier > CPG > Retailer
Raw commodity > Ingredient supplier > CPG > Distributor
For each of these company types (Ingredient supplier, CPG, Retailer, and Distributor), the system boundaries of the purchased good is different.
Since the ingredient supplier purchases raw commodities, the manufacturing in their PG&S calculations of the purchased good for the top selling ingredient would be 0. The CPG would want the manufacturing of the ingredient included in their PG&S emission factor calculations. Finally, the CPG’s manufacturing emissions must be included in the PG&S emission factor calculations for the retailer and distributor.
Is utility usage calculated per crop type? How is co-manufacturing accounted for?
Is utility usage calculated per crop type? How is co-manufacturing accounted for?
The Cradle to Manufacturing Gate emissions of each material are used to calculate Scope 3 Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services) emissions. This includes on-farm emissions, statistical land use change (sLUC), processing and manufacturing of the goods as well as the transportation legs between those stages. The energy requirements of the processing or manufacturing type, along with the grid mix at the relevant location is taken into account to calculate energy usage. All manufacturing data within Latis is calculated as manufacturing energy requirements per kg of final product. Additional allocation from co-manufacturing is not required by HowGood in order to calculate energy usage, however we always welcome primary data from customers for a case where they believe this to be a differentiator. In the case where primary co-manufacturing energy usage data is available, this could be used to override HowGood’s default energy usage calculations.
What does "Materials Transportation" mean?
What does "Materials Transportation" mean?
Materials Transportation refers to the last leg of transportation from when a procured material is processed or manufactured, until it is purchased by your company.