Tackling Scope 3 Without Supplier Engagement: Levers F&B Companies Can Pull Today

For food and beverage (F&B) companies, Scope 3 emissions represent the largest share of the footprint, often more than 80 percent. The majority sits in Category 1: Purchased Goods and Services, such as ingredients and packaging materials.

The common belief is that real reductions require complex supplier programs or farm-level engagement – which can often feel overwhelming. Those efforts are important, but they are not the only path. There are powerful levers that companies can begin pulling today using data and decisions already within their operations. These actions reduce emissions, cut costs, and build resilience while creating momentum for deeper supply chain engagement in the future.

CarbonOne is your trusted partner for carbon intelligence. Our next-generation platform combines audit-grade data with an intuitive design to help companies across food and beverage, agriculture, packaging, and consumer goods measure, report, and reduce their carbon footprint, including Scope 3 and Product Carbon Footprints, faster and more affordably than ever before. With one end-to-end solution, you can decarbonize every slice of the value chain from raw material to finished product. Whether at the company, product, or farm level, CarbonOne gives you results you can trust, support you can count on, and intelligence you can act on.

Here are seven key impact areas where companies can take practical, measurable action on Scope 3 decarbonization today.

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1. Food Loss and Waste: Turning Yield into Carbon Reductions

Food loss is Scope 3 hidden in plain sight. Every kilogram of waste avoided is one that does not need to be purchased again. Preventing waste reduces embodied emissions, improves efficiency, and protects margins.

Where to look first
Changeovers and start up scrap, overfill and portion control, and end of run tailing losses. Standardized pre start checks, recipe adjustments, and calibrated filling heads can make a noticeable difference.

Quick wins
Daily first pass quality huddles, weekly waste walks to identify recurring problems, and right sizing runs for volatile SKUs.

How to measure impact
CO₂e saved equals kilograms of ingredient avoided multiplied by emission factor per kilogram. Track yield percentage, kilograms of loss per thousand units, weekly dollar loss, and Category 1 CO₂e per tonne of finished goods.

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2. Packaging Waste: Buy Less by Wasting Less

Packaging is a visible and often overlooked driver of emissions. Scrap, rework, and inefficient packaging specs all add unnecessary carbon to your footprint and increase costs.

Where to look first
Case sizing, labeling consistency, and film threading or splice practices. Right sizing outers to improve pallet fill and standardizing labeling can quickly reduce waste.

Quick wins
Label verification before large runs, standardizing case footprints across lines, and adding reseal or evacuation features to cut downstream consumer waste.

How to measure impact
CO₂e saved equals kilograms of packaging avoided multiplied by packaging emission factor per kilogram. Track grams of packaging per unit, packaging scrap percentage, and CO₂e per thousand packs.

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3. Procurement by Origin: The Same Ingredient with a Different Footprint

The carbon intensity of the same commodity can vary significantly by region. Wheat, sugar, and oils, for example, may differ in emissions depending on yield, land use, and farming practices. By preferring lower intensity origins, companies can reduce emissions without changing specifications or suppliers.

Where to look first
High tonnage ingredients such as wheat, sugar, or oils. Building an origin matrix highlights the regions with lower average intensities. (Check out our Value Chain Optimizer for data and insights or contact us directly.)

Quick wins
Add preferred origin regions to buying specifications, build a Good, Better, Best origin list, and pilot with one ingredient this quarter.

How to measure impact
CO₂e saved equals kilograms of ingredients from new origin multiplied by reduction in emission factor per kilogram of ingredient. Track the percentage of spend switched to preferred regions.

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4. Lightweighting and Material Choices: Doing More with Less

Reducing material per pack and increasing recycled content directly lower Scope 3 Category 1 emissions. Many of these improvements are controlled through packaging specifications and design.

Where to look first
Films, liners, closures, and labels that can be downgauged or minimized. Evaluate opportunities to increase post consumer recycled content across packaging components.

Quick wins
Reduce label area or weight, use thinner liners and closures where performance allows, and introduce direct print or laser coding to reduce label waste. Increase PCR content in rPET, rHDPE, recycled fiber, or aluminum.

