Larger corporations that need to compile the data from SMEs and other suppliers for scope 3 emissions reporting using ESGpedia will be charged a fee.
“Those data points from the suppliers come into one common data set, and [are converted] into a standard, general ESG report,” Soh said. “We have to be able to cover multiple jurisdictions in the same platform.”
Founded in 2019, Stacs has more than 5 million sustainability data points, over 700,000 certifications and credentials covering around 150,000 companies, including nearly 110,000 SMEs in the ESGpedia platform.
“These listed companies suddenly have to deal with regulations [in the next two years],” he said. “It’s not just them, it’s also their direct suppliers who may or may not be listed.
“You cannot expect a consultant to handle it one by one in the next two years. We need scalable, reliable, tech-enabled solutions for this to really happen, and therefore the industry has to be compliant.”
Stacs has also partnered with banks to provide green financial products. In November 2022, HSBC Indonesia utilised ESGpedia to facilitate the issuance of green loans to the Citadines Berawa Beach Bali hotel in Indonesia.
“Decarbonising the value chain is a significant undertaking, and many companies are often unsure of what targets are realistic and achievable,” said Frederic Godemel, executive vice-president of power systems and services at Schneider Electric. “Additionally, there is a lack of control and visibility over scope 3, with suppliers often geographically and organisationally disparate in hard-to-abate industries.”
SMEs often lack the knowledge and tools required to establish climate targets, measure impacts such as carbon emissions, and benchmark and disclose progress, Godemel added.
ESG consulting firm Downundered is also aiming to help firms make their supply chains more sustainable.
Founded in 2023 by two partners, one from a supply chain and operations background in France and the other from strategic marketing in China, the start-up has a vision to make all companies carbon neutral and for their business model to be sustainable.
“Asia and China are leaders in manufacturing, and represent a lot of companies [that need] to be decarbonised,” Emmanuel Delplanque, co-founder of Downundered, said on the sidelines of the So French So Innovative event in Hong Kong last month. “On the other side, Europe and France in particular has developed a lot of efficient methodologies to assess a company and reduce the footprint.”
Downundered first measures the companies’ greenhouse-gas emissions to identify areas where emissions can be reduced, then helps firms upgrade their supply chain to reduce scope 3 emissions.
Downundered’s current customers include French engineering service provider Votat and transport firm PKM Logistics. The start-up’s next phase of expansion will be to help cut the emissions of firms in the fashion and fast-moving consumer goods industries in China and Asia-Pacific.
“We want to expand the activity in China,” Delplanque said. “We will focus on the Chinese market from August, to develop activities in Shanghai in particular and Asia-Pacific more largely.”