What is Scope 3 and what does this mean for Facilities Management?

Reid Cunningham, BAM FM’s Strategic Development Director shares his thoughts on the second stage of the Scope 3 FM project.

Initial estimates of Scope 3 emissions indicate that they could be significantly higher than Scope 1 and 2 emissions for many organisations. I believe that this makes it vital that we have capability to calculate its Scope 3 emissions from FM services. Given the scale and range of FM services then I propose that we must use consistent tools and methods so that our customers can be confident of the Scope 3 performance. 

Until now, the Scope 3 emissions for individual services has been somewhat of a mystery. Supply chain and procurement decisions have tended to be led by cost, quality and social value criteria. Once we have started implementing the new Scope 3 tools, the I think carbon emissions will be added to the procurement, evaluation and selection of FM services. This should encourage carbon reduction throughout the supply chain and reduce emissions. Sounds fairly straight forward, right?  

So what will that look like? The new Scope 3 guidance will include a couple of methods. One of these is a ‘top-down methodology’ which offers a robust but generalised reporting approach using Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for FM providers at their corporate reporting level. The methodology is to allocate the cumulative emissions of the FM provider across its customers and services. The distribution of emissions may be calibrated to take account of customer variables such as scope or services, headcount and/or the number of locations. This top-down approach will exceed regulatory initiatives such as Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and should achieve high ratings in voluntary reporting initiatives such as Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Ecovadis and Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI). Collecting data and reporting on carbon for FM services will provide better insight into the emissions associated with individual components of each FM service which can be used to target improvements. For example the catering and hospitality services tend to involve a wide range of products and services.  Decisions about menu choices, ingredients and where they, and other products, come from may gave a significant effect on the carbon emissions beyond ‘food miles’.

During this project's second stage, I am excited to be road-testing the ‘top down’ calculation methodology, including the data collection and analysis with the SFMI (Sustainable Facilities Management Index) team, and reviewing the outcomes with the other participants of the Scope 3 project board.  Later we will also be testing a second methodology which involves a ‘bottom up’ approach.