Background
Scope 3 emissions — indirect emissions from a company’s value chain — account for the majority of most firms’ total carbon footprint. Yet, they remain the least consistent and least transparent category of emissions reporting. As companies expand their climate disclosures, questions about data accuracy, bias, and comparability are becoming increasingly urgent.
Research Objective
This project compares corporate Scope 3 emissions reports with estimates derived from environmentally extended input–output (EEIO) models to evaluate the accuracy, consistency, and evolution of corporate reporting practices over time.
Key Research Questions
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Accuracy: Are companies’ Scope 3 emission reports becoming more reliable year over year?
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Bias: Do sustainability leaders report more transparently to attract investors, or do laggards disclose more to mitigate stakeholder pressure?
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Industry and Scale Effects: Do certain sectors or larger firms exhibit lower emission intensities per unit of output?
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Methodological Differences: How do reporting methods affect accuracy, and which approaches yield the most credible results?
Methodology
Using data from our partnership with CDP, we compare company-reported emissions against macroeconomic expectations derived from EEIO models. The analysis explores:
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Temporal trends in reporting accuracy.
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Cross-industry and regional variations in reporting performance.
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Economies of scale in emissions intensity.
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The impact of reporting methodologies on data reliability.
Expected Outcomes
By benchmarking corporate reports against model-based expectations, this research aims to reveal systematic biases and trends in Scope 3 disclosure quality. The findings will inform how regulations, institutions, and reporting tools can evolve to promote more accurate, comparable, and actionable emissions data across global supply chains.