Even if every supplier delivers, it is not enough

A target that lives in somebody else business

The company had already published its direct emission targets and was setting the indirect one. The indirect category is estimated at 80 per cent of its total emissions, and almost 80 per cent of that sits in one line: purchased goods and raw materials.

That means the target cannot be set from the inside. It depends on what several hundred chemical suppliers have committed to, whether those commitments are credible, and whether they are on track.

So 350 suppliers were assessed against 25 data points each, covering reporting practice, published emissions by scope, short and long term reduction targets, and participation in the recognised disclosure and rating schemes. Between them they account for 98 per cent of the company cumulative emissions from raw material purchases. The remaining suppliers account for two per cent, which is the argument for stopping there.

Less than half of them measure anything

Fewer than half the suppliers covered conduct a carbon inventory at all, which is the prerequisite for setting any credible target. Coverage is better for direct emissions than for indirect, and the reason given most often is limited resources and knowledge rather than unwillingness.

Very few have set an indirect emissions target, in an industry where indirect emissions average 77 per cent of the total and where they were 67 per cent in this sample.

Forty six of the hundred most significant suppliers carry a risk score above four on a five point scale, and those forty six account for 48 per cent of the company emissions from raw material purchases. A supplier scores as risky when it matters a lot, does not account for its emissions, has a large indirect footprint, has set no specific target and says nothing about future reporting plans.

One caution travels with all of that. Where a supplier disclosed nothing, it scored zero. This is an assessment of what suppliers publish, not of what they do.

The arithmetic that decided the answer

A model was built to approximate what the supplier base delivers if their published targets flow through to the materials they supply. Two scenarios were run, one counting only suppliers that report emissions and one counting all 350, and each at two success rates.

Assuming every supplier hits its target, the modelled annual reduction is 1.3 per cent in the optimistic case and 0.8 per cent in the pessimistic one. The recognised standard sets a minimum of 2.5 per cent a year and encourages 4.2. At a more realistic 85 per cent success rate the figures fall to 1.1 and 0.7 per cent.

Cumulatively to 2030 that is a reduction of 9.1 per cent at best, against a target line of 17.5. The gap is not a shortfall in execution. It is a structural gap between what a supplier base has committed to and what its customer needs it to do.

The suppliers that matter most are the quietest

Of the suppliers with targets, fifty have disclosed clearly that they are on track, covering 16 per cent of purchase emissions. Fourteen have disclosed that they are not, covering four per cent. Seventy have said nothing either way, and those seventy cover 41 per cent.

So the largest single block of the company reduction potential, by a wide margin, sits behind suppliers who have published a target and have never said whether they are meeting it.

A separate check made the same point about pipeline commitments. Nine suppliers disclosed being in the process of setting targets. Adding all nine to the model moves the 2030 outcome by three kilotonnes, on a base of well over two thousand. Intentions are not a plan.

Three different suppliers, three different conversations

The recommendation segments rather than generalising. With significant existing suppliers, use purchase power: push for reporting, offer incentives such as terms or preferential contracts, and monitor whether they stay on track rather than whether they have announced.

With smaller suppliers, the constraint is capability rather than will, so provide guidance and tools for starting an inventory, and source alternatives where that is not enough.

With the lowest contributors, the significant suppliers doing nothing, start with an open conversation about why, then use purchase power, then evaluate switching, costing the switch honestly against price, distance and contract terms.

And then two next steps in order. Stop collecting data on the last two per cent of emissions and spend that resource helping the biggest suppliers start measuring. Then assess the next largest indirect categories, because the standard requires the target to cover two thirds of emissions and purchased goods alone will not get there.

There is no achieved reduction in this work and none is claimed. Every figure on this page is either a disclosure count or a forward looking approximation, and both are labelled as such. What it produced was a target the company could set with its eyes open.