Most businesses know they need to reduce their carbon emissions.
What’s not always clear is where those emissions actually come from, or what to focus on first.
With more organisations being asked to share carbon data by clients, suppliers, and as part of tenders, understanding your carbon footprint is quickly becoming part of everyday business. In fact, according to our 2025 UK Net Zero Business Census, 51% of large organisations have already been asked for their carbon footprint data.
The first step is getting a clear view of your impact.
What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions a business is responsible for. In simple terms, it’s one way of understanding the environmental impact of how a business operates.
For most organisations, their carbon footprint includes everything from energy use and fuel consumption to supply chain activity, travel, and waste. Looking at these emissions together gives a clearer picture of where they come from and where to focus.
What makes up a business carbon footprint?
A business carbon footprint is usually broken down into three categories:
Scope 1: Direct emissions
Scope 1 covers emissions from sources that a company creates directly, for example from burning fuel in gas boilers or in company-owned vehicles.
Scope 2: Indirect emissions
Scope 2 is emissions a company creates indirectly, associated with the energy it purchases, for example from electricity.
Scope 3: Value chain emissions
All other indirect emissions across your value chain fall into Scope 3. This is often 70-90% of your total carbon footprint, and covers emissions not produced by the company itself, but by those within a company’s value chain. This can look like the procurement of goods and services, employee commuting, and investment assets, among other things.
Looking at all three scopes together gives a clearer starting point for carbon reduction and helps identify where the biggest opportunities sit.
Why understanding your carbon footprint matters
Having a clear view of your carbon footprint makes it easier to make informed decisions and respond to what’s increasingly being asked of businesses.
Meeting client and supply chain requirements
Carbon data is becoming a standard part of procurement, particularly as larger organisations look to reduce emissions across their supply chains.
Keeping up with regulation
Reporting expectations are continuing to evolve, and having credible, well-structured data puts businesses in a stronger position to respond.
Improving efficiency and reducing costs
Many carbon reduction opportunities are closely linked to energy use, meaning there are often practical ways to reduce emissions while improving efficiency.
Strengthening your position in the market
Being able to show clear, measurable progress builds trust and can support stronger commercial outcomes.
How businesses can reduce their carbon footprint
Reducing emissions becomes much easier once there’s a clear understanding of where they come from.
Start with measurement
Establishing a baseline across Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions gives you a clear starting point and helps focus efforts where they’ll have the most impact.
Improve energy use
Optimising systems, upgrading equipment, and reducing waste can lower emissions while improving efficiency.
Switch to renewable energy
Moving to renewable electricity is one of the more immediate ways to reduce emissions linked to energy use.
Work with your supply chain
Engaging suppliers helps tackle emissions beyond direct operations and can lead to more meaningful reductions over time.
Involve your teams
Embedding sustainability into day-to-day behaviours, from travel choices to energy use, helps make change stick.
For businesses looking for a more structured way to approach this, our Net Zero Certification Programme supports measuring, reducing, and tracking emissions over time.
Where businesses should start with carbon reduction
A lot of businesses start taking action before they’ve got a full picture of their emissions.
Taking the time to measure properly, across all relevant areas including Scope 3, makes it much easier to focus on what will actually make a difference.
Carbon reduction tends to work best when it becomes part of how a business runs day to day, with progress tracked and built on over time.
You can see how other organisations are approaching this in our case studies, where businesses are already putting carbon reduction into practice.
How to turn your carbon footprint into action
Once there’s a clear understanding of where emissions come from, the next step is turning that insight into practical action.
This is often where having the right structure and support makes things much easier.
At Planet Mark, we work with organisations to measure their carbon footprint across Scope 1, 2, and relevant Scope 3 categories, using a methodology aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG). Data is reviewed against supporting evidence, helping businesses build confidence in their reporting and identify practical opportunities to reduce emissions.
The goal is to make carbon reduction a clear, manageable part of how the business runs day to day, with progress that builds year on year.
Taking the first steps towards reducing emissions
Understanding your carbon footprint is where everything begins.
If you’re looking to measure your emissions, understand where they come from, and start reducing them in a practical way, Planet Mark can support you at every stage.
You can book a free carbon clinic with our team to get a clear view of where you are today and the steps you can take next.
