Simplifying Supply Chain Transformation Using Standards | P&SC LIVE: Net Zero 2026

Hi everyone. I can't actually see any of

you, but it's great to metaphorically

see you today. Thank you for being here.

I was trying to come up with an opening

joke for my talk today, but then I met

my colleague Thomas for the first time

actually off Teams and you'll see the

height differential between the two of

us is really the only joke I need to

make when he comes on stage. So, thank

you again. We're really happy to be here

to actually before we dive into the

details of supply chain transformation

and the nitty-gritty of supplier

engagement really start with a highlevel

big picture of why scope 3

decarbonization and supply chain

transformation matters and that is of

course as many of you I'm sure know in

the context of comprehensive transition

planning. This is a space that for the

past decade or so has been incredibly

chaotic and fragmented and frankly

confusing for suppliers and for

companies that are taking supplies from

those companies respectively. And the

good news is this landscape is

converging and harmonizing and the

international standard system has a big

role to play in that because the role of

the international standard system is to

converge and harmonize best practice in

one place and then scale that best

practice through standards to provide

trust and credibility to the market. So,

one of my many catchphrases is here at

BSI and also working very closely with

ISO, the International Organization for

Standardization, we are making standards

sexy, not again, just for the first

time. And so I'm going to start us off

by really elucidating some of the

differences between different types of

standards because there it's a term

that's very readily thrown around, but

there are actually very important

distinctions between different types of

standards that govern this space that

we're in. Whether that be comprehensive

transition planning or the more granular

details of supply chain transformation

and scope 3 decarbonization. So what you

can see on the screen here are two

columns describing the different types

of standards. Many of the standards that

have been mobilizing private sector

action around the net zero transition to

date are private standards. So these are

standards that are developed outside of

the system of formal recognition of

governments. This is also commonly known

as the alphabet soup. So you might be

familiar with SBTI for target setting,

the greenhouse gas protocol for carbon

accounting and reporting. Those are just

two of the many many frameworks and

initiatives that have been mobilizing

private sector action around the

transition. The international standard

system meanwhile I like to describe as

the UN of standards bodies. This is a

network of over 170 government

recognized national standards bodies

around the world who come together to

develop through negotiation and

consensus international standards that

apply to all of the countries within the

ISO network and provide that trust and

credibility for any product service

system that might be relevant in those

jurisdictions. What's important here and

what I'd really like to be the take-home

message for folks who are stressed out

about their decarbonization scope 3 or

otherwise is that this is a system that

has not historically been present within

the net zero transition. We've been a

little bit admittedly late to the game,

but the international standard system is

now fortunately getting involved in

decarbonization and the net zero

transition. And that is going to be

incredibly helpful for all of us in

terms of understanding who are the

credible actors taking net zero action,

taking decarbonization seriously around

the world. Just briefly, the reason for

that is because international standards

do not operate in a vacuum. What makes

them different from the private

standards that have been in this space

before is that they operate alongside

these other pillars of what we call

quality infrastructure. And my

colleague, my very tall colleague Thomas

is going to talk about the accreditation

and assurance aspect of quality

infrastructure in a little bit. But this

is the system that we like to say is the

fabric of the real economy. provides

trust and credibility to the market is

underpinning 80% of global trade. For

example, because international standards

are how governments around the world can

help to differentiate between credible

products coming in to across their

borders and ensure that those products

and services and systems are safe and

viable for their their consumers and

their citizens. And that very much is a

system that needs to be leveraged and

catalyzed for the net zero transition in

order to scale and acceler accelerate

credible comprehensive action. Briefly,

what you can see on the slide here is

that we are moving now from this space

of voluntary initiatives and private

standards essentially through the

international standard system and

ultimately to regulation which I think

is probably as we all would agree the

way that we will actually get everyone

on track for net zero by 2050. And there

is again great news that is coming for

all of us who are concerned about net

zero decarbonization probably everyone

in this room already which is that ISO

is developing the world's first

international net zero transition plan

standard as we speak. So this is a

standard that will support you whether

you are an organization of any size

throughout the supply chain to

understand and embark on your own net

zero journey in a comprehensive credible

way. What the standard is going to cover

we call the seven stages of net zero

action. You can see them up on the

screen here. And to date, a lot of the

major corporates in the world that have

taken net zero action have maybe only

started with the first three steps. So

they're measuring their emissions.

