By Invitation Only
Date and Time
September 25, 2024
4:00 pm-6:00 pm
EDT
Location
New York
Scope 3 emissions represent the majority of greenhouse gas emissions for most companies, and decarbonizing Scope 3 is a significant challenge in reaching climate targets. Of the 15 Categories within GHG Protocol rules, three categories are often the largest GHG hotspots: Category 1 (Purchased Goods & Services), Category 4 & 9 (Transport-Related), and Category 11 (Use of Sold Products). While there exists a good foundation of guidance and programs that relate to supplier and transport-related emissions for the first two, Category 11, by contrast, remains a challenging, underexplored, and often opaque area.
Companies that have set ambitious targets (such as SBTs) face two types of challenges:
- GHG accounting challenges that relate to current accounting guidance under GHG Protocol and metrics to appropriately measure and allocate Category 11 emissions.
- Implementation challenges related to business model implications, i.e. emissions are typically closely related to the number of products sold, and implications of addressing product-related emissions influenced by the energy source during product use.
This issue is particularly complex for software companies, as many do not own their own infrastructure and rely on cloud providers who historically have provided non-standardized carbon reporting. Further, recent news sees major cloud providers falling short of climate targets and opting not to renew science-based net zero commitments, indicating an end to the era of benefiting from cloud provider carbon reductions. Cross-company alignment and collaboration is key to tackling these systemic barriers that no company can address on their own.
BSR is looking to create a discussion among interested software and technology companies with large product-related emissions to understand the direction of travel, to discuss shared challenges, and to explore collective action to address Category 11 emissions.
This will be a two-hour in-person working session for a small group of 10-15 BSR members taking place in New York.
This meeting has the following objectives:
- Level-set on company-specific challenges and concerns in meeting Category 11 emissions;
- Discuss the overall direction of travel and short-term and long-term strategies to meet climate targets;
- Identify approaches to measuring use of sold product emissions, and differences in cloud vs non-cloud;
- Understand what peers are doing within their control, and influencing what is out of their control;
- Highlight areas where collective action would be beneficial to address Scope 3 downstream emissions, and brainstorm appropriate fora to approach this issue.