Companies are increasingly looking to understand their supply chain’s emissions profile, as recent surveys show that a growing number of corporations are voluntarily disclosing scope 3 emissions. While the quality of scope 3 emissions data remains a pain point for sustainability leaders, large companies are still looking to go further and decarbonize their supply chains.
Scope 3 emissions, which include all of the indirect greenhouse gas emissions produced in a company’s supply chain, typically make up between 70%-90% of a company’s overall emissions, according to climate consultancy The Carbon Trust. However, what comprises a company’s scope 3 profile varies depending on its business operations.
At GreenBiz26 — the annual sustainable business conference held in Phoenix, Arizona last month — a panel of sustainability executives from Mars, Meta, Patagonia and L’Oréal explained how their respective companies are both tracking their scope 3 emissions and looking to decarbonize their supply chain.
Here’s a closer at how these large multinationals are tackling scope 3.
Mars, Meta focusing on renewables for supply chain decarbonization
Mars takes an “annoyingly thorough” approach to tracking its scope 3 emissions, Mars Global Sustainability Vice President Kevin Rabinovitch said on the Feb. 18 panel. The food and confectionery multinational looks to calculate the emissions of the entire lifecycle of its products, according to the VP.
“We don't think anything should be excluded … because that helps us make the right decisions,” Rabinovitch said.
The sustainability executive said that includes looking to calculate the impact of upstream activities like raw materials, Mars’ agricultural supply chain, transportation and packaging, the impact of distribution to retailers and the sales process, and transport to a customer’s home, along with the energy to heat any products that need to be warmed up.
Mars reduced emissions across its supply chain by 16.4%, compared to a 2015 baseline, according to its latest sustainability report, and launched a program in April 2025 that aims to accelerate renewable energy adoption across its value chain and cut 10% of the company’s scope 3 emissions. The company made its first U.S.-focused renewable energy deals as part of that program in September.
“Almost regardless of what your supply chain is, decarbonizing electricity is probably the easiest thing to do,” Rabinovitch said.
The renewable energy adoption program, which he said can be replicated by other companies with sophisticated renewable energy purchasing capabilities, involves Mars purchasing renewable energy certificates on behalf of its suppliers and calculating the resulting scope 3 emissions reduction.
For Meta, the bulk of its supply chain emissions come in the buildout and operation of data centers, according to Meta Head of Net Zero Strategy Devon Lake. The social media and tech conglomerate — which owns platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — has a 2030 net-zero goal and made large investments in clean energy and low-carbon technologies in 2025.
Meta initially grappled with how to best account for the market mechanisms it utilized for those deals and potential emissions reductions that result, Lake said. Last year, the tech giant — inspired by Microsoft — shifted to an approach where it calculates and shares with auditors its emissions inventory based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s standard and also has a version of its emissions inventory audited that includes its GHG Protocol inventory alongside all of its market-based mechanisms, she said.
In November, Meta and Google co-financed a white paper by environmental consultancy 3Degrees to guide other companies through decarbonizing their supply chains by directly procuring clean energy attributes. Lake said the company works with suppliers to enable them to procure renewable energy, but said “there's a lot of different factors why [Meta] might need to procure renewable energy on behalf of our value chain,” including constrained markets.
“We're really looking forward to expanding our use of renewable energy to address our value chain emissions,” Lake said during the discussion. “The other place that we really focus on is all of the sort of hard to abate sectors in our value chain that we know are going to be easiest and potentially most impactful to address.”
She said while the company is looking to use a combination of low-carbon building materials where available. Last August, the company announced it was piloting the use of mass timber in its data centers.
Patagonia, L’Oréal take on different approaches
While Mars and Meta have focused their efforts on renewable energy procurement, the difference in supply chains for companies like Patagonia and L’Oréal require different approaches to supply chain decarbonization.
Patagonia has a 2040 net-zero target date, with a 2030 interim goal to reduce its scope 3 emissions by 55%, compared to a 2017 baseline. Around 90% of the company’s indirect emissions are in the purchased goods and services category, with a “lion’s share” of its scope 3 footprint coming from raw materials manufacturing, Patagonia Head of Environmental Impact Kim Drenner said at the panel.
Patagonia uses a mix of data to understand its scope 3 footprint, combining an industry material sustainability indexes — which Drenner called “the best representation of product-level emissions for [Patagonia’s] types of products — with secondary life cycle assessment data and some supplier-specific data. Helping its suppliers decarbonize comes with its own challenges.
“We created our strategy and our approach to meet the needs of our suppliers,” Drenner said on the panel. “Specifically, if you think of the textile supply chain … brands do not have any kind of commitments.”
“We have good traceability, so we do know where our stuff is coming from. We do develop our fabrics with our material suppliers, but we don't have any contractual agreement with them,” she continued. “So, to get a supplier to invest in a new boiler without providing any kind of business commitment, that's a really big challenge.”
The outdoor apparel company has looked to answer that challenge by fully financing energy efficiency upgrades for select raw materials suppliers and facilities, “effectively creating carbon offtake agreements,” Drenner said. Now, the company is also looking to answer the question of how to calculate the impact of that intervention, where it finances 100% of an upgrade and would like to be able to claim the resulting carbon reductions, Drenner said.
L’Oréal’s North America business had the most unique scope 3 profile of the panel. L’Oréal North America Chief Sustainability Officer Marissa McGowan said around 40% of the beauty and cosmetics company’s supply chain emissions come from raw materials and packaging and 10% come from supply chain logistics, but its North American operations also have a notable emissions footprint from digital media.
McGowan said around 11% of the company’s scope 3 emissions in North America come from its digital media footprint, including from large photoshoots done by ad agencies. McGowan said the company is working with industry groups like Ad Net Zero to develop sector standards, but also approached digital marketing teams to understand their pain points.
“We started by saying … ‘If these are decarbonizing levers, which ones fit into what would make your life a little easier?’” McGowan said. “And so we were able to build a little bit of a business strategy with them around how they can push back on some of the requests for multiple iterations, for different lengths and the like.”
