Scope 3 Success: Setting and Meeting Supply Chain Targets — Transcript

Explore how leading brands overcome challenges to meet ambitious Scope 3 supply chain targets with Pure Strategies' expert insights.

Key Takeaways

Meeting Scope 3 targets requires overcoming supplier, data, technology, and market barriers.
Internal alignment and cross-functional collaboration are critical for successful Scope 3 strategies.
A maturity model can guide organizations in improving their Scope 3 measurement and goal setting.
Regulatory frameworks increasingly influence corporate Scope 3 target setting and reporting.
Leading brands demonstrate practical approaches to embedding sustainability in supply chains.

Summary

The webcast focuses on identifying and overcoming challenges in meeting ambitious Scope 3 supply chain targets.
Hosted by Pure Strategies and GreenBiz, featuring experts from Ben & Jerry's, Seventh Generation, and Pure Strategies.
Introduction of a Scope 3 maturity model to help sustainability teams improve measurement, goal setting, alignment, and disclosure.
Discussion of major barriers including supplier engagement, data quality, technology limitations, and market challenges.
Emphasis on internal alignment across teams such as procurement, product development, and sustainability functions.
Strategies include developing roadmaps, socializing goals internally, and collaborating with suppliers and external partners.
Insights into regulatory drivers like California state requirements and SEC rules impacting Scope 3 targets.
Real-world examples from leading brands on aligning internal teams and implementing effective Scope 3 strategies.
Focus on the importance of data management, including handling large inventories and emission factors.
Additional focus areas include nature, biodiversity, chemicals, and material value chains as part of sustainability efforts.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Welcome to today's webcast sponsored by Pure Strategies: Scope 3 Success, identifying and overcoming challenges to meeting ambitious supply chain targets. I'm John Davies, senior vice president at GreenBiz, and I'm pleased, as always, to welcome listeners from around the world. Before we begin, I've got a few housekeeping details.

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housekeeping details this webcast platform has a number of features that I'll point out as you can see on this slide you can resize and move around the various windows on the webcast platform to optimize your viewing experience on the bottom of your screen

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This webcast platform has a number of features that I'll point out. As you can see on this slide, you can resize and move around the various windows on the webcast platform to optimize your viewing experience. On the bottom of your screen,

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speaker simply click on the Q&A button and type your questions into the Q&A window that appears we'll be Fielding those later on the program but don't hesitate to ask along the way you can also chat with other attendees at any time by clicking

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there's a toolbar with various buttons. You can download the resources from today's webcast by clicking on the button marked Resources. Important to note, this webcast is being recorded, and the recording will be shared with all registrants later today. If you have questions for today's

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tagging the hash greenpiss alrighty now uh on to today's discussion got a lot of people here um and obviously this is a very gerine topic to a whole bunch of different people so meeting ambitious scope 3 targets can be a real challenge for any

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speaker, simply click on the Q&A button and type your questions into the Q&A window that appears. We'll be fielding those later on the program, but don't hesitate to ask along the way. You can also chat with other attendees at any time by clicking

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the model to assess and address challenges holding you back and then to get dive down a little bit deeper we'll hear from leading Brands like Ben and Jerry's and Seventh Generation about how they aligned with teams internally and worked in their

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on the Group Chat button, but I'm not going to be following that for questions, so use the Q&A if you want to ask questions to our speakers. Finally, feel free to share what you learned with your social networks by

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I'll pass it to Tim to start the discussion thank you John it's a pleasure to have the opportunity to discuss the difficulties and challenges we are seeing companies facing uh you know facing the climate the ambitious climate targets they've

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tagging the hashtag GreenBiz. Alrighty, now on to today's discussion. We've got a lot of people here, and obviously this is a very germane topic to a whole bunch of different people. So, meeting ambitious Scope 3 targets can be a real challenge for any

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we're celebrating 25 years as a sustainab consultancy um our mission is to transform business to create a more sustainable future um and as a boutique consultancy we deliver custom customized sustainability consulting services and we really focus on empowering our clients to to help them

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organization. During the next hour, we're going to hear from Tim Griner of Pure Strategies, who's going to introduce a Scope 3 maturity model to help sustainability teams identify program improvement strategies in measurement, goal setting, alignment, and disclosure. We'll learn how to use

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exploring um the priorities and ways that they could go about doing that and then lastly often we're helping our clients Implement many of those strategies through developing road maps socializing it throughout the business working with teams internal and external

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the model to assess and address challenges holding you back. Then, to get dive down a little bit deeper, we'll hear from leading brands like Ben & Jerry's and Seventh Generation about how they aligned with teams internally and worked in their

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and biodiversity and we um as some of you may know we have a um nature learning excuse me a nature action form for business that we're actually running right now and um the sixth major Focus area is chemicals and material

