Scope 3 Screening and Supplier Prioritization

Screen before you calculate

Not every Scope 3 category is material to every business. Screening is a documented judgment exercise across all fifteen categories, using rough activity size, data availability, and influence as filters — not a reason to skip categories quietly.

A simple screening framework

For each category, ask: is this activity large relative to our other emissions, do we have any data or proxy for it today, and can we realistically influence it? Categories that score high on materiality and low on data availability are exactly where a supplier engagement effort pays off first.

Prioritizing suppliers once a category is in scope

• Start with the suppliers representing the largest spend or physical volume in that category.
• Weight in suppliers already asked for data by other customers — they are more likely to respond.
• Separate "nice to have" precision from suppliers whose data would materially change your total.

What to ask for, and what not to

A supplier request should ask for the smallest set of information that materially improves your estimate — usually activity data and, where available, a supplier-specific emission factor — rather than a broad, unfocused questionnaire that lowers response rates.

See the Scope 3 & Supplier Data solution page for how this screening feeds into an ongoing supplier-data process.