Jan 12, 2026 07:32 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 12, 2026 10:21 PM by C C.)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1112349
INTRO: A new Stanford-led analysis of corporate carbon disclosures finds companies undercount emissions from their supply chains by billions of tons.
The shortfall arises from use of a popular statistical model that assumes all suppliers are located in the United States. “Supply chains are global, though, so a model that assumes everything is made domestically is going to give us a wrong answer,” said Steve Davis, a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and lead author of the Dec. 20 study in Nature Communications.
Davis and co-authors set out to find out how far off estimates are under the common approach compared to results from an alternative model that considers emissions data from the regions where suppliers actually operate. They found the widely used single-region U.S. model, maintained until recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, missed about 2 billion tons, or 10% of emissions tied to more than 400 companies’ supply chains in 2023. That’s roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Russia or India.
The additional 2023 emissions included approximately 973 million tons of emissions attributed to suppliers in China, which relies heavily on coal. The biggest gaps emerged in energy-intensive manufacturing sectors such as steel and concrete, construction machinery, fabricated metals used for cars and infrastructure, and electronic components.
Companies relying on estimates from single-region U.S. models may overlook the emissions impact of importing energy-intensive manufactured goods from China and Russia, according to the study. They may also miss opportunities to reduce emissions and associated costs by sourcing those goods from countries with cleaner grids, such as the U.S., France, and Brazil.
At the start of 2026, as an expanded carbon border tariff takes effect in Europe, the cost of upstream emissions is increasing for EU importers of manufactured goods, including steel, aluminum, and cement. “A company that’s interested in reducing the emissions in their supply chain needs to know not just how big the number is, but also where these emissions are coming from,” Davis said... (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: A new Stanford-led analysis of corporate carbon disclosures finds companies undercount emissions from their supply chains by billions of tons.
The shortfall arises from use of a popular statistical model that assumes all suppliers are located in the United States. “Supply chains are global, though, so a model that assumes everything is made domestically is going to give us a wrong answer,” said Steve Davis, a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and lead author of the Dec. 20 study in Nature Communications.
Davis and co-authors set out to find out how far off estimates are under the common approach compared to results from an alternative model that considers emissions data from the regions where suppliers actually operate. They found the widely used single-region U.S. model, maintained until recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, missed about 2 billion tons, or 10% of emissions tied to more than 400 companies’ supply chains in 2023. That’s roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Russia or India.
The additional 2023 emissions included approximately 973 million tons of emissions attributed to suppliers in China, which relies heavily on coal. The biggest gaps emerged in energy-intensive manufacturing sectors such as steel and concrete, construction machinery, fabricated metals used for cars and infrastructure, and electronic components.
Companies relying on estimates from single-region U.S. models may overlook the emissions impact of importing energy-intensive manufactured goods from China and Russia, according to the study. They may also miss opportunities to reduce emissions and associated costs by sourcing those goods from countries with cleaner grids, such as the U.S., France, and Brazil.
At the start of 2026, as an expanded carbon border tariff takes effect in Europe, the cost of upstream emissions is increasing for EU importers of manufactured goods, including steel, aluminum, and cement. “A company that’s interested in reducing the emissions in their supply chain needs to know not just how big the number is, but also where these emissions are coming from,” Davis said... (MORE - details, no ads)