They've set some net zero targets. But

the reduction part, how do we actually

set targets and mitigate emissions

across all three scopes is of course the

trickiest part of this. And then there

are lots of other aspects that you need

to worry about. Whether that be the role

of carbon removals, how often do you

need to be reporting on your progress,

what is the role of nature and

biodiversity for example. So the ISO

standard, the world's first

international independently verifiable

standard on comprehensive transition

planning is set to come out within the

next year. The public consultation stage

will be kicking off in the next couple

months. So do keep an eye out for that

because as organizations that are

invested in supply chain transformation,

making sure that what this standard says

about doing supply chain engagement is

relevant and applicable for your

organizations is going to be crucial for

you and also for the success of this

standard and its applicability here in

the UK but also around the world. So

please do keep an eye out for that. All

right. So, that was the big picture of

why we're all here concerned, maybe

stressed about scope 3 decarbonization

and supply chain transformation. And the

good news once again is that this

previously fragmented, confusing world

is simplifying. It's harmonizing. And

really in a a couple years hopefully

there will only be a handful of

initiatives, frameworks or standards

that we need to worry about when it

comes to demonstrating credible and

comprehensive net zero action. The

question for everyone in this room of

course is what does that mean about

supply chain transformation? What does

that mean about scope 3 decarbonization?

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what

that means yet because again, the

standard is still in development and you

can actually have a say in what the

ultimate standard will describe about

best practice when it comes to scope 3

decarbonization by virtue of

participating in that public

consultation stage that is coming out in

the next few months as I mentioned. But

what you can see on the on the screen

here are the foundations of what the

standard will say and I've highlighted

the specific components for scope 3

decarbonization and supply chain

engagement that are here. So those are

things that folks in this room will

probably be very familiar with.

Requiring suppliers to commit to net

zero targets in line with essentially

the standard prioritizing suppliers

based on their climate strategy, past

performance and transparency of

emissions data and collaborating with

other organizations and sector or

industry partners to strengthen and

align procurement and purchase

requirements.

When these guidelines which are now

being converted into the standard came

out, this represented the best practice

when it came to scope 3 decarbonization

in the entire world. We're going to hear

from some phenomenal speakers later

today who I think will give us a lot

more confidence in how much further

we've come than this over the past

couple years in terms of more

sophisticated approaches to supply chain

decarbonization. But I can tell you and

everyone in this room probably knows

this is still an incredibly difficult

space. It is not something that is going

to happen easily or overnight and takes

a lot of engagement and resources from

your organization. I spend a lot of my

time working with corporates that are

using the ISO netzero standard precursor

to develop or enhance their net zero

transition plans. And of course, scope 3

is their biggest challenge always. It is

very often the most difficult aspect of

a comprehensive de uh decarbonization

program to tackle but for that reason

the most important one. And so at a very

high level I'm just going to share a

couple approaches that the corporates

that I engage with on a regular basis.

General Motors being a good example of

them use to support and engage their

suppliers to decarbonize. We've got the

good cop strategy, which is supply chain

engagement. Essentially, working with

suppliers. Usually, it's the top 30 or

the top 100 suppliers, depending on the

size of your company, to engage them on

what their net zero decarbonization plan

looks like and actually provide

resources sometimes from the

organization to support that that

decarbonization starting. There is then

the bad cop approach of we're not going

to actually work with you as a supplier

unless you sign a pledge or have a net

zero target or can start to demonstrate

progress towards your net zero target.

And then of course there's a spectrum in

between. And one thing that I do want to

point out for folks if you're not

already aware of this, for most sectors,

there will have already been a

collectivization effort that has started

to pull together suppliers and come up

with shared decarbonization strategies.

So some examples of this are on the

screen. For the pharmaceutical industry,

there's something called the

pharmaceutical supply chain initiative.

For food and bev there's something

called supplier locked. These are

initiatives where if you are a company

in that sector you can then come

together with other companies within

your sector and actually collectivize

the resources that you are expending to

support your supply chain to

decarbonize. recognizing in a really

beautiful way that even though a lot of

these companies that are coming together

are competitors, that this is an urgent

moment where we have to work together to

support credible decarbonization. And so

those best practice examples do exist.

But the takeaway here is that there's

still a long way to go. And once again,

before I hand things off to my colleague

Thomas, I'll just remind folks that the

first international standard on

comprehensive decarbonization, which

will include scope 3 measures, is coming

out in the next year. As your national

standards body, BSI will be the place

where you can submit comment and

feedback and make sure that your

perspectives are reflected within this

international standard. And given that

supply chain transformation and

decarbonization is the biggest challenge

for all of us working in the

sustainability space, I would strongly

encourage everyone to make sure that

your voice is heard and that you

contribute to this public consultation

when it comes out. With that, I will

very happily hand things over to my

giant of a colleague, Thomas.

