Scope 3 Emissions Reduction

While achieving significant emissions reductions within our own operations is crucial, it’s important to recognize that the majority of a company’s carbon footprint originates in the value chain - both upstream and downstream from our direct operations. These value chain emissions, often classified as Scope 3 emissions, play a substantial role. At UPM Scope 3 emissions account for the majority of our overall emissions. Therefore, addressing emissions reduction across our entire value chain is essential.

Supply Chain Decarbonization: UPM’s -30 by 30 programme

Our -30by30 programme for Scope 3 emissions reduction aims at mitigating climate change together with our suppliers and partners. Specifically, the programme’s goal is to reduce emissions from the most significant sources in our value chain by 30 percent by 2030, against 2018 levels. At UPM, the three main sources for Scope 3 emissions are purchased goods & services, upstream logistics, and downstream logistics.

Collaborating with our partner network

Addressing value chain emissions is complex. First, with our numerous suppliers and partners, the collection of accurate and complete value chain emissions data to support our decision-making is a considerable effort. Second, when it comes to emissions reductions, one size will not fit all. We welcome the challenge and strive for even closer teamwork with our partner network.

We collaborate with suppliers and partners who are capable and motivated to join us in designing and producing low-carbon products and solutions. As one of the first steps in this path, we are systematically asking our suppliers to calculate and report their greenhouse gas emissions. To ensure reliability and comparability of reported emissions data, we have developed our own Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) calculation guidelines, which are publicly available under the UPM Supplier Decarbonization Platform. This platform also includes further resources and instructions for our suppliers, including specific considerations for direct materials, indirect materials and logistics. We invite all our suppliers to have a look!

Making climate a key factor

Traditionally, product development and procurement decisions have been guided by quality and value. We want to change this and make climate a key consideration. This will help us move, together with our partners and suppliers, towards a future beyond fossils.

We can take several actions to achieve the emissions reductions that we aim to achieve under the -30by30 programme. As direct and immediate actions, we will reduce our negative climate impacts together with our partners and suppliers through energy, operational efficiency, and technology-related improvements. For more profound impact, we will consider climate as a key factor in selecting our suppliers and partners, as well as in developing our products. As a result, this will encourage us, our customers and our entire value network develop and choose more sustainable solutions. This will increase our positive climate impact permanently.

The foundations for the success of the programme are laid now. We are gathering emissions and other relevant environmental data from our suppliers and partners. This will help us determine the baseline against which the reductions will be made. We strive to share anonymized benchmark data on the Product Carbon Footprints for the suppliers who provide us with their emission data, provided a representative data sample is available.