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value chains to design and implement effective strategies. So, joining me today are Tim Griner, managing director of Pure Strategies; Ashley Organ, chief impact officer of Seventh Generation; and Jenna Evans, global sustainability manager of Ben & Jerry's. So now, no further delay,

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today I really wanted to focus on what are the scope three challenges that most businesses are facing as they try to Implement strategies to meet their ambitious climate targets and what I've done is put it into three sorry I jumped

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I'll pass it to Tim to start the discussion. Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to discuss the difficulties and challenges we are seeing companies facing, you know, facing the climate, the ambitious climate targets they've

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pure strategies is hosting three sessions um one on the 19th and two on the 20th two of them are in collaboration with EDF and they're focused on flag targets related to climate that's on the 19th um brand scaling scope three

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set for themselves. What I would love to do is just give a little background on Pure Strategies before we, you know, dive into the specifics of those challenges and ways to overcome them. Yeah, so just a little background here:

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website okay so what are the major types of barriers company's face looking at scope three targets um let see the slide is a little bit of an eye chart it looks like it didn't quite transfer over but um I'll go

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We're celebrating 25 years as a sustainability consultancy. Our mission is to transform business to create a more sustainable future. As a boutique consultancy, we deliver customized sustainability consulting services, and we really focus on empowering our clients to help them

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management team and the leaders of the different functional parts of the business aligned with your ghg targets so that could be seite but it could be product development it could be procurement one common barrier we see is that procurement in incentives are not

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be successful on their journey to meeting their sustainability objectives. We think about it in three main steps: first, defining exactly what the problem is and the approaches to address those needs; then exploring

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onset but maintain that internal alignment around the goals and I know we're going to get into a conversation about that with Ashley and Jenna in a in a few minutes so the second major bin is data challenges so we're looking at

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the priorities and ways that they could go about doing that; and then lastly, often we're helping our clients implement many of those strategies through developing roadmaps, socializing it throughout the business, working with teams internal and external

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party is as well as emission factors supplier data Transportation Logistics data and the the the challenges are significant right so anything from poor quality data to lack of visibility in the supply chain to managing these multi-tier geographically dispersed Supply chains all of this

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to the sustainability function to help the company achieve their targets. The main areas that we consult in are corporate strategy and goal setting, climate, we have a focus on agriculture, packaging, an area that's kind of new for many of us is the area of nature

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main uh topics one is supplier barriers the second is technology and the third is market and just a quick overview on those supplier barriers is kind of self-evident but it's anything from the supplier not understanding or not having

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and biodiversity. As some of you may know, we have a Nature Action Forum for Business that we're actually running right now, and the sixth major focus area is chemicals and material

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your suppliers under understand the local conditions the technology capabilities or lack thereof in the local market um other supplier barriers might be that the supplier is interested but the financial numbers don't pencil out like the ROI on an needed investment is

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health. So that's a little bit about Pure Strategies. I thought what I would do is just set up the conversation today with respect to the maturity model. We're going to be publishing that on our website; that will be forthcoming, but

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they're hard to scale in the market where you need them um they could be difficult to integrate into your existing supply chain from the market side what we're seeing is it can be a limited demand for a new climate

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today I really wanted to focus on what are the Scope 3 challenges that most businesses are facing as they try to implement strategies to meet their ambitious climate targets. What I've done is put it into three—sorry, I jumped

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getting to um uh implementing strategies to meet there scope 3 alignment data challenges and adoption barriers and I'll now hand it off to Ashley hey Tim before we get before we get to Ashley I wanna I want to ask one quick

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ahead of myself. Let me go back for a second and just say that climate week is in September, and I don't know, John, you're probably planning to be at Climate Week. Many of us are planning to go there.

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aggressively now why scope three now yeah well it's driven by mainly by the science-based targets initiative which is set a goal standard for how companies think about setting climate targets and then what's driving adoption there is pressure by various stakeholders that

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Pure Strategies is hosting three sessions: one on the 19th and two on the 20th. Two of them are in collaboration with EDF, and they're focused on flag targets related to climate. That's on the 19th. Brand scaling Scope 3

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regulatory requirements from here in this country from um the state of California and um the SEC so great I think those are the main drivers John cool okay Ashley let's hear about Seventh Generation all right thanks John thanks

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emission solutions—that's on the 20th in the morning—and then connecting corporate climate and nature strategies, that's on the 20th in the late morning. You can learn more about these sessions at Climate Week by going to our

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that I start here um just so that everyone is well aware that Seventh Generation draws its inspiration in everything that we do from the Great Law of the iroy and that in our every deliberation we consider the impact of

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website. Okay, so what are the major types of barriers companies face looking at Scope 3 targets? Let's see, the slide is a little bit of an eye chart; it looks like it didn't quite transfer over, but I'll go

