When Westcon-Comstor’s recent Responsible business report noted declines in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions but an increase in Scope 3 (supply chain) emissions, it highlighted a major difficulty for channel companies because the supply chain accounts for a vast proportion of their emissions.
In the case of Westcon-Comstor, over 99% of its overall emissions are Scope 3, originating from activities upstream and downstream of its business, with upstream manufacturing and transportation of purchased goods and services (48%) and downstream energy consumption for hardware (45%) accounting for most of them.
Despite all the work and effort Westcon-Comstor puts into reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, any attempt to reduce Scope 3 emissions is incredibly daunting. To put it into perspective, reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 100% would still leave more than 99% of Westcon-Comstor’s overall emissions untouched.
This is a massive problem for many businesses. According to the recent Carbon action report 2025, produced by EcoVadis and Boston Consulting Group, Scope 3 emissions are 21 times higher than Scope 1 and 2 emissions combined, but more than 90% of companies have no upstream reduction targets. The report found that only 24% of businesses report on Scope 3 emissions and a mere 8% have set reduction targets.
In the UK, the report noted that only 6% of companies were on track to meet their Scope 3 emissions targets and only 14% have set targets for supply chain emissions. As many as two-thirds of UK businesses are not reporting Scope 3 emissions at all.
The report claims that ignoring Scope 3 emissions could cost companies more than $500bn globally in annual liabilities by 2030. Pierre-François Thaler, co-founder and co-CEO of EcoVadis, said that companies could protect profitability by addressing Scope 3 emissions and build a more resilient supply chain. “The time to act is now,” he warned, “and the most effective place to start is with suppliers, where the majority of emissions lie.”
Meanwhile, Diana Dimitrova, managing director and partner at BCG, said the findings showed that supply chain emissions were not just a compliance mandate but a material driver of financial performance.
So, what role can channel companies play, if any, in the effort to reduce Scope 3 emissions? And what influence can they have on reducing emissions upstream and downstream of their business?
Progress needs alignment
Sylvain Frodé de la Forêt, senior vice-president of channels and data at Schneider Electric, says there is no doubt that tackling Scope 3 emissions is the most complex, but important area for organisations to decarbonise, adding: “When advising clients and partners, we recommend three steps: strategise, digitise, and decarbonise.”
He notes that any company’s sustainability strategy needs to start with benchmarking its environmental footprint by using accurate data from electrical systems to identify the biggest opportunities for impact. Digitisation with advanced energy technologies “makes the invisible visible, enabling organisations to monitor and manage energy use across operations and supply chains”. The last stage, decarbonisation, involves turning insights into action by optimising energy consumption, eliminating waste and future-proofing operations.
According to Frodé de la Forêt, channel companies “are uniquely positioned to accelerate Scope 3 reductions. As trusted advisers and solution providers, they can embed sustainability into their offerings, encourage adoption of digital tools, and show customers the ROI [return on investment] and efficiency benefits from these technologies.” Their role is not just to provide technology, but to help customers and partners “see the full picture of their environmental footprint and take measurable steps to reduce it”.
Because they extend upstream to suppliers and downstream to users, channel businesses appreciate that Scope 3 emissions is a shared responsibility. Real progress requires alignment with partners, suppliers and customers to advance a shared vision for decarbonisation, which means partnerships should be at the heart of any business strategy.
Stew Parkin, global CTO at Assured Data Protection, is under no illusion that reducing Scope 3 emissions is a daunting task. “This is because they sit largely outside a company’s direct control, but channel companies like Westcon-Comstor can still play an important role by using their position as intermediaries to influence both suppliers and customers,” he says.
Upstream, channel businesses can pressure manufacturers to cut carbon intensity through low-carbon procurement, supplier codes of conduct and logistics optimisation, while prioritising products made with recycled materials or renewable energy. Downstream, they can promote energy-efficient hardware, extend product lifecycles with reuse and recycling services and embed sustainability into sales by educating customers about lifecycle emissions and total cost of ownership.
