173 The who, what, and why of Scope 3: The corporate animal agriculture sustainability journey

Abstract The drive for companies to reduce emissions from their Scope 3 inventories, particularly from livestock production, is relatively well known within the academic community. What is less well known are the pressure origins of the Scope 3 reductions and the process companies undergo to ensure greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions can come to fruition. Principally, before a reduction can be recognized GHG inventories must first be established. For these inventories to be recognized by the financial institutions, companies are required to follow rigorous reporting standards. Although these standards are vital to help ensure accounting accuracy, they have also revealed many tribulations animal agricultural faces in meeting Scope 3 reduction goals. These obstacles include limited traceability in supply chains, lack of consensus on empirical data collection, and the inability to recognize real time industry progress when using lagging emission factors. These obstacles are not insurmountable but there does need to be an academic and industry consensus on how reductions and removals can be evaluated within supply chains. Once this gap is alleviated companies have a greater opportunity to enact scalable, cost effective GHG removal and reduction strategies within their value chains.