>> Okay. Um, good morning everyone. Uh

yeah, this is actually the first time me

and Shane have met face to face. So um

fortunately works is quite a good visual

metaphor I think. So we've got 2026

emissions and 2024 targets. So if you

want to sort of see the scale of the

challenge I think we've got approaching

us when it comes to net zero good

representation. So my name is Tom

Harrison. I'm a partnerships manager at

BSI assurance. So whilst um my colleague

here is from the the national standards

body who sort of write and publish the

uh the standards that we work with um

the area that I'm looking more at is is

the assurance uh so the auditing and

certifications of organizations uh for

processes and and products within the

supply chains uh and standards are a

really critical tool and a vital

component what it is we need. But uh

before I get a little bit into that I'll

give a quick brief overview of sort of

the three main types of supply chain

assurance we see. And I I appreciate

there's going to be lots of difference

here in sort of the level of maturity uh

within different orientations. So you'll

find you'll be using one of the three of

these at least maybe one more than the

other. Um but what we sort of see mostly

um the first level tends to be self

declaration. So when you're asking

suppliers for uh sustainability

information, you'll be saying do you

have a sustainability policy? Do you

have a waste management policy? Um you

know do you record do you have

sustainable energy procurements? That

sort of stuff. And essentially what

you're asking them to do is tick yes to

as many boxes as possible. So it's a bit

of a a bit of a conflict of interest

when it comes to the client because they

want to tick yes because they want to

keep working with yourself. But actually

is that giving you the level of uh the

assurance and confidence in in what is

truly going on within the supply chain.

So as a result of that what we then tend

to see is organizations doing uh kind of

auditing of their own supply chain. So

that's actually then going in and rather

than just sort of taking for face value

the evidence that you're being given,

going in and checking that, you know, do

you have those policies in place and are

they actually being used? What does your

factories look like? Uh what do your

distribution centers look like? That

sort of thing. Um but obviously that's

that's fairly time consuming, can be

quite expensive. Uh if you're a supply

chain manager, you've been doing this,

you probably end up spending most of

your life living in hotels and and

various airports. So the off the back of

that, this approach tends to be more

riskbased. So you'll be looking at

either sort of top 10 suppliers by spend

um areas of high risk that sort of

thing. So what it can occasionally mean

is those areas of sort of lower to

medium risk in the supply chain don't

get looked at as much and occasionally

things can slip through the cracks

there. And so the last one there is is

third party assessment which is sort of

where we come into play and I'll talk

about that a little bit later on. So, as

a very sort of simplified top level view

of a supply chain, I imagine what you're

probably all thinking of is wouldn't it

be lovely to only have seven suppliers.

Uh, unfortunately, the other 2,993

wouldn't fit on the slide. Just a quick

graphical representation of what it

tends to look like. You've got a head of

a supply chain. They'll write those

sustainability requirements and then

they will flow them down to their

suppliers. Obviously, useful first step.

It's got its drawbacks though. Um, so

what obviously you're relying on then is

u, you know, your department's

processing that information that you're

getting back from the suppliers. It can

sometimes tend to lead to a little bit

of a one-sizefits-all approach where

you're asking the same questions to your

cloud service provider as you are to

your uniforms and apparel providers. And

also if you're kind of using that tied

in with your contracts that you've got

in place. There's a question there of

actually how much visibility and and

leverage does it give you of the supply

chain supply chain which as we know is

is kind of where the complexities and

difficulties of that sort of scope 3

emission uh recording comes from. But

then also when you look at it from a uh

a supplers's perspective uh most of the

time a a supplier will not be working

with a single customer. They'll be

working with multiple uh multiple

clients. um usually sometimes even

within the same organization and

competitors with each other and what

happens is they keep getting those uh

those kind of sustainability

requirements coming down from different

areas and they have to satisfy all of

those if they want to keep operating as

an organization.

One of the really interesting kind of

side effects of that and and something I

found when we worked on a on an

industrywide scheme is those subtle

differences in what those requirements

can be can sometimes cause a huge amount

of headache in the in the supplier level

especially when you're working

withmemes. So one of the projects we

worked on we we grouped together all

those supplier requirements to see if we

could standardize them and the very

first question which was what is your

organization's name actually had 12

different ways of asking it. So even

when you're looking at the most simple

information, things can get quite

complicated. And what it means is

suppliers then can't just have a bank of

questionnaire answers which they can

respond to, um they end up spending

their quite limited and precious

sustainability time on focusing on

compliance with those supplier

requirements rather than actually what

it is we want them to be focusing on,

which is how do they get better and how

it is that they improve.

