Goods you buy from a contract manufacturer sit in Category 1 of Scope 3. iNova Pharmaceuticals, which supplies over 75 markets mainly through third-party manufacturers, found Scope 3 was 99% of its footprint.
Ask each contract manufacturer for a product footprint, or a site footprint with your allocation ratio. Activity data per batch is the fallback.
To split a shared site, the GHG Protocol prefers physical bases such as mass or units, and warns that price-based allocation can mislead for products priced on research costs.
Big buyers have set dates. Members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Health Systems Task Force want validated supplier targets by 2027 and product footprints for top products by 2028.
Scope 3 software for pharma does five different jobs. We group the tools by job. Terrascope wrote this page and puts itself first in its group.
A contract manufacturer's plant makes products for many customers. Its electricity, steam, solvents and waste are shared across all of them. To report the Scope 3 emissions of what it makes for you, you need your share of that plant and the evidence behind it.
The short answer to the software question: a carbon platform that collects and checks supplier data, plus a way to footprint the products a supplier cannot yet report. Supplier rating networks and spend-based screening tools help you decide which suppliers to ask first.
This guide covers the measurement first: what to ask for, how to split a shared site and what to use while you wait. Then it groups the software by job. Terrascope wrote this page and puts itself first in its group. We describe the other tools from their own websites.
Under the GHG Protocol, a product or intermediate bought from a contract manufacturer is Category 1, purchased goods and services. So are active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), excipients and packaging. Category 1 counts the cradle-to-gate emissions of what you bought: the supplier's energy and process emissions, and everything upstream of them.
For a company that outsources manufacturing, Category 1 can be most