What a supplier carbon statement contains
When a listed or large customer asks for your carbon footprint, they are collecting their own Scope 3. Whatever form the request takes — a platform campaign, a spreadsheet, a clause in the contract renewal — the answer is one document, prepared once and updated annually.
Published 18 September 2026.
The statement, section by section
- Period and boundary: the reporting period, normally your financial year, and what the figures cover
- Scope 1 and Scope 2, with Scope 2 on both bases — location-based from the grid average and market-based from your supply contract
- The Scope 3 categories you report, named, with silence rather than zeroes for the ones you do not
- Method and factors: the GHG Protocol and the government conversion factors, naming the year's set
- Data quality: what share of the figures is measured from meters, invoices and fuel cards rather than estimated
- A revenue intensity in grams of CO2e per £ — the number your customer multiplies by their spend with you to get their share
- Targets, and whether the figures were assured, answered plainly either way
Why the requests are rising
Under the FCA's proposal, listed companies are expected to report under UK SRS S2 from 2027, with Scope 3 disclosed on a comply-or-explain basis — around 515 issuers in scope, each needing supplier numbers. Banks report financed emissions, large customers with net-zero commitments run supplier programmes, and public buyers ask through PPN 006. The questionnaires are the supply chain of other people's disclosures, and their auditors increasingly ask where the numbers came from.
Measured beats estimated
A spend-based estimate gives your customer a number they could have derived from their own ledger. A measured statement — meter readings and fuel-card litres behind it, the factor set named, the estimated share stated honestly — is what survives the supplier assessment and the auditor's follow-up. The statement is a commercial representation, so it has to be right; a number invented to fill a box is the expensive kind of shortcut.
Produce yours once, answer every questionnaire from it. Build the measured footprint free from your meters, fuel cards and travel records; the Statement plan turns it into a published link you can send to every customer, versioned by year.
Sources
- UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (gov.uk)
- GHG Protocol Corporate Standard
- Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors (gov.uk)
The FCA's UK SRS S2 rules for listed issuers are a proposal (CP26/5) until the Policy Statement is published. General information, not legal, accounting or assurance advice. Privacy · Terms