And one of the kind of the main I think

push backs that we sort of get from

standards is you know using them as it's

complex, it's bureaucratic, it's

unwieldy. And what I'd like to do now is

kind of show quick example of what

happens when you actually take this and

you introduce an international standard

or any standard into the mix. So what it

does is rather than the supplier

spending all of their time focusing on

how do they kind of satisfy those

requirements they're getting from each

individual customer, the supply chain

agrees on what that international

standard sorry what standard they want

their suppliers to be to be reaching.

they require that of them through sort

of contractual means and then the

supplier then knows what that benchmark

that they've got to reach is and they

can then rather than spending their time

on question set A, question set B,

question set C, they're focused entirely

on actually how do we reach the level

that this international standard is

requiring and I'm going to talk a little

bit more about what some of those

standards might be and what they could

be but the output of that is the

suppliers spend less time focusing on

compliance and more time focusing on

improvement. I think what we're sort of

seeing now a little bit is um

organizations seeing the the pace of

change uh within their carbon footprints

and and their scopes slightly

decreasing. Once you've uh you know your

scope one, scope two, that's within your

direct control. You can influence that

stuff quite quickly. Once you get into

that scope three area, actually what you

need to be doing is more of a

collaborative approach with suppliers

where you're encouraging them to to make

their own decisions, drive their own

improvement projects together. And by

kind of utilizing that intern that

standard approach uh it's a fantastic

way of doing it. The the slide on there

does have ISO in it but it can be

national standards it can be industry

standards supply chain specific ones

just having that agreed level that we

all need to reach is an incredibly

[snorts] powerful tool.

So the uh the main ones that we we sort

of see in use um ISO 14,0001 is uh is

the most popular environmental standard

in use today. um across the globe

there's about half a million uh

organizations that are using it and

certified to it. Uh it did start life as

a British standard. So we're we're

incredibly proud of that and it's its

history um and being able to see the

sort of the impact it drives across the

globe. One of its key fundamental

components that it shares with a lot of

other standards is the concept of

continual improvement. So rather than

just asking uh an organization to reach

a certain level, what it actually

challenges them to do is to say, okay,

we were here yesterday, we're here

today, where do we want to be tomorrow?

How are we going to learn from either

our mistakes, our near misses, what do

the objectives of our organization look

like? And how can we actually use

sustainability as a tool to help reach

wider business goals rather than it sort

of being something that's siloed off to

the side and is sort of seen as an extra

line on the P&L that takes away from the

profit. And what it also does is

encourages organizations to look at

their own supply chain. So that kind of

issue we mentioned before of actually

where do you get that visibility from by

utilizing 14,000 on within the supply

chain suppliers of suppliers then get

brought into scope as well. And it has

that lovely sort of trickle down effect

of bringing the entire organization

supply chain up.

One of the uh the other important

standards we do a lot of work with is

ISO4064 part one. uh snappy title of the

the quantification reporting of GHG, but

essentially it's a standardized

methodology for calculating a carbon

footprint. So I'm I'm sure if any of you

here have been to sustainability

conferences and events and spent any

time looking in the uh in the space

before, we've all seen those

differencing approaches to what is scope

one, what is scope two, what is scope

3.4064

defines that. You can no longer claim to

be net zero just because you've

purchased uh carbon offset credits for

energy usage. It has to be a full

collective uh inventory of all of the

scopes so that you can be measured and

benchmarked appropriately with other

similar organizations.

There is a standard out there for carbon

neutrality ISO 14068. Carbon neutrality

has dropped off a little bit in sort of

its popularity recently as I think we've

been looking more towards net zero. uh

depending on your opinion of offsetting

it, it can be a little bit of a dirty

word, but if that is still an

organizational objective and something

that is you're looking to achieve, there

are defined uh international levels for

what carbon neutrality actually looks

like. So you're not just rec you're

relying on the on the declarations of

different organizations uh trying to

claim different things.

The testing inspection and certification

industry is uh has been around for a

long time. So this year is is BSI's

125th year in existence. Uh and we've

been a proud part of that sort of that

quality infrastructure for for over a

hundred years now. Uh and there's a lot

of infrastructure in place to kind of

help support organizations with using

these. So um what you might hear is

accreditation and certification being

used um almost interchangeably. Um

accredititation is uh is looked after by

a country's national accredititation

body which in our case is UKCAS. So

they've got a memorandum of

understanding with the the British

government. There's only one

accredititation body and what they do is

they they assess organizations like us

who do the auditing to say that actually

certification we provide to

organizations it's impartial, it's

thorough, it's got that rigor behind it.