By aggregating demand, acting as educators and bundling greener services, Parkin says channel companies can convert customer expectations into supplier pressure and supplier improvements into customer benefits, making them a vital lever for cutting emissions, even when more than 99% of their footprint sits in Scope 3.
He makes some interesting observations about the role of MSPs in helping to reduce Scope 3 emissions when it comes to backup and disaster recovery managed services, saying that outsourcing those services makes Scope 3 compliance a lot more achievable and manageable. He believes that outsourcing can help with Scope 3 emissions because MSP DR solutions “achieve economies of scale by servicing multiple organisations via a shared facility, making them carbon efficient for customers”.
When advising clients and partners, we recommend three steps: strategise, digitise and decarbonise
Sylvain Frodé de la Forêt, Schneider Electric
Gerard Clutterbuck oversees operations and strategy at Techies Go Green, a movement of IT and tech-oriented companies committed to decarbonising their businesses and making them green and verifiably sustainable. Established in 2021 by Michael O’Hara, then managing director at Data Solutions, Techies Go Green recently gained its 800th member and is aiming to reach the milestone of 1,000 members by the end of the year.
Clutterbuck observes that Scope 3 emissions represent the same activity from different points in the value chain. This makes it vital for companies in the technology sector, where Scope 3 emissions are so dominant. “This is to fully engage with both external stakeholders – including vendors, logistics and transport providers, resellers and channel partners, customers and end users, IT Asset Disposition [ITAD] partners – and internal procurement and operations teams,” he adds.
He concurs with Frodé de la Forêt that the starting point is an accurate emissions audit to provide the necessary information and insights needed to identify sources and develop a more effective decarbonisation plan. Companies that set a baseline carbon footprint can then establish measurable reduction targets.
Channel businesses should seek to make their procurement greener by working with vendors and OEMs with strong sustainability practices and certifications such as published Science-Based Targets (SBTi), says Clutterbuck. They should look to implement procurement policies that include sustainability criteria (energy efficiency, packaging reduction, recyclability) in Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and contracts. In addition, channel companies should encourage suppliers “to measure and disclose their own emissions data using a transparent standards-based approach”.
Choosing products that are more sustainable also helps. Channel companies should select and promote energy-efficient hardware such as Energy Star, EPEAT-certified devices and guide customers toward energy-efficient and sustainable solutions, such as cloud services powered by renewable energy or devices with low-energy consumption. Also, they should try to provide sustainability reporting tools to help customers track and reduce their own footprints.
In addition, channel partners can decarbonise their own day-to-day business operations by using virtual meetings, prioritising rail over air for regional trips, and implementing sustainable employee-commuting policies, such as public transport incentives, bicycle-friendly facilities and EV charging. It is also worth considering moving their internal IT systems to cloud services powered by renewable energy.
Clutterbuck believes vendors and channel companies have an important role to play in reducing Scope 3 emissions by acting as enablers and influencers across the value chain. Vendors should design products with sustainability in mind by using recycled materials, modular components for easy repair and energy-efficient technologies. They should also provide transparent emissions data that downstream partners can use in their reporting.
Channel businesses can encourage customers to make lower-carbon choices by promoting refurbished or remanufactured equipment, offering take-back and recycling programmes, and guiding buyers toward energy-efficient solutions. “This shift builds stronger relationships with eco-conscious customers and creates long-term business resilience in a low-carbon economy,” adds Clutterbuck.
Vendors and channel partners can collaborate to optimise logistics such as consolidating shipments, choosing greener transport providers and reducing packaging waste. By embedding sustainability into their joint go-to-market strategies, vendor and channel ecosystems can significantly influence demand, accelerate adoption of greener practices and drive systemic reductions in Scope 3 emissions across the industry, says Clutterbuck.
