Sidebar: Net Zero Has Failed. We Need a Universal Carbon Standard for Buildings.
Why We Need Scopes 2 and 3
Some people point out that all scope 3 emissions are someone else’s scope 1 or 2.
That’s true! The whole point of the various scopes is to allow multiple entities to claim responsibility for reducing those emissions. Even though the electricity I might reduce in my facility is really a power plant’s scope 1 emissions, I can drive those reductions downward through my efforts.
Similarly, if a car company produces electric vehicles instead of ICEs, then its scope 3 emissions will reduce, even though it’s really a given car driver’s scope 1 that is reduced.
The idea that a company doesn’t control Scope 3 either isn’t true or doesn’t matter.
The Federal CAFE standards are a great example of placing the responsibility for a product in the hands of the producers. So accounting for and disclosing scope 3 emissions is a way to get us all working on the same problem from a number of different and mutually supporting angles.
