Professional services are any outsourced services or non-physical products a business procures to help manage or improve a specific business area. The list is endless, with examples including accountants, legal services, IT and technology services, marketing services, facilities maintenance and freelancers.
Background Information
Within GHG reporting and carbon accounting, professional services refer to carbon emissions associated with the production of products purchased from third parties (i.e. those in your supply chain). They are categorised under the ‘Purchased Good and Services’ scope in GHG reporting, also referred to as Scope 3.1. The Sage Earth engine is especially good at recognising and calculating emissions from this area of Scope 3.
What can my business do to reduce carbon emissions from this category?
As professional services tend to be procured by other businesses, the most effective solutions to reducing emissions from this category relate to changing activities relating to procurement.
Action | Detail |
Engage your suppliers | Engage with your suppliers to discuss their impact on emissions. Together with your suppliers you can educate and provide tools or training to help them understand their environmental impact(s), and how they can address these. |
Procurement policy and choices | Implement sustainable procurement policies that allow your company to complete choices that have the most positive environmental, social & economic impacts. This includes setting supplier KPIs, environmental performance standards, pre-qualifications etc. as part of your procurement process, to ensure you are working with suppliers with better environmental standards. |
Product and service design | Interact with suppliers or in-house teams to promote and develop new product and service designs that have lower carbon (whether embedded or emitted in the production process). |
Business model innovation | Review how your business operates in order to create positive environmental impacts, looking at value proposition, value capture delivery and value capture. |
Useful Resources
Source: The Chancery Lane Project
Sage Earth view: When it comes to making your supplier contracts climate friendly, The Chancery Lane Project do a lot of the hard work for you with this practical toolkit. Including climate-aligned clauses within your contracts ensures this area of business is not left out of agreements and is taken seriously.
Source: Exponential Roadmap Initiative
Sage Earth view: The power of collaboration is huge, and you won't be able to reach net zero without bringing your suppliers along on the journey. These resources offer solutions to engage your supply chain and communicate your emissions reduction objectives. The examples are on the formal side, although we believe a lighter touch approach would have a similar impact.
Area of GHG Protocol
Scope 3.1. Purchased goods and services.
🌍 Not every action suggested in this article will fit every business. Some can be implemented with relative ease, while others will require more time and investment. It's important to note that it may take some time to see a visible reduction in your reported emissions as a result of taking these actions (and that some will have a greater impact than others).
All additional resources suggested within this article are created and maintained by independent third parties. Sage Earth is not responsible for the content of any third party resources.