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science-based targets back in 2017 we were actually an early adopter in setting our science-based targets and uh chose at that time to go above and beyond what was required um seventh generation is a company that has always prided itself on pushing the envelope

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through the main three bins, if you will. So the first is internal alignment. What we see is while most companies do a pretty good job of getting internal alignment, it's a continuous process to keep the senior

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consumer use by 50% and then incredibly aggressive all of our scope three emissions by 90% by 2030 and why this was so ambitious um is that when you look at seventh generation's carbon footprint 90% of our emissions are in consumer use

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management team and the leaders of the different functional parts of the business aligned with your GHG targets. So that could be site, but it could be product development, it could be procurement. One common barrier we see is that procurement incentives are not

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everyday chores and so we set ambitious targets to reduce our scope through emissions in consumer use that has led us to certain strategic choices over time um we'll get to those in just a minute I want to share when we back out

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aligned with your targets. Marketing might not be resourcing the launch of a climate-friendly forward product, right? So alignment with the marketing function—these are all areas for opportunities for really dialing in and thinking through how do we not only obtain at the

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functions of the business in R&D has been critical for us to start tackling some of the other um inter you know some of the other um impacts that we've identified for for the business um and it's actually this portion that

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onset but maintain that internal alignment around the goals. I know we're going to get into a conversation about that with Ashley and Jenna in a few minutes. So the second major bin is data challenges. We're looking at

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a greening of the grid and so Seventh Generation is pivoting focus back into what can we do in owning our impact and making decisions and driving down emissions in the rest of our scope three and what that's looking like are four

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inventories that have millions, if not tens or hundreds of millions, of data points—everything from all the company-supplied data on the materials and ingredients that are purchased, purchase products, let's say, if the company's not making them themselves but a third

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our marketing organization and working with our R&D Partners to start thinking about what are the materials and ingredients that we can be using in formulas out of the gates that are going to have a lower emission footprint we're

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party is, as well as emission factors, supplier data, transportation, logistics data. The challenges are significant, right? So anything from poor quality data to lack of visibility in the supply chain to managing these multi-tier, geographically dispersed supply chains. All of this

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ingredients so for a very specific example if we're sourcing a key material from China that has a dirty energy grid and we have an opportunity to relocate that to the US or the EU can we can we set preferential treatment for that

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creates real challenges for companies to maintain the inventory, understand where to focus, and then track progress over time. The third main

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particularly working to move move over towards clean energy the adoption of renewable energy and clean energy um for the manufacturing of our products can play and then thinking about product mix so where is the role of um really

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area that we see challenges is in adoption barriers, and I've divided that further into three

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and work with our customers to prioritize that um for the business and then finally advocacy the work that we're doing again to drive down consumer emissions and um further green the grid um that will benefit not only the

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main topics: one is supplier barriers, the second is technology, and the third is market. Just a quick overview on those: supplier barriers are kind of self-evident, but it's anything from the supplier not understanding or not having

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based just outside of Burlington Vermont so I'm sitting here in South Burlington Vermont chatting to you today um going to describe to you a bit of our climate strategy what our carbon footprint looks like and where we're going in terms of

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the capacity or willingness to engage on climate with, you know, on your climate targets. It's the challenge, as I mentioned earlier, managing multiple tiers, multiple suppliers spread across geographic regions. It can be finding in-country experts to work with

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coming directly from our primary ingredient for ice cream which is dairy ingredients um with another significant percent coming from all the other types of chunks and swirls that we put into our ice cream so we have a very large

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your suppliers to understand the local conditions, the technology capabilities or lack thereof in the local market. Other supplier barriers might be that the supplier is interested but the financial numbers don't pencil out, like the ROI on a needed investment is

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emissions where we have committed to reduce 100% by the year 2025 from our 2015 Baseline year and then the bottom one in the blue circle you can see uh relates to Scopes one two and three and it is an intensity reduction um meaning

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long or uncertain, and then another—

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such a significant portion um of our footprint in ingredients and our Upstream supply chain especially in agriculture um our strategy to try to reduce is very much centered in scope three um and so the three all of there's

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many many things um that you can do to try to reduce emissions across Scopes one two and three the really critical ones for Ben and Jerry's Focus um in scope three and these are the the three major levers that we have as a business

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to try to close the gap towards meeting our science-based Target the first is around um working with product development and our R&D teams to try to create lower carbon ice cream recipes uh the second is around sourcing our primary ingredient Dairy from farms

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that practice low carbon practices and we have um a big program looking at that and then the third is around trying to increase uh the percent of our portfolio that is in non-dairy sales whether that means for non-dairy ice cream or other

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things that have low amounts of dairy like our cookie dough chunks and those three things are really the major priorities that are going to move the needle um towards meeting our science based targets I guess I'll turn it back to you

