The company should first identify the most material emissions within their Scope 3 emissions and interventions to reduce those emissions. Then, the company should identify the purchased goods or services that are to be targeted, the geographic area covered and the suppliers included, insofar as feasible. Only interventions that affect (i.e. are in the supply chain of) goods and services that are included within the inventory under the scope 3 Standard should apply this approach.
The approach may be applied to 'like' goods and services that may not be fully traceable and therefore are not necessarily the specific goods and services purchased. To achieve this, the concept of a 'supply-shed 2' is introduced, wherein the goods and services reported should come from a group of suppliers that are within the supplying market from which the company sources, though the exact supplier may not be traceable. In such cases, the effect on these like goods and services can be accounted for as they would be for the effect on goods or services that can be directly traced.
For example, a company may introduce an intervention to a group of smallholder farmers that are known to supply the company's Tier 1 suppliers. The specific goods and services purchased cannot be traced back to individual smallholder farmers. The company may still claim that their Tier 1 supplier-produced purchased goods and services are impacted by the intervention.
Once the intervention has been identified, please contact SustainCERT with further questions.