Podcast: Ensuring Scope 3 Project Credibility

As food companies move toward 2030 emission reduction targets, the pressure to ensure their Scope 3 projects stand up to rigorous scrutiny has never been higher.

Athian’s Chief Product Officer Kendra Tolley sat down with Ian Welsh, host of the Innovation Forum Podcast, recently to share tips for achieving reliable impact in times of uncertainty. Her insights provide a roadmap for navigating the complexities of data integrity, the financial logic and benefits of co-claiming and the path to scalability.

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Data Integrity

A sustainability claim is only as good as the data that supports it. Tolley emphasizes that before starting a new project, companies must first ask some crucial questions, such as: 

• What methodology is being used to measure impact?
• Who is validating that methodology?
• Where is data coming from and how do you ensure it’s credible?

“When we’re talking to anyone who is thinking about starting a project, we always want to confirm the scientific underpinning of the proposed sustainability practices,” Tolley says. 

By using streamlined, automated systems to pull data directly from the primary source, companies can mitigate the risk of incorrect reporting while protecting farmers from unfair liability burdens. This proactive approach ensures the sustainable assets created are defensible and accurate. 

“We never want to burden producers with liability they shouldn’t have to carry,” Tolley says. “We avoid that by having a strong contractual foundation that clearly spells out – especially for projects involving multiple partners across a supply chain – each party’s responsibility for data accuracy and verification.”

Credible Co-Claiming

Once a solid, trustworthy project infrastructure is in place, it opens up opportunities for supply chain partners to equitably share the financial burden and the resulting outcomes. 

Tolley provides an example: if a metric ton of carbon reduction on a farm costs $90, a single consumer packaged goods (CPG) company may not be able to shoulder the entire cost of the project. However, through a co-claiming framework, the cost can be distributed across the value chain. If a processor, a CPG and a retailer each contribute $30, for example, the financial barrier for each partner is lowered significantly.

For this to work without compromising integrity, several pieces of upfront framework are non-negotiable:

• A registry, which functions like a centralized database, is essential to tracking, tracing, and recording claims to prevent double counting.
• A clear process for verifying each supply chain partner is only accounting for the reductions that can be reasonably attributed to them based on the volumes purchased.
• A way to confirm claims are only made by those who provided the financial or operational incentive to support the sustainability activity. 

“With the right infrastructure and process in place, co-claiming helps supply chain players share the financial and operational responsibility for reductions,” says Tolley. “This vastly reduces the costs associated with achieving the reductions for each player while still allowing each to take appropriate credit.” 

For more information on co-claiming, see “Sharing the Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture.” 

Scalability

Many sustainability initiatives fail to move past the pilot phase because they are built on manual processes and systems like spreadsheets, emails and multiple custom contracts. 

“We saw early on that scalability was limited by projects being designed over and over again, every single time, as unique opportunities and pilots,” Tolley says. “We quickly identified the keys to moving from 10 farms to 100,000 farms were repeatable processes and tools enabled by advanced technology.” 

Examples of the places where Athian has streamlined the approach to starting and implementing a Scope 3 project include: 

• Standardized contracting templates that allow partners to fully collaborate while acknowledging complex IP and legal needs.
• Protocols that are designed to support efficient verification by employing methodologies that can be reliably deployed over and over again. 
• Automation applied to everything from consistent data collection to impact calculation and claim registration to help handle the massive amount of data and complexity necessary to support credible projects. 

“Pilots are important in the context of testing,” Tolley says. “Also, partnering with a company, like Athian, that has already done these types of projects before and has the necessary tools in place is a huge accelerator.”

Getting Started

A priority for Athian in 2026 is helping companies not only initiate credible, successful projects, but also integrate the results into their overall corporate accounting and reporting. This means translating on-farm activities into specific carbon intensity scores and emission factors that can be used directly in inventory reporting.

Sustainability projects require many resources and capital, and the more they scale, the more complex they become. To help minimize uncertainty and risk, Athian has built a list of 10 questions to ask before starting a Scope 3 project. Stay tuned for more resources like this blog and podcast focused on critical topics like methodology & verification, liability & risk and market integrity & supply chain designed to help ensure efficient, secure and credible projects. 

By focusing on the right questions, and having the automated infrastructure to answer them, we can move from fragmented projects to scalable impact. Reach out to us at info@athian.ag to get started.