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Tim great thanks Jenna so we have a a little poll to hear from you all around what are your top scope three challenges so uh we've got a list of options here A through I and just rate them on a scale

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from one to five with one being a top Challenge and five not significant so if you want to fill out the poll now and then maybe John we can return to this after folks we've given them a few

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minutes to participate yeah that sounds great Tim and and I have a question for you and maybe the others will be interested in this as well is um how will sb's flag and greenhous gas protocol land guidance work into GH emissions inventories it

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will be a separate scope will flag be separate and different than the GH Pro protocol land guidance what what are the differences sure so flag is now part of umbt so flag inventories for new inventories um companies are standing up

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those flag inventories in fact we're going through a process to evaluate the flag related emissions for um all of our clients right now the requirements for um submitting flag targets are not until next year by sbti um the ghg protocol is more about

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the how whereas the flag guidance is the what what what needs to be in the Target how the flag emissions are separated from fossil fuel emissions I mean that's the overall idea is that flag is around forestry line Agriculture and then we

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have emissions associated with fossil fuel combustion nbti wants to have businesses that are over a certain threshold or in certain industries have both a flag Target and a fossil fuel related Target great um Amry how are we doing on

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the poll should we should we see how it's how it's going all right Tim what what you see here the big challenges seem to be what complexity of working across multiple suppliers po scope 3 data quality those seem to be the two biggest ones they

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seem to be the two biggest ones and this this is what we see like classically um in our work with many of our clients that Gathering good accurate data in the supply chain and then just the the challenge of multi-tiered Supply chains

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where you may have visibility to tier one but for complexity or business like strategic reasons your suppliers are not interested in or motivated to share information about their suppliers I'd be interested to hear from Ashley and Jenna if if these barriers are

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resonating with them anybody want to take that on Ashley or Jenna sure happy to yeah Jenna I saw you leaning in so I didn't know if you were going to go first sorry I didn't want to speak over you that is okay we were just

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having a conversation about this yesterday that we had identified the potentially really important intervention that was likely back in tier three or or tier four of our supply chain and we could look at a savings of over I want to say 5,000 metric tons

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annually and um we just didn't have the dat data to validate that it was based on significant assumptions and so what what I'm also going to connect it to um as another challenge that we see is getting our procurement partners and our

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on board um with with putting resources against doing all of that incredible leg work that that is required to get good quality data so we are very much experiencing that in real time and trying to sort that through as as we're

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resetting our Target yeah and I'll add to that that I I we're facing the same challenge at Ben and Jerry's that you know working with suppliers uh with getting data many of our suppliers don't even track their own

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emissions factor and so we're left with the in terms of data Gathering to go to you know public databases for information but it's obviously not specific to our supply chain so then you know when if we're trying to change

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practice is within our supply chain you have to base any reductions off of the assumptions that you started with as a baseline um so that becomes tricky to be able to claim any sort of improvement when you weren't exactly sure where you

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started from so it's definitely a challenge um and then the second PLL the complexity of working across multiple supplier chains to us we're a Glo think you're cut out [Music] Jenna all okay well oh there she comes oh she's off so um while we're waiting

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for for Jenna to come back um we've got a number of questions and and I think I'll start with you Ashley um communication seems to be a really big uh area and I look at it both ways along

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the supply chain and then to Consumers and we have several questions around that so along the supply chain how what kind of programs have be put in place to communicate with your toer you know scope three uh Partners in your value

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chain so we launched a program about three years ago that we piloted and I'd say we're still learning from um how it's going um called a green power program and and we prioritized green power as a very first step to to uh

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engaging our tier one and our tier 2 suppliers because we understood that that was a critical intervention um for helping us start to make progress against our science-based targets and so we launched this program um where we actually co-developed a custom portal

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with um another consultant partner that we work with and we incentivized our supply Partners to participate in the program by providing consulting services from this partner to their business to help them first um put a system in place

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to track their emissions then report their emissions and then the expectation was set by Seventh Generation that they would make progress against their emissions and so you know we're year three in we have about an 86% participation rate you know out of the

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gates you know the expectation was to do the first two track and report and now we're now we're at a place where we're communicating that we want this to be included in our in our contracts so every time a contract is up for Renewal

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we've got our procurement Partners on board to have this as as a key requirement um so communication has has happened you know through partnership where um you know we build a program and then we bring in our procurement teams

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to really um lead on you know being that point of contact and and have some kind of ownership and drive driving driving the program with us so it's not just on the sustainability team okay I'll get to Jenna in a minute

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but I want to stay with this topic because I know a lot of uh sustainability teams really have a struggle getting procurement on board so do you have any tips or advice for how do you get Co procurement to not view

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this as a burden and view it as you know just part of their job we've been successful because because it starts at the top we we have a model where we have institutionalized um a performance system that measures not only business

