AGREENA | WHITEPAPER
a significant proportion of total emissions, but the sheer scale makes it hard to track, prioritise and make actual progress towards science-based targets,” says Luke, who leads Agreena’ s supply chain decarbonisation efforts, helping agri-food businesses move from ambition to action through credible engagement with farmers – the largest emissions source in their value chains.
Breaking down the Scope 3 challenge While Scope 1 and 2 emissions result from a company’ s own operations and energy consumption, Scope 3 encompasses all other indirect emissions. These include those produced by suppliers, distributors, customers and even waste processing.“ A company’ s direct emissions are easier to control, as Scope 3 includes activities outside of direct ownership which are hard to influence,” Luke explains. Food supply chains are particularly complex – stretching from international commodity crops to consumer packaging, each link introducing new variables, risks and data challenges.
Data availability is a core barrier.“ Many suppliers, especially farms or small processors, may not have the necessary tools or expertise to track their emissions,” says Luke. Companies often have no option but to rely on industry averages, rough estimates or secondary data, all of which blur the picture of genuine impact. This reliance on non-specific data not only constrains
In 2025, extreme weather events led to € 43bn in economic losses across the European Union
Source: University of Mannheim
visibility but also lowers credibility, as stakeholders cannot be sure the reductions claimed are real.
Accounting mismatches compound these issues. Data from intervention projects – such as a new regenerative agriculture initiative on selected farms – does not map cleanly onto inventory reporting, which tracks emissions on a year-on-year basis. The result is a confusing landscape, where progress achieved at the project level is not credibly integrated or traceable in corporate inventories.
Freeriding and double counting further muddy the waters. Because multiple companies may claim the same emissions reduction in a shared supply chain, overall progress toward decarbonisation is often overstated.“ Scope 3 emissions often overlap between multiple companies in a single value chain – for example, a food manufacturer’ s ingredient supplier and the farmer who grows the raw crop may all claim the same emission reduction if data isn’ t transparent,” Luke says. Without third-party controls, some actors may benefit without investing in any real change.
80 February 2026