So that means like when you're actually

seeing those certificates being uh sort

of supplied as evidence um it's got that

reliability, that trust, that confidence

actually you know that that

organization's gone through a thorough

assessment and certification process. So

I think what we kind of really wanted to

get across today is using standards. It

gives you that rigor, gives you that

impartiality and gives you that

transparency as well, which hopefully uh

when sort of used in conjunction with

each other really drives through to some

supply chain improvement.

So that's the uh that's the end of our

presentation. I think me and Shayer have

got a little bit of time uh for sort of

Q&A and questions. So if anyone has got

anything, please fire away.

Great job.

>> It's that sort of powerful silence. I

know. Have we Have we either done a

really bad job or a really good job?

>> The latter. [laughter]

>> Importantly, the person who will bring

you the mic, her name is Christmas, so

that is an extra incentive to ask a

question.

>> Thank you both. Uh, this sounds a bit

like a plant question because I'm from

BSI as well. [laughter] The absence of

anyone else. Uh Shaneie, you talked

about the the alphabet soup and I think

on one of one of your slides you talked

there was the GHG protocol which people

in the room are probably familiar with

using. So um I'm right in saying that

ISO in the Jeep greenhouse gas protocol

themselves have come up with a about six

months ago a partnership agreement. So

in the market to to avoid that kind of

Pepsi versus Coke scenario, there's a

lot more interoperability or

harmonization between those two standard

carbon accounting standards bodies. I

don't know if they're something you can

expand on. That's that's exactly right

and I don't want to oversell it given

that once again the ISO net zero

standard hasn't come out yet but when

I'm speaking about this actually really

good news which doesn't come around that

often in the sustainability world that

this landscape is harmonizing and

streamlining and simplifying the ISO

greenhouse gas partnership is a great

example of that um so yes just to carry

on on that if you have not already heard

ISO and the greenhouse gas protoc

protocol have committed to co-develop

greenhouse gas accounting standards

moving forward. So once again, there

will not be a choice that organizations

need to make if they're using one or the

other. They can continue to do so and

they will essentially be mutually

recognized and then future standards

will be co-developed by the two

organizations. The reason that the

greenhouse gas protocol decided to do

that was to be able to tap into the

really important trust and credibility

that third-party verification provides

as Thomas just helped us to understand.

And that third party verification and

external validation is not something

that's actually been available within

the sustainability landscape really up

until recently and is going to become

increasingly available thankfully with

the launch of standards such as the ISO

net0ero standard. And so if for example

you are an organization that wants to be

taking credible comprehensive climate

action, the ISO netzero standard will

include greenhouse gas accounting which

is then the methodology underpinned by

the ISO greenhouse gas partnership and

also when it comes out all of the

requirements that you would need to

worry about when it comes to supply

chain engagement and scope 3

decarbonization both for setting a

target and for actually reducing

emissions within that scope. and all of

the others. So once again, we're not

exactly there yet, but the good news is

coming. This simplification is happening

and you can expect that standard to be

launched within the next year.

>> Yeah, I think the um the sort of the

flip side of that is actually having

that kind of level for organizations to

reach is really important because I

think we're we're all nervous about

greenwashing and sort of making claims

that you know we we can't back up or we

or we necessarily haven't reached. And

whilst you we do have some organizations

that maybe are less scrupulous and are

willing to make those claims, but the

the other side of it is there are some

organizations doing really fantastic and

incredible work who just don't have that

confidence to be able to go out and say

actually here's what we're doing. Here's

what we've achieved. You know, here are

the massive steps that we've taken

because actually they're they're a

little bit worried if we make these

claims and say like look, we've got this

x% reduction. Is somebody just then

going to slam them and say this is

greenwashing. It's not been backed up.

So by having the the work of those

international standards to sort of

benchmark everything and independent

assessment, what it allows people to do

is actually get that sort of that

feeling of like, you know, we are making

progress. We are we are reaching those

goals and we're and we should be

celebrating the work that we're doing

because it's it's a long journey we

we've got to go on. And I think if we if

we start losing momentum over the next

couple of years, it's going to be harder

to build it up. So I think the work that

you're doing is is fantastic and and

really important.

>> Likewise.