Hans Neufeld
Director
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Mapping supplier emissions: how to prioritise and partner for net zero
Director
Blog
10 min
31st July 2026
With just over 1,000 days until most CPGs are due to meet their 2030 net zero targets, how can procurement move their organisation to where it pledged to be?
The second of a three-part series on the ‘Net zero execution procurement playbook’ – a framework developed to help CPGs decarbonise their supply chains without sacrificing commercial performance.
Part 1 in this series outlines how to understand challenges shaping sourcing decisions and gain cross-functional agreement to collaborate.
Here, in Part 2, Hans Neufeld, Director in Newton’s Consumer Goods practice, reveals the next set of levers, providing a structured approach to modelling portfolios.
01
1. Understand the context
Lever 1: Know the obligations and constraints shaping sourcing decisions. Lever 2: Agree ways of working and internal governance. The outcome: A rich contextual understanding of the challenges and headwinds we collectively face
02
2. Model the portfolio
Lever 3: Know your portfolio and prioritise. Lever 4: Emissions baseline and measurement. Lever 5: Supplier landscape mapping. Lever 6: Dynamic procurement intelligence. The outcome: A prioritised portfolio understanding of carbon emissions across suppliers and materials
03
3. Plan and execute
Lever 7: Build the glidepath. Lever 8: Contract and commercial. Lever 9: Supplier engagement model
Truly sustainable systems
I spoke to a member of the sustainability team at JDE Peet’s recently. What struck me was that this is a company committed to changing not just itself but the world.
To reduce its own supply chain emissions, the coffee giant invests in continuous improvement projects for farmers through an initiative called Common Grounds – and has done so for a decade.
Its sustainability programmes work towards not only discrete, ongoing gains but also industry-wide, long-term change.
The Coffee Canopy Partnership is another example, bringing together coffee companies to create a satellite map of coffee production and spot deforestation risks.
This is an industry-first capability that every company, even competitors, can access and use to shape decision-making.
This level of influence is the dream scenario for nearly every CPG – but it is a long way off for most.
As the first article in this series revealed, Scope 3 emissions account for up to 95% of most CPGs’ carbon footprint (1). What this previous piece didn’t touch on is how slow that progress is even for companies with investment behind it. Unilever’s own reporting shows an 11% reduction in Scope 3 energy and industrial emissions and a 17% reduction in forest, land and agriculture emissions since 2021 (2).
“Progress after four years of sustained effort says less about Unilever specifically and more about how structurally hard Scope 3 is to shift, outside a company’s direct control. “
Hans Neufeld, Director Newton
Therefore despite good intentions and big ambitions, progress is challenging for everyone.
But we have seen that movement is possible, with focus – which is what the framework underpinning this article is designed to provide.
End-to-end emissions
Scope 3 emissions happen across a vast supplier network which sit largely outside companies’ direct control, and it is that distance that makes them so hard to shift. Change requires identifying the suppliers with the greatest emissions and opportunity, engaging them meaningfully, and creating the conditions – commercial, contractual and collaborative – to reduce their footprint and evidence progress.
Levers 3 to 6 of the ‘Net zero execution procurement playbook’ narrow this gap. They can be activated while still working on the first two levers of the playbook outlined in Part 1 of this three-part series.
Lever 3. Know your portfolio and prioritise
Procurement teams have limited resources. The aim is to influence every SKU and supplier, but the return on that effort diminishes as you move down the supplier base. That is why most teams prioritise working closely with the suppliers where effort can deliver the greatest impact.
Newton research into typical Scope 3 emissions split by supplier shows that in a typical CPG, half of all Scope 3 emissions are produced by a small percentage of suppliers – often just 1%. Applying the Pareto principle to this data shows how much impact procurement teams could have by focusing there.
The next 19% of suppliers account for a further 30% of emissions. Engaging with a group of this size is a significant task, making it essential to balance action with preserving procurement team capacity.
Our research finds that the remaining 80% of suppliers form a long tail. While many procurement teams try to affect every supplier, for this large group, commitments can be embedded into contracts and procurement processes, requiring minimal ongoing resource while maintaining baseline standards and expectations.
Lever 4. Emissions baseline and measurement
Applying Newton’s Carbon Measurement Hierarchy enables companies to move towards greater maturity in carbon accounting.
Carbon Measurement Hierarchy
Each of the four levels represents a step up in terms of sophistication, accuracy and cost.
Spend-based estimates are the least reliable and should be avoided. The long tail of suppliers can be accounted for with industry averages. Supplier-reported data is most effective when it is collected and managed through a dedicated platform, providing greater visibility and tracking than a static Excel spreadsheet. Verified gold standard third-party data is the goal for each top tier supplier.
