Materials and supplier-based carbon assessments are the most auditable and generally estimate the lowest emissions.
Government regulators such as ASIC accept 3 methods of scope 3 embodied carbon reporting – from least to most accurate and auditable:
Spend-based
Input/Output based
Materials and Supplier-Specific Based
Spend-based assessments may be easiest but they gives the highest baseline assessment. They can also cause major headaches when it’s time for an audit.
Matrak tracks each individual product through your global supply chain, even when your products pass through many companies. This gives you the highest level of auditability, and ensures you avoid punitively high benchmarks applied for the less accurate estimate approaches.
Your steel supplier doesn’t have EPDs for the products they bought? No problem.
Matrak is analyses the existing purchase orders and delivery receipts used by your supply chain, to create a granular, auditable, traceable bill of quantities (BOQs) with real embodied carbon assessments.
Our global carbon tracking partnerships with major assessment groups like CBME, NABERS help fill information gaps to create the most accurate reports available.
Matrak’s comprehensive tracking across major global manufacturing hubs provides visibility of even the most opaque layers of supplier networks. You get access to real-time, carbon assessments from the source with no extra cost or effort.
Matrak is more than a carbon reporting tool. It’s a comprehensive supply chain optimisation platform.
It knows the exact movement of materials through your supply chain, including the volumes produced, shipped, installed and inspected for quality.
This allows your suppliers and subcontractors to visualise throughput, completion, and areas of risk quickly. It simplifies subcontractor payment through the transparency of complete work, better quality reporting, and improved warehouse management.
So yes, you’ll meet your compliance requirements, but your team (and vendors) will also love that you’ve made their day-to-day work easy!
Matrak uses data sources from major Australian and Chinese carbon assessment organisations, including Green Building Council of Australia, China Building Materials Federation, NABERS, EC3 and CBME.
That means you’re always getting the most up-to-date, comprehensive data. Give your organisation a distinct competitive advantage by lowering baseline estimates, improving reputation and minimising reporting admin.
Richard Ley
Director of Procurement at BlueScope Building North America
At BlueScope Buildings, we choose to partner with suppliers that are actively setting targets and goals to reduce their carbon footprint. We want to know the whole story of the parts and products we receive.
FAQs
How do you calculate accurate Scope 3 emissions?
Matrak uniquely tracks the specific items – including weights and dimensions – of products heading to your job site. We create a materials passport that follows the product. This connects manufacturers overseas all the way through to builders and developers. We use product specification data, combined with carbon assessments including EPDs, LCAs, PHD, GreenRate and more, to calculate embodied carbon. Where supplier-specific emissions stats are unavailable, we use industry standard ratings tools such as EC3 or NABERS.
What if my suppliers don’t want to share this info?
We get it – coordinating suppliers is hard. That’s why Matrak AI calculates this data automatically based on the documents already sent between you and your suppliers. Purchase orders, packing lists, delivery dockets, progress claims – you name it. Matrak can analyse this data to know exactly what materials are coming from where and automatically calculate emissions. Your supply chain doesn’t even need to know Matrak is being used and you can still unlock the highest auditable carbon accounting.
Our accountant provides Scope 3 carbon estimates. How does this differ?
Industry regulatory bodies such as ASIC provide different methods for calculating emissions. These range from the least auditable and most punitive (spend-based assessments), to the highest auditable and lowest carbon estimates (supplier and materials-based). By using supplier EPDs or other carbon certifications, Matrak provides much lower carbon estimates than industry benchmarks while making your records more auditable. We can prove exactly which products were used on your jobs, who shipped them, and what their embodied carbon is. This is data you can take to court! Matrak creates digital signatures at every stage of a material’s life cycle for a true materials passport.
I work with subcontractors who buy products from other suppliers. How can I access the embodied carbon data?
Matrak AI gives your suppliers the tools to either upload their own purchase orders/shipping dockets from their suppliers – instantly calculating BOQs, materials and embodied carbon – or they can invite their downstream suppliers to capture the data. This process can continue indefinitely – suppliers inviting their suppliers, until we hit the layer with the EPDs or LCAs that allow accurate carbon assessment. It may sound complex but Matrak makes it simple. We also provide sample contract text that you can use to ensure your suppliers – and their suppliers – are providing the data you need. Lastly, through our partnership in major manufacturing hubs like China, we can unique access the live production data you need to hit your compliance requirements.
What does this mean for materials circularity and reuse?
What an excellent question, you’re obviously on the ball! Matrak keeps materials data in perpetuity so downstream asset owners know exactly what went into their building, unlocking reuse and recycling. This can be facilitated either through Matrak access or the physical & permanent QR code stickers on the products themselves. This isn’t future state – Matrak’s material passports have already enabled reuse of structural steel for over 100 projects globally through our network.