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success from a top line and bottom line but also sustainability progress and we set annual kpis that our leadership team is responsible for overseeing and so I don't have to be the one that goes to our head of procurement

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I get to lean on my boss to have that conversation and ensure that that team has a plan for the year underway that we are going to be able to hit all three metrics that we've set up for for

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success for the year um I know that's not the case with everyone and um so getting that team engaged early and often and part of the design and setting of The kpis I think at the managerial level has also been super helpful

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because sometimes some of the asks we have are unrealistic based upon other business requirements for the year so that that would be another way to go about it if you don't have it institutionalized at the top thanks so welcome back Jenna um the

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question that we're curious about is how have you been uh communicating through your supply chain what are what are the ways in which you're bringing on your your suppliers to to help you in these efforts yeah um we've been communicating I think

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strategically with our biggest suppliers um and having to try to engage them um so that we're collaborating together um I think the best example of what we've been doing so far is like with our some of our Dairy suppliers so we're working

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with our Dairy cooperatives both in Europe as well as in the US to try to deploy um carbon reducing practices and um having the supplier on board obviously brings the farmers along much more easy um when it comes to Dairy for

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that example um and I think that's been very successful is you know when you have the same sort of goals as your supplier it's easy to try to move together great and then uh another question that's come from several

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different uh people is with 2025 right around the corner how are Seventh Generation Ben and Jerry's tracking versus your ambitious 2025 SB I'll be the first to share that we're off plan you know and um it's it's something that we are um resetting

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expectations for what is realistically achievable for our business um and we have an opportunity because we are five years into to when we set our science-based Target um to reset what the target should be um there are a

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couple of different guidelines that that um one of them specifically a change in your business model that allows the resetting um and so we're exploring what that'll be for our business going forward and pivoting from an incredibly aggressive approach to systems change to

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a more realistic approach of thinking about what we can do um with the material and ingredient impacts that we have as a business and the other aspects of our scope three Jenna yeah and from our side we're in

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the same boat as Seventh Generation unfortunately Ben and Jerry's is not tracking to hit their 2025 goal and it's something that has become a part of my job to make sure that I am at every possibility reminding the leadership and

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our independent board of directors that we are not on track what the key priorities are and what we really need to be focusing on um so that we don't get distracted with either the newest idea or something that may seem

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interesting that they you know they thought of themselves um but that we're staying focused on really the things that are going to move the needle it is a big big challenge um we are also oh sorry John we're also planning

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to set flag targets at some point in the very near future and so that's probably going to realign um what we're focusing so i' i' love the honesty um I love the little hearts going up with different things that there should be

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like a million of them for the honesty of both of you so Tim I'm curious you work with a lot of senior leadership and you know how how do you have the conversation with this with them that this is okay like missing a Target is

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not the end of the of the thing we don't you know get sidelined by it what what what's that conversation with in your management when you're brought in as this independent third party to talk with them the conversation is really goes

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back to well the question is why like why why aren't we if we're not tracking to the Target why do we not have like the technology or the options or the insights or is it execution is slower than we than we had planned that

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it might be so I think it it's really diving into understanding those roadblocks and what those key unlocks look like and I can say in the case of like many of the clients we work with including Seventh Generation Ben and J is that that a lot

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of the answers are there but aligning the organization making the changes um just and working in that value chain takes longer than than um many people I think you know anticipated so like relative to not meeting the targets what what I what I preach is

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that be transparent be clear about like the effort that you are making and both companies have you know both I know that both Seventh Generation and Ben jer's have made significant progress um on their targets so that I I

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think that's just a something to be be commended for reaching high and far and falling short of what are really ambitious targets is worthwhile work it it's some of the best work that um business can be doing to address the

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climate crisis and furthermore I I think that the external stakeholders that are looking at your business they're they're assessing if you're not if you're not meeting your targets why how are you showing what activities you're doing and how are you what dialogue are you having

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around what you're planning to do to um Rectify that great so I'm going to switch gears here a little bit for both of you I I'll start with Ashley so I know we're talking about scope three and that's

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mostly environmental but do do you consider social factors in your sourcing decisions um as well as well as the emissions based uh factors we do and this is actually something that we benefit by being a part of a

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larger company which I didn't say at the outset was the seventh generation was acquired by Unilever back in 2017 and they have um what I'm learned to understand is very rigorous social impact criteria that their manufacturers and sourcing Partners must meet so um

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it's not something that we've had to drive independently and I'll I'll add that Ben and Jerry's is also owned by un lver we were acquired back in the year 2000s so we've been a part of the UN lever family for

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much longer um but we also uh have a social Mission which is a little bit different than many other companies and part of our social Mission um has a team called what's is called values L sourcing and so they definitely look at

