People, Planet, Partners: Supply Chain Net Zero

When businesses start to assess their carbon footprint, for the majority of them their biggest source of carbon is their Scope 3 emissions.

These emissions are from assets “not owned or controlled by the reporting business, but which they indirectly impact in their value chain.” In other words, it’s their supply chain.  

For Paragon, 85% of our emissions come from our supply chain. To get to this figure, we use Extended Environmental Input Output (EEIO) methodology, looking at spend, and published carbon conversion rates for category of supplier. This isn’t the most accurate method, but it’s a great starting point to get an overall estimate of your supply chain emissions.  

This process identifies your top carbon-emitting suppliers and lets you take a risk-based approach to carbon management. For Paragon just 20 of our suppliers account for 60% of our carbon footprint – mostly from paper and postage suppliers - so it’s important that we work closely with them to measure their impact. We do this by asking them to complete detailed questionnaires and tell us how they are working towards achieving carbon net zero.  

If you'd like to find out more, you can read the full story on our efforts towards creating a net zero supply chain via the link to my newsletter below - and don't forget to subscribe. 

Lucy Klinkenberg-Matthews

Head of Sustainability, Paragon Customer Communications