Bridging carbon data’s organizational boundaries: toward automated data sharing in sustainable supply chains

The accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is seen as an essential element to mitigate global climate change. Robust "carbon accounting" (CA) is supposed to enable the quantification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and identification of reduction potential, thereby enabling CO2-adaptive decision-making for various stakeholders, including organizations and end-users. In this regard, digital technologies can not only improve the efficiency and accuracy of CA in various ways, but also support the effective sharing of carbon data along supply chains. However, the current use of digital technologies in CA practices is often limited to an intra-organizational perspective. Extending the application of digital technologies for automated data sharing beyond organizational boundaries appears promising for addressing supply chain emissions accounting and potentially closing today’s huge Scope 3 emissions accounting gap. This is especially relevant since upstream Scope 3 emissions can cause up to 80% of the total GHG emissions for most manufacturing industries. Furthermore, automated data sharing beyond organizational boundaries can provide the necessary foundation for fostering automation in supply chain management based on sustainability metrics. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive framework for automated data sharing in supply chains to support CA within and beyond organizations’ boundaries. Our findings suggest that the use of a combination of digital technologies can not only strengthen CA practices within organizations and their supply chain, but also foster the development of digital supply chain ecosystems, allowing automated sharing of data for a plethora of use cases.