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um racial equity and uh dignified livelihoods um trying to end slavery and Coco um all sorts of initiatives there that definitely focus on the social well-being of our supply chain great um here's another really interesting question we have tons of

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questions keep them coming in we'll try to get all of them today if we don't uh they'll try and respond to you afterwards but um how much effort have you had to put into getting the data to measure scope

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three and then once you've done it once does it get any easier Ashley first Jenna okay um we have a very manual process of assessing our footprint um it's been going on for a number of years even prior to my joining Ben and Jerry's

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um I would probably say it's less painful than it was initially but it's still there's a lot of data data to be gathered and it's not all in one place um so it is a pretty time intensive exercise um to take it on annually and

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we we do report our findings publicly each year and it's on our website we're we're in a very similar Place yeah and maybe I'll speak John some of the challenges so most companies when they stand up their initial inventory use

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secondary data and estimates and then this is something sdp sbti emphasizes which is the inventory is going to change over time as you engage further get better data your suppliers respond to your queries and you start to move from you know

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particularly for the Hotspots for the things that really matter where you really try to work in that value chain and get at least geographically relevant factors ones that are more current than maybe old emission factors and even all

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the way to getting primary data but once you get that integrating that back into your inventory and managing that over time is challenging and whether you whether a company does that through you know a SAS type solution or a homegrown solution

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it's just it is time and resource intensive to manage that data and stand up the insights that the business needs to know are we making progress and where do we focus but it's cool so Ashley uh and Al Jenna a

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slightly related question you mentioned that the biggest impact is the use phase of your product right and you're trying to address that how are you communicating to Consumers and what other that you alluded to some other initiatives you have in that area how is

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that going with with addressing that part of your skope three great be before I answer that I just want to make note of another question that was raised around being so far off our Target and as you remember I

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said 90% um scope 3 reduction was really driven by us making improvements in the clean in clean energy um grid and our assumption at the time of setting the target was that the obam clean power plan would be p and so

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were that to have been achieved I think and addressed we would be further along so I think some of what we're finding now is that original assumptions and setting our targets have not played out um so how we have ended up communicating

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with a lot of our consumers and bringing them on board with some of the strategies to address some of these impacts it's really is been recruiting them through um education and engagement to participate in some of these bigger

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campaigns that we've run to help decarbonize our economy and one of the most significant ones that we ran back in 2018 was um in a partnership with the Sierra Club 100 on a 100 where we were focused on getting a 100 cities to

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commit to 100% renewable energy by 2030 and after working on getting 100 cities we were starting to work at the state level and then we moved to the federal level and so what we're finding is that you know bringing activism and

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campaign engagement opportunities directly to our consumers that enable them to participate in making change is really impactful for our climate impacts but also it's a benefit that our marketing team is seeing back to the business where they're seeing trust and

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loyalty grow and Equity metrics in you know increase and so we're getting additional Buy in from you know other functions to continue some of these approaches um around engagement and Communications great and Jenna a little more specifically someone's asking about

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um you know what is what do lower carbon ice cream recipes mean and you know how are you communicating that to your consumers I think you're muted jeba thank you when you're talking about or when I'm talking about a lower carbon

Speaker A

ice cream it could mean a number of things you have to each of our ice cream flavors is obviously slightly different um we also have different types of ice cream where we have Sundays or things our types of ice creams that have um I

Speaker A

don't slugs of cookies like that that means that there's less Dairy which tends to drive the emissions Factor so there's different ways you can build products to try to reduce um High emissions Factor ingredients such as dairy but also

Speaker A

potentially other things um and that's really what I mean is sort of rebuilding what we're selling in the marketplace um by trying to either eliminate ingredients that have high factors or replacing them with lower emissions Factor ingredients or

Speaker A

recipes and I mean Ben and Jerry has always been sort of um fun in their Communications uh in the naming of their products and that sort of thing are are there any types of activations I don't look at every single carton of Ben

Speaker A

jeries want I go to the store so are there any any Communications you've done around climate to sort of bring a focus to it through a flavor um historically yes there's been lots and lots of uh flavors um one that

Speaker A

comes to mind is save our swir that came out a number of years ago um we also had a slogan called if it's melted it's ruined which was used in a lot of different um consumer facing Communications which is really fun

Speaker A

because you show ice cream melting like the world's getting hotter so that's awesome really great so Tim I I want to switch gears a little bit here about how this all comes about in setting targets so how much do you see scenario analysis

Speaker A

being used to set scope three targets and how are people making those estimations without primary data yeah so for the the targets are self-evident based upon your inventory but the scenario analysis comes to what do we do about meeting our targets what are our

Speaker A

options and and also you what do we think about the future relative to suppliers or technology or even growth of the business because most companies are setting absolute scope three targets and that means as the business grows the

