IWFM-supported SFMI Scope 3 tool enters final stage of development

News

Work has commenced on the second stage of the Sustainable Facilities Management Index’s (SFMI) project to develop a tool for managing Scope 3 carbon emissions, thus moving the workplace and facilities management profession another step closer to being at the heart of the built environment’s decarbonisation pathway.

IWFM, which has played a key role in supporting the tool’s development, forms part of a project board that aims to ensure the tool is fit for purpose and receives industry acceptance upon its expected release in summer 2023.

Over the coming months, stage two of the project will build on the Scope 3 Framework created in stage one to develop a solution for collecting, aggregating, and analysing complex Scope 3 data. Once this is complete, SFMI expects to deliver a stress-tested industry framework - with accompanying data collection and aggregation tools - that has been applied in the real world for the measurement and reporting of Scope 3 emissions in FM.

Building operations account for up to 27% of total global emissions each year; meanwhile, climate change is increasingly having an effect on building profile and subsequent management, putting added pressure on facilities management companies and teams.

Sofie Hooper, Head of Policy at IWFM, commented: ‘Our members are critical to the decarbonisation of the built environment in the operation phase, but the lack of an industry-wide Scope 3 Framework has been a major barrier to driving down carbon emissions. SFMI’s Scope 3 Framework tool is therefore much needed; not just to help carbon reductions, but also to show to the world, through the data collected, the importance of the operation phase and its considerable impact on climate change.’

What are Scope 3 emissions?

While Scope 1 is direct emissions from resources a company owns and controls and Scope 2 is indirect emissions from energy purchased from a supplier, Scope 3 is all other indirect emissions created by a company’s supply chain, whether it’s upstream or downstream.