One interesting example of a vendor seeking to reduce supply chain emissions is Acer, which recently set itself a target of -2,470 tonnes by the end of 2025. It is seeking to reduce emissions in several ways – it plans to ship product using electric trucks in The Netherlands, which it claims will significantly reduce local emissions and result in improved air quality in urban areas. It is also working to replace fossil fuels with Hydro Vegetable Oil (HVO) and other biofuels to reduce its logistics carbon footprint.
Acer has also implemented an internal tool that monitors CO₂ emissions for each individual shipment, helping to improve transparency and opening the way for targeted interventions that improve environmental efficiency.
Changes to be made
Regarding the channel’s role, Clutterbuck believes partners have the ability to shape supply chains through their decisions by demanding greater transparency from manufacturers and prioritising products with lower embedded carbon, recycled materials and sustainable packaging. By consolidating their purchasing power, they can “incentivise vendors to adopt greener production processes and use renewable energy”, he says.
Channel partners could also make it a requirement to provide Carbon Impact labelling, Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and life cycle assessments on products. This would enable better decision making and improve the accuracy of audits, leading to a shift from accounting based on spend to one focused on more accurate activity-based emissions.
An interesting case in point is that Westcon-Comstor stated in its report it was working to transition away from spend-based data in its Scope 3 calculations, focusing on collecting supplier-specific data at a product level. This included emissions and energy data across a product's lifecycle from manufacturing to end-of-life. As a result, the data “revealed that supplier-specific emissions associated with upstream product manufacturing and transportation were lower than the spend-based emissions factor per USD”.
[The channel] is both a gatekeeper and enabler … and partners should serve as educators
Gerard Clutterbuck, Techies Go Green
This led to an increase in the proportion of supplier-specific data and a reduction in total hardware spend, with a significant reduction in upstream emissions, driven by category 1 (purchased goods and services). On the other hand, the estimated impact of hardware during its use phase was higher than previously estimated, contributing to an increase in downstream emissions.
In terms of transport and logistics, Clutterbuck highlights the need for partners to work with suppliers on consolidated shipments, to opt for sea instead of air freight and to use low-carbon fuels. In addition, requesting more accurate transport emissions reporting would help to remove uncertainty and encourage more efficient logistics networks.
Distributors and partners can work together downstream to steer customers toward energy-efficient devices, cloud solutions powered by renewable energy and circular options such as refurbishment, repair and take-back schemes. They also play a key role in educating customers about sustainability impacts, providing emissions data and offering tools to help users track and reduce their own footprints.
By transitioning to service-based offerings (XaaS), channel partners can use hardware more efficiently and at higher utilisation rates. Moving to an XaaS subscription-based model allows customers to access and use services on-demand, eliminating the need to purchase and maintain their own physical infrastructure. This approach can often lead to cost savings, increased scalability and reduced climate impact.
Clutterbuck describes the channel role “as both a gatekeeper and enabler, leveraging its central position to drive meaningful emissions reductions across the entire lifecycle of technology products. Partners should serve as educators, raising awareness among customers and partners about the environmental impacts of ICT and enabling data-driven decision-making with sustainability reporting tools.”
Perhaps because channel businesses are effectively at the epicentre of the supply chain, most are in agreement that they have a significant part to play in trying to reduce Scope 3 emissions. The longstanding traditional role of channel businesses in the middle of the supply chain means it’s not something they can avoid. And, as we’ve seen, it’s not easy to achieve something meaningful when the supply chain accounts for the vast proportion of their overall emissions.
Nevertheless, this no excuse for inaction. Channel partners have enjoyed the benefits, but also had to deal with the perils, of being in the middle of the supply chain between vendors and customers for many years. It should come as no surprise that their role when it comes to sustainability and climate action is no different.
No wonder Frodé de la Forêt at Schneider Electric believes that channel companies “can play a pivotal role” by harnessing digital innovation and collaborative programmes, “fostering strong partnerships that drive resilience and decarbonisation at scale, and creating a ripple effect of sustainability across entire ecosystems”.
