Can you give some examples of Scope 3 strategies or programmes that have made a real difference?
“The insetting discussion is one that will develop. It’ s an interesting idea and there are a handful of companies integrating that into their carbon strategies”
Can you give some examples of Scope 3 strategies or programmes that have made a real difference?
John Trenchard You’ ve got“ do nothing”, you’ ve got offsetting and then you’ ve got insetting. I’ m not suggesting [ insetting ] is the final solution, but it does give a pragmatic option to make change. I would strongly suggest that we explore further how we can use insetting, which is a kind of parallel to some of this data which is being used to address Scope 3. In the UK, every import container that comes over the quay at Southampton and at London Gateway earns a 50kg carbon inset credit, where we’ ve put lower carbon maritime fuel into our ships in Northern Europe. If you want to claim that, it’ s included in the port charges. You just register and get your certification every quarter for every single container that you’ ve imported included in the price that you’ re paying.
“The insetting discussion is one that will develop. It’ s an interesting idea and there are a handful of companies integrating that into their carbon strategies”
STUART HARKER, SENIOR CARBON & SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER, ACCOR
That’ s available now and we’ ve got more than 150,000 signed up so far in just over two months.
Megan Youngs I was quite inspired by Jaguar Land Rover’ s strategy. They took carbon footprint and almost invested the tax, like an internal carbon price. They took the price from anything that was over their limit and invested it back into their supply chain with other suppliers, which I thought was really interesting because, if the supplier isn’ t going to cooperate, you could tax them and put it into suppliers that will help. I found that interesting from a personal manufacturing interest.
Stuart Harker I think it’ s a natural extension to start talking about insetting with suppliers. Going back to the less mature suppliers at a grassroots level, it’ s an interesting discussion. Sometimes, I see companies with quite sophisticated ideas around insetting, but I don’ t think it’ s a case of offsetting or insetting – we need all the tools in the bag. The insetting discussion is one that will develop. It’ s an interesting idea and there are a handful of companies integrating that into their carbon strategies. It may not be coming to the fore at the moment, but it’ ll probably come to the light of day in five to 10 years’ time.
170 May 2025