Speaker A

more the business grows the sometimes the bigger the reductions that are needed so um a lot of a lot of scenario analyses depend on yes like secondary data but also on really just good research so it's it's talking with key

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stakeholders experts looking at the scientific literature um and really trying to find those gems I know for for many companies we'll even look at what's happening in uni in University space and and try to talk to those leading experts on new

Speaker A

technology to begin to think through like what could that look like at a certain adoption rate in five years or 10 years which is the typical window for an spti so it's it's critical to setting targets no question doing those

Speaker A

scenarios all right uh let's see we have so many questions coming in it's pretty uh pretty awesome um I I guess there been several questions around packaging and trying to to reduce the impact of packaging so um start with you Jenna what what sort of

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initiatives have been at Ben and Jerry's around packaging yeah so we know that petroleum like plastic packaging petroleum based Plastics are definitely related to issues that we care a lot about such as climate change and social justice and so

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we set a goal about five years ago to try to get out of petroleum based Plastics across all of our consumer facing packaging um so we've made some strides on that Journey um but finding Alternatives since we are a wet product

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being an ice cream you do need to have a moisture barrier for your packaging so we've run into a lot of technical challenges trying to find something that's not petroleum based that still meets the needs to keep our product safe

Speaker A

for consumers um but we are making lot of progress and we're and then also in terms of you know alternatives to Plastics a lot of companies look straight to paper but paper is definitely not um a a packaging

Speaker A

Source without problems um when it comes to ancient endangered Forest um indigenous rights and so forth and so we're also starting work on trying to F find alternative fibers to replace paper in our supply chain next couple years we'll be able to announce

Speaker A

something that we've made um able to fit our pint and Ashley what about it seven generation the seventh gen has also said a pet uh Petr virgin plastic uh reduction Target and we've also set um targets towards improving

Speaker A

the amount of pla improving the type of plastic that we use um we have a benefit here from being part of Unilever where their Global R&D team is starting to deploy certain technologies that are becoming more readily available for us

Speaker A

to switch out of plastics and towards an alternative that we would would have not been able to do without their support and are finding you know some challenges also being a liquids based business predominantly um similar to Ben and

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Jerry's like a wet business selling laundry detergent spray cleaners we need to have that moisture barrier and so that we have the benefit of technologies that are coming from from a parent company thanks so I know I'm kind of

Speaker A

bouncing all around but Tim I'm going to ask you um got a question here that is it best practice to assess scope three emmissions across all 15 categories or is it better for companies to perform a screening test to ensure the best use of

Speaker A

resources your ears must be burning John I was just answering that in the chat uh yeah definitely do a screening assessment first there's uh it's it's such an effective way to understand where the hot spots are and where you

Speaker A

should focus your analys is your data collection your supplier engagement so we we recommend a screening level assessment first which will stand up the areas of focus you know for some companies it'll be use of sold products for other companies it's purchased goods

Speaker A

and services for others it's Transportation so definitely do a screening first followed by more in-depth one in those priority areas great um let's see for Ashley and Jen I'll start with Ashley are there any incentives that you've been uh offering

Speaker A

to suppliers for engaging with your scope free U uh initiatives I know Ashley you mentioned that things are getting worked into contracts so that seems like not necessarily an incentive other than you get to do business with you um but have

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you offered any incentives to your suppliers I want to say a type of incentive that we've used is um providing a consultant free of charge for Those who commit to participating in the program so they get the benefit of understanding um

Speaker A

opportunities and depl playing those opportunities with with a subject matter expert awesome uh Jenna yeah I wouldn't say we offer um any incentives from in terms of like a cash perspective or anything but I guess in term if I guess when you think of it

Speaker A

in terms of like our Dairy Farmers for example Ben andares is actively investing in the dairy farms that Supply our dairy products for ice cream and so it not only benefits um our supply chain but it benefits you know the Dairy

Speaker A

Cooperative supply chain so um I guess that is a benefit to them was directly to the Farms but it helps them with their footprint as well great and we got several questions around this I can guess the answer but

Speaker A

I'm gonna let you give it anyway so should purchases are Rex be considered when looking at uh achieving your scope three goals maybe Tim maybe I'll ask you that question how do you reference for people are a viable instrument for companies

Speaker A

looking to reduce their scope two related emissions or scope three in their value chain um we're seeing um I mean I think there there are some challenges with Rex um there's the question of additionality and some re have greater additionality than others

Speaker A

but also there's um challenges with the actual accounting of how scope 2 wreck count because the it's kind of complicated but the carbon intensity of the emissions coming from where you want to apply the wreck does not necessarily match the carbon intensity

Speaker A

from where the wreck came from so if you buy Rex in California the it's a very clean grid there the energy you're displacing is quite clean compared to if you bought Rex in Ohio which has a really dirty grid and though right now

