Fair Supply launches a new Integrated Assessment Engine. The supply chain visibility the IAE provides is peerless. Here we provide an introduction to how the IAE works. Fair Supply operates its own proprietary integrated assessment engine (IAE) to calculate, evaluate, and assess the upstream and downstream supply chain impacts that are linked to our clients' business activities. Within the IAE, different modules work together to deliver a full overview of the supply chain impacts for clients. While harmonised to flawlessly link into one another, each module has its own specific role within the IAE and the client data assessment process. The modules each contain data sets in combination with a suite of mathematical tools to extract information from the data sets that are relevant to the clients supply chain impacts.
The IAE's role is to support the entire data processing tasks from the point where client data is received by Fair Supply up to the point of final data delivery. At the core of the IAE sits a flexible global supply chain module that complements client-supplied data to complete a full set of upstream- and downstream supply chains. Often, companies only have visibility over the direct suppliers and customers. These are referred to as tier-1 suppliers (upstream) and tier-1 customers (downstream). In some instances, in-depth ESG assessments have already been carried out by clients.
However, frameworks aimed at the reporting of supply chain impacts require visibility way beyond tier 1 for both upstream and downstream impacts. The IAE's supply chain module firstly accepts all supplier or customer assessments that our clients may have already undertaken, and completes the missing layers of the clients' supply chains to deliver full upstream and downstream visibility of the supply chains. While special focus is placed on the first 10 tiers of the supply chains, the IAE internally assesses the supply chains of our clients way beyond tier 10 and without a system boundary.
Human rights and environmental footprinting
Once a full picture of the supply chains is obtained, the different impact modules (GHG emissions, modern slavery, biodiversity, etc.) overlay the economic activity within the supply chains with the subsequent impacts. Using this approach, intuitively unrelated impacts classes such as modern slavery and GHG emissions are assessed using the same approach. This allows for a unified reporting approach and synchronised mitigation efforts.
Once this numerical assessment is complete, different modules post-process the results to align the outcomes of the assessment with different reporting guidelines. For example, the TCFD protocol requires carbon emissions to be reported according to specific classes of emissions which are often aligned with emissions-intensive industries, whereas the modern slavery legislation requires supply-chain reporting that focus on particularly slavery-prone sectors.
In total, the IAE is capable of assessing approx. 40 billion supply chains represented in more than 1.8 billion monetary transaction values and price-layering information. It draws information from more than 200 economic source data sets, offers impact data for GHG emissions, biodiversity, modern slavery, land and water usage, for 200 industry sectors in more than 200 countries, and utilises state-of-the-art methods to assess the supply chain impacts in order to offer a full visibility of supply chain impacts.
What does that mean for our clients?
Here are a clutch of (non-exhaustive) ways your experience is improved:
Greater customisation and integration of your existing supply chain data.
- Improved hybrid approach that allows company specific supply chains to be mapped beyond tier 1.
- The IAE learns too. As each new supplier is screened, the data is integrated into the IAE, so the engine becomes smarter and smarter with each use.
- Customised API options are available.
Bigger indicator suite including biodiversity.
- Bigger indicator suite: world’s first modern slavery footprinting (patent pending), world’s first species extinction risk footprinting and, world’s first integrated assessment for automated Scope 3 carbon footprinting. We can also footprint your supply chain’s land and water usage.
- Full Task Force for Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) reporting capabilities.
Deeper GHG emissions assessment and reporting.
- Scope 1 and 2 assessments can be examined using two pathways:
- Using processed-based data from physical energy information. For example: diesel consumed, gas burned and electricity purchased.
- If physical energy data is unavailable, we offer scope 1 and 2 assessments based on statistical data.
- Full Scope 1, 2, and 3 assessments for each individual supplier, allowing you to assess the high-level emissions exposure structure of each of your suppliers up to tier 10.
- GHG assessments are now prepared in line with the current GHG reporting frameworks (GHG protocol, TCFD protocol, etc) and are available for suppliers (standard), as well as investments in line with the PCAF guidelines.
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