78% of procurement execs recognise the importance of Scope 3
Launching its first edition of Vizibl Quick Insights, the leading digital procurement platform for supplier collaboration and innovation has produced a new report: Procurement’s Decarbonisation Readiness Report.
Speaking to the procurement industry, Vizibl asked vital questions regarding how prepared enterprises are when it comes to working with suppliers to reduce their Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
78% of procurement execs recognise the importance of Scope 3
Despite 78% of respondents recognise that reducing Scope 3 emissions is important to them, a third (39%) admit that they are underprepared when it comes to reporting emissions under management.
In fact, only 23% believe that the business strategy for Scope 3 has been adequately communicated, indicating that there continues to be work needed to bridge the gap. Such programmes require a strong leader with regular communication when it comes to actions and results. However, only 33% of respondents feel that they have been sufficiently educated on the subject.
“The main trend we found in this first report is that most companies – despite having overall pledges to reduce scope 3 at the corporate level – are not doing a great job of cascading the realities of achieving these goals down to the people tasked with making this happen,” commented Richard Hogg, CEO, Vizibl.
“What is encouraging is that the market clearly understands the value of reducing these value chain emissions, but we found that the majority of respondents are struggling with a lack of education on the subject itself and uncertainty around how, in their roles, they can directly contribute to reducing scope 3.”
Lack of data visibility is a top barrier to reducing Scope 3 emissions
Elsewhere in the report, 38% of executives reported a lack of data visibility and/or quality as a top barrier to achieving their pledges and robustly reducing Scope 3 emissions. This was followed by supplier engagement and internal alignment (14%) and budgets and incentives (11%).
When discussing technology, only 5% of respondents said the have the full technology stack to work alongside suppliers to manage and reduce emissions in line with targets. 29% admitted to having no technology at all, while 14% didn’t know and 26% have some technology.
“There is no doubt that having good data will help enterprises to move closer to their targets, however, this shouldn’t prevent organisations from taking action now, as they endeavour to seek the perfect datasets. Here at Vizibl we advocate taking action and moving forward with what you have while making sure you’re always improving data quality and breadth over time.,” continued Hogg.
“It is also clear that all but a few feel they have adequate tech stacks to help in this process, which is somewhat alarming. Overall, while areas of this report are encouraging, the unavoidable takeaway is that at present we are worryingly immature and woefully unprepared to tackle the climate challenge. The 2030 deadline is looming and every 5 weeks sees 1% of the decade disappear,” he concluded.
