Scope 4 and avoided emissions, kept honest
Scope 4 is an appealing story. It counts the emissions someone else avoided because they used your product. Told carefully it has a place. Used as a substitute for real reduction it does damage.
What Scope 4 is
Scope 4 stands for avoided emissions, the output another party does not produce because they use your product or service. It sits next to scopes 1, 2 and 3, not inside them. It is a separate claim about impact beyond your own footprint.
Why we stay critical
The story is attractive and the assumption is stretchable. Without strict reasoning it quickly becomes a way to delay real reduction. We help you keep the claim honest, apart from your own footprint, and never as a replacement for cutting your emissions. See also double materiality.
This sits under the theme Demonstrate
Our Embedding Framework is a wheel of thirteen themes and fifty-eight practices that together decide how deeply sustainability is anchored in an organisation. Making a credible, evidenced claim about your impact sits under the theme Demonstrate: showing results without overclaiming. Scope 4 lives or dies on the quality of that evidence.
Want to see where your organisation stands on Demonstrate, and on the other twelve themes, take the Embedding Scan. Forty minutes, thirteen themes, a structured read of your culture.
Frequently asked questions
What is Scope 4?
Is it allowed to report avoided emissions?
Why are you critical of it?
Ready to make the claim stand up
Leave your details and we will get back within 24 hours. No pitch. A clear conversation about your Scope 4 claim and how to keep it honest.