How to measure impact
CO₂e saved equals grams reduced per pack multiplied by annual packs and the material’s emission factor. Track grams per pack, PCR percentage, CO₂e per thousand packs, and confirm no unintended scrap is introduced.

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5. Reformulation for Impact

Small recipe changes can yield large reductions. Ingredients with high embodied carbon, such as cocoa, can often be partially substituted with lower-impact alternatives. Shelf life improvements also prevent downstream waste, which protects the carbon already embedded in products.

Where to look first
High-impact ingredients, high volume ingredients, and packaging improvements that extend shelf life.‍

Quick(ish) wins
Swap a portion of ingredients with high embodied carbon for lower-impact ingredients or sourcing to lower intensity regions.

How to measure impact
CO₂e saved equals kilograms of new ingredients or kilograms from new origin multiplied by reduction in emission factor per kilogram of ingredient. Or you can estimate changes using CarbonOne’s Value Chain Optimizer.

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6. Plan to Waste Less: Forecasting, Inventory, and SKU Discipline

Overproduction and write-offs are Scope 3 emissions that often go unnoticed. Better planning and SKU discipline reduce waste before it begins.

Where to look first
Volatile SKUs, short shelf life materials, and low velocity variants that create outsized scrap.

Quick wins
Tighten demand planning, shorten runs on volatile SKUs, and retire low-velocity SKUs. Rotate FEFO discipline to prioritize near-expiry materials.

How to measure impact
Track finished goods write-off rates, obsolete inventory percentage, and Category 1 CO₂e tied to write-offs.

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7. Beyond Category 1: Bonus Wins Within Your Control

Not all reductions come from purchased goods and services. Other categories offer smaller, but still valuable opportunities to show progress.

Where to look first
Operational waste, logistics, and business travel.

Quick wins
Divert organic waste to food rescue organizations, composting or anaerobic digestion. Consolidate shipments, optimize pallet efficiency, shift to lower carbon modes such as rail or boat, and encourage virtual meetings or rail over air for travel.

How to measure impact
Calculate avoided methane from diverted organics, measure CO₂e per shipment, and track changes in business travel or commuting policies.

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A 90 Day Roadmap

Meaningful change can begin within a single quarter.

In the first two weeks, focus on baselining. Select five SKUs that represent the largest share of ingredient spend. Build a simple dashboard for food loss and packaging scrap. Identify two packaging specs for lightweighting and build an origin matrix for one high tonnage ingredient.

From weeks three to six, pilot and prove. Run a changeover waste project on one line, trial downgauging or closure lightweighting on a single SKU, and shift 10 percent of purchase orders for your pilot ingredient to a preferred origin. Document savings in both cost and CO₂e.

From weeks seven to twelve, scale and lock. Expand successful practices to two additional lines or SKUs, finalize updated specifications, and set quarterly targets such as reducing packaging per unit by 10 percent, improving yield by one point, or sourcing half of a key ingredient from preferred regions. Create a playbook so these changes can be replicated across plants.

Signals of success include waste being discussed in every production meeting, procurement and engineering co-owning packaging metrics, category & procurement managers embedding origin preferences into buying rules, and R&D maintaining a reformulation backlog prioritized by carbon impact and margin.

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In Summary

Scope 3 reductions do not need to wait for complex supplier programs or farm-level engagement. By starting with the levers already within your control, from yield and packaging to procurement choices, formulations, and planning discipline, you can deliver measurable reductions that also lower costs and strengthen your business. These early wins build credibility internally and set the stage for broader collaboration with suppliers and growers.

CarbonOne provides trusted carbon intelligence for food and beverage companies. Our platform enables you to measure with audit-grade accuracy, report with confidence, and reduce with purpose at the company, product, and farm levels. Skip spreadsheets, consultants, and inflated costs. CarbonOne delivers results quickly, affordably, and at the precision your stakeholders demand.

Pick one SKU, one line, one material, and begin. You will see measurable results in weeks, not years. When you are ready, connect with us through our Contact Us form. Our team is here to help you put this playbook into practice and decarbonize your business with confidence.

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Tackling Scope 3 Without Supplier Engagement: Levers F&B Companies Can Pull Today

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