Can the implications of the GHG Protocol's scope 3 standard be realized?

The GHG Protocol has become the standard for corporate reporting of greenhouse gases, adopted by governments for regulations, NGOs for accountability and corporations for compliance. The GHG Protocol's scope 1 and 2 have largely succeeded in gaining compliance from large firms to report their internal GHG emissions and those from electricity purchases. Achieving Scope 3's intent of a full audit of value chain emissions GHG, however, is a much more complicated affair and according to the CDP, scope 3 is much less successful. This lack of success challenges the premise and purpose of the standard, especially, the expectation that the power of MNCs can be used to leverage reporting and reductions through the value chain. This paper constructs a heuristic framework to explain why success has been limited. The paper discusses six interdependent factors that inhibit scope 3's ambition of promoting the measurement and management of GHG emissions throughout the value chain. These factors are transaction costs, power, responsibility allocation, uncertainty, location contingency and production costs. The impact of these factors on likelihood of compliance to the scope 3 are revealed by an examination of what the sustainable supply chain management, the supply chain management and other literature tell us about value chain interactions on environmental performance. The weight of these factors cast doubt on scope 3's ambition to compel firms to report a full audit of their scope 3 emissions. Moreover, the pursuit of that ambition diverts corporate efforts from more efficient and effective environmental efforts. The paper concludes with a discussion of options for harnessing the power of the lifecycle approach to reforming the value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]