5 Practical Ways to Reduce Your Scope 3 Emissions

Why Scope 3 Matters More Than You Think

For most businesses, Scope 3 emissions — the indirect emissions from your value chain — represent the largest portion of your total carbon footprint. Research consistently shows that Scope 3 accounts for 70% to 90% of total emissions for a typical service-sector business. For a business looking to genuinely reduce its environmental impact, tackling Scope 3 is not optional.

The challenge is that Scope 3 emissions feel harder to control. They occur upstream in your supply chain and downstream in how your products and services are used. But "harder to control" does not mean "impossible to influence." Here are five practical, proven strategies that UK businesses are using right now to reduce their Scope 3 emissions.

1. Engage Your Supply Chain on Carbon Data

The single most impactful thing you can do for Scope 3 is to start conversations with your key suppliers about their own emissions. You do not need to audit every supplier — focus on the top 10 to 20 suppliers by spend, as they likely represent 80% or more of your procurement emissions.

Start by asking suppliers whether they have a carbon reduction plan or environmental policy. Many will already have one. For those that do not, your enquiry itself creates momentum. Businesses respond to customer demand, and when multiple customers ask the same question, suppliers take action.

Practical steps:

• Add a sustainability question to your supplier onboarding process
• Request carbon data as part of annual supplier reviews
• Preference suppliers who can demonstrate lower emissions in procurement decisions
• Share your own carbon reduction plan with suppliers to set expectations

2. Reduce Business Travel Emissions

Business travel is one of the most visible Scope 3 categories (Category 6 in the GHG Protocol) and often one of the easiest to reduce. The COVID-19 pandemic proved that many meetings previously considered essential could be conducted effectively via video call. The challenge now is maintaining that discipline as in-person working returns.

This does not mean eliminating all travel. It means being deliberate about when physical presence adds genuine value and defaulting to virtual when it does not. For necessary travel, switching from domestic flights to rail can reduce per-journey emissions by up to 80%.

Practical steps:

• Implement a travel policy that requires justification for flights under 300 miles
• Provide rail booking tools and corporate railcards to make train travel the default
• Track and report travel emissions quarterly so teams see the impact
• Consider carbon budgets per department to create accountability

3. Address Employee Commuting

Employee commuting (Category 7) is a Scope 3 category that many businesses can influence through workplace policy. Hybrid and remote working arrangements directly reduce commuting emissions, and businesses that adopted flexible working during the pandemic have already seen significant reductions in this category.

For days when employees do commute, the mode of transport matters enormously. Driving a petrol car produces approximately 0.17 kg CO2 per kilometre. A diesel train produces around 0.04 kg CO2 per passenger-kilometre — roughly a quarter of the emissions. Cycling and walking produce zero operational emissions.

Practical steps:

• Offer a Cycle to Work scheme (tax-efficient for both employer and employee)
• Provide season ticket loans for public transport
• Install electric vehicle charging points at your premises
• Maintain hybrid or flexible working policies where roles allow

4. Tackle Waste and Water

Waste generated in operations (Category 5) is often a relatively small proportion of total Scope 3 emissions, but it is one of the most controllable. Reducing waste at source, improving recycling rates, and switching to suppliers who use less packaging all contribute to lower emissions.

The DEFRA 2024 emission factors for waste vary significantly by disposal method. Sending waste to landfill produces substantially higher emissions than recycling or composting. For example, mixed municipal waste sent to landfill produces approximately 0.59 kg CO2e per kilogram, while recycling the same waste produces only 0.02 kg CO2e per kilogram.

Practical steps:

• Conduct a waste audit to understand what you are throwing away and why
• Switch to a waste contractor that provides detailed recycling rate reports
• Eliminate single-use plastics in offices and replace with reusable alternatives
• Reduce water consumption with low-flow fixtures and leak detection

5. Choose Lower-Carbon Purchased Goods and Services

Purchased goods and services (Category 1) is typically the largest Scope 3 category for most businesses. Reducing emissions here means making deliberate procurement choices: selecting suppliers, materials, and services with lower carbon intensities.

This does not always mean paying more. Energy-efficient IT equipment, for example, often has lower total cost of ownership due to reduced energy bills. Refurbished office furniture eliminates manufacturing emissions entirely. Cloud computing, when used efficiently, can be lower-carbon than on-premises infrastructure because hyperscale data centres operate at significantly higher energy efficiency.

Practical steps:

• Add carbon criteria to procurement evaluation alongside price and quality
• Choose refurbished or remanufactured equipment where possible
• Select cloud providers that run on renewable energy
• Extend the lifecycle of existing equipment through repair and maintenance

Measuring Progress

None of these measures deliver value unless you track the results. A carbon reduction plan provides the baseline against which you measure progress. Each year, recalculating your Scope 3 emissions allows you to see which strategies are working and where to focus next.

With Carbonhogs, your plan includes a full Scope 3 breakdown calculated using DEFRA 2024 emission factors. That gives you the starting point you need to begin reducing your largest emissions category with confidence.