How to use the hierarchy
Alignment
Consistency of data collection at a category and company level supports trend spotting and decision making across silos in the organisation. In Part 1, we saw how to gain alignment as an organisation. Now it’s time to get into details on:
- Portfolios and categories
- Scope 3 sub-categories
- Baseline year to start from
Focus
Knowing the 20% of suppliers driving the 80% of emissions thanks to the work undertaken in Lever 3, apply spend-based screening across the full portfolio to rank categories and suppliers by estimated emissions. Build root-cause understanding for highest-emitting categories and suppliers.
Active improvement
Upgrade data quality where it matters. Example KPIs to track to drive measurement quality include:
- % purchased goods/services covered by data level 3
- % of top 20 emission hotspots where root cause is understood
- % of sub-categories using a single, consistent methodology
Repetition
Run the same methodology every year – consistency makes progress trackable.
Overcoming common baseline setting issues
- If you see changes that cannot be explained, mapping root causes helps.
- Inconsistent baselines across sub-categories can be overcome by defining a single methodology tier per category.
- A reduction in absolute GHG emissions with rising intensity is volume decline, not decarbonisation – track carbon intensity and absolute emissions for a truer picture.
- And finally, the pursuit of perfect data shouldn’t stall progress. Use what is available – acting on imperfect data will surface gaps.
Lever 5. Supplier landscape mapping
Plotting suppliers across key ingredients on a Strategy x Maturity matrix identifies the level of relationship to build with each segment.
Each of the four segments carries importance and requires a tailored plan based on:
- Strategic business commitments
- Supplier value and commercial relationship
- Category, industry and geopolitical risks
Industry example: How Colgate-Palmolive maps suppliers (12, 13)
Strategic business commitments
- Climate champions within procurement embed sustainability into supplier management.
- Engages priority suppliers through initiatives such as Sustainability Days, strengthening collaboration.
Supplier value and commercial relationship
- Embeds sustainability expectations into contractual documents at the start of relationships.
- The ‘No Deforestation Policy’ states that if a supplier is unable or unwilling to take steps to conform to policy expectations, the business relationship may end.
Category, industry and geopolitical risks
- Prioritises engagement based on category-specific, industry and geographic risks.
- Focuses efforts where the potential for environmental harm is greatest.
Lever 6. Dynamic Procurement Intelligence
Levers 3 to 5 give procurement a clearer view of where emissions sit. Turning that view into day-to-day trade-offs needs something further: the capability, data and analytics to hold cost and carbon side by side as sourcing decisions are made. Newton’s dynamic procurement intelligence tool is built to close that gap.
In practice, it works by linking commercial and carbon data at ingredient and SKU level, updating in real time as quotes and specs change. This allows buyers evaluating a supplier switch or reformulation to instantly see carbon and cost implications. Once this bottom-up understanding spots priority SKUs or suppliers, targeted engagement and enforcement is possible. In our work with clients, this kind of intelligence has delivered results across range and product reformulation, supplier management and energy consumption:
- 40% reduction in range (worth 10,000 tonnes of emissions) by cutting packaging complexity
- 22% carbon and cost reduction by reformulating an SKU for a UK supermarket
- Across £20 billion of contracts, data-led negotiations reduced time and complexity while increasing consistency
- 40% energy savings across 500+ facilities
Checklist to model your portfolio:
1
Lever 3
2
Lever 4
3
Lever 5
4
Lever 6
Identify a game-changing supplier
Consistently measure across categories
Tier suppliers
Embed data capability to support intelligent decision-making
Once these four levers are activated, your portfolio model doesn’t stay static. Supplier bases shift, data quality improves and suppliers in your long tail today can move into tomorrow’s top 1% as reformulation and contracts change. This is important, ongoing work and JDE Peet’s Common Grounds programme, a decade in and still running, is what ongoing discipline looks like in practice.
The final article in this series reveals how to build a glidepath with clear milestones, supplier engagement strategies and a plan built to last beyond the next rotation.
Get in touch with Hans to receive it or discuss Newton’s full Net Zero Procurement Approach.
References
(1) Scope 3 Emissions: A Complete Guide to the 15 Categories, Carbon Maps
(2) Turning climate ambition into action, Unilever
(3) Mars Palm Positive Plan Delivers Deforestation-Free Palm Oil Supply Chain, Mars
(4) Henkel signs agreement with Shell on renewable-based ingredients for Persil®, Purex® and all® brands”, Henkel
(5) Henkel launches new initiative to collaborate with suppliers on climate action, Henkel
(6) Investor ESG report
(7) P&G is leveraging PACT to build a supply of low carbon raw materials, PACT
(8) Citizenship Report 2022
(9) L’Oréal’s Green Ambition with Hard Reality: Progress, Gaps, and What Investors Should Watch, One Stop ESG
(10) 2024 universal registration document, L’Oréal
(11) Climate transition plan, L’Oréal
(12) Colgate-Palmolive 2024 Sustainability Report, Colgate-Palmolive
(13) Committed to Responsible Sourcing, Colgate-Palmolive
(14) 2021 Annual Results, L’Oreal
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