Understanding your value chain emissions – measuring your impact as a professional services provider

Senior climate change and energy policy and engagement lead Chloë Fiddy highlights a couple of recent updates on frameworks and processes for professional services providers to understand the impact of their serviced emissions.  

It can be difficult for companies in the professional services sector to get to grips with their emissions beyond the most obvious efforts such as reducing business travel keeping IT equipment in use for longer. Approaches to measure the impacts of their value chains has often involved almost a re-invention of the wheel for the people doing the carbon reporting, as they look at how to go about measuring boundaries and wondering what detail to include.  

Two steps forward have been made which should make this easier for professional service providers (whether organisations/departments/individuals) that sell a service based on expertise in a specific field, rather than a physical product. This includes consultants, PR and advertising firms, lawyers, and so on. Serviced (or Advised or Advertised) emissions are those from client activities that are enabled by the professional service provider.  

The Race to Zero Climate Champions have released a new report: Catalysing climate action: The role of professional service providers in realizing a net zero future which sets out what a professional services organisation can be doing, in a 15-page paper with clearly outlined steps, accompanied by case studies. 

Pledge to Net Zero (of which IEMA is a co-founding member) has published a consultation paper on Estimating the greenhouse gas impact of advice and designs: Practical approaches for the environment and engineering sectors. This is slightly more detailed, being sector-specific. It sets out three methods for environment and engineering sector firms to estimate the greenhouse gas impact of their work, each with different levels of details and purposes. A link is provided at the end of the consultation, and we’re encouraging IEMA members to send their responses by March 2025.  

In collaboration with Tessa Ferry at the Race to Zero Climate Champions and David Symons FIEMA on behalf of Pledge to Net Zero, IEMA recently held a webinar bringing these guidance papers to life and answering questions from attendees. The link to watch again is here.


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Chloë Fiddy

Senior Policy and Engagement Lead

Chloë is the Senior Policy and Engagement Lead for Climate Change and Energy at IEMA. Within this remit she works on projects relating to greenhouse gas reporting and transition planning and reporting, as well as adaptation. She is particularly interested in finding practical solutions and approaches which lead to standardised, replicable and trustworthy reporting, so that decision-makers have better data to work with. Previously Chloë has worked at senior levels in the manufacturing and retail sectors, and in climate and sustainable development planning roles in the public sector. Her prior business experience and her understanding of the way that the public sector functions inform her approach to climate change and energy and social sustainability policy and engagement at IEMA. She is a Trustee on the board of Uttlesford Citizens Advice and a District Councillor and is active in her community. In her spare time she enjoys live music and cooking for family and friends.