Speaker A

Rex are those are completely part of sbti and part of the accounting system but sbti has signaled intent to reexamine the guidance there to essentially make them more effective tools for achieving the goals of decarbonizing Supply chains and

Speaker A

economies and we expect new guidance next year from sbti and scope to great well I I've saved this question for for last um because I think it's a really great question uh Jen I'm gonna start with you but what is your biggest

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lesson learned and what is your biggest success associated with your supplier inter interventions for scope three emissions reductions um I think my biggest lesson learn is that it's going to take a lot longer than you think um I feel like

Speaker A

every time we feel like we have a a and there's no way we can fail it something happens and you know there's there's challenges all along the way to success um so allowing you know Grace for you know not meeting targets or you know

Speaker A

having to go a different path than you initially set out I think is important to to give yourself plenty of Tope three emissions targets second part of your question oh well yeah the biggest success you know or or maybe surprising success uh that

Speaker A

you've had associated with this nothing is popping straight to mind I'm really excited about an ongoing project that we have with our Dairy suppliers um that we call the low carbon Dairy project I wouldn't necessarily announce it as a success yet because

Speaker A

it's ongoing but it's definitely a very broad sweeping approach towards trying to change um how Dairy is made and that's very exciting people can stay tuned to how it's going um in the years to come and I guess I'll just follow up

Speaker A

briefly on that has it been a successful conversation with the I know you've talked about the cooperatives but do you get to have a successful conversation with the farmers and has that been going well yeah yeah one of the one of the

Speaker A

biggest surprises with that with that project is when we set out um in the beginning of 2021 to prepare to like talk to the farms and try to convince them that this is the thing that they need to do they need to change their

Speaker A

practices and so forth we sort of anticipated that we would get some push back and at least in our supply chain we were thrilled to find out that the farmers were on board I mean they'd already been doing a number of great

Speaker A

practices for decades um and so we've been really pleasantly surprised at how excited that they are to work with us and just have another way to to invest in the things that they have wanted to do for a long

Speaker A

time oh awesome and Ashley same question to you biggest lesson learned and and maybe biggest success or surprising success um with your scope three program yeah I I'd say even um the most well-resourced and aligned plan with leadership will

Speaker A

likely fail um we've had many bumps in our road number one a global Health pandemic we we were ready to execute a number of plans that we are still trying to build back um resiliency against so um there's that and I would say biggest

Speaker A

success is um that we now have in our specs as we're going to design new products requirements for looking at emission factors um we didn't have that before and that's a big step forward um for the business cool and Tim you get to see

Speaker A

this across a number of organizations so what's your biggest lesson learned and and what are some of the big successes you've seen um I guess from my vantage point is even when you have great alignment the complexity of execu ution and the

Speaker A

challenges of technology and markets and suppliers um shouldn't be underestimated that this is going to be really challenging um I guess what I'm excited about is we're starting to see like tier 2 tier three tier four suppliers stand

Speaker A

up their own emissions programs emission factors like we'll go and speak with their head of sustainability like yeah we have an LCA on the ingredient and would be you know if we have a CDA we'll be happy to provide that information to

Speaker A

you we weren't seeing that two years ago so I think companies and suppliers are getting the message that this is important to their customers and and I think that's to everyone's benefit that we're seeing investment that far back in

Speaker A

the value CH it's really exciting awesome yeah well that's all the time we have for today um I want to thank all our speakers for such a great conversation and thank our audience for so many awesome questions that we'll be

Speaker A

getting back to you on and uh thank my colleague behind the scenes Amry Bosworth for making everything run so smoothly if you'd like to rewatch this webcast or forward to link to others on your team the recording will be archived

Speaker A

on greenbiz.com and our team will email you the link once it's available later today you can also check out all the resources on this topic by clicking on the resources button on your screen and uh lastly if you want to watch more

Speaker A

greenbiz webcast please visit www.g greenbiz.com webcast uh on behalf of my colleagues at greenbiz and on behalf of Tim and Ashley and Jenna I want to thank you so much for joining us I'm John Davies until next time have a great

Speaker A

day

Topics:Scope 3 emissionssupply chain sustainabilityPure Strategiessustainability consultingclimate targetssupply chain challengesdata managementregulatory compliancecorporate sustainabilitysupply chain alignment

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main challenges companies face in meeting Scope 3 targets?

Companies face challenges including supplier engagement, poor quality or lack of data, technology limitations, and managing complex multi-tier supply chains.

How does Pure Strategies help organizations improve their Scope 3 programs?

Pure Strategies offers a Scope 3 maturity model to guide improvements in measurement, goal setting, alignment, and disclosure, while helping develop roadmaps and internal collaboration.

What role do regulatory requirements play in Scope 3 target setting?

Regulatory frameworks, such as those from California and the SEC, are key drivers that influence how companies set and report on their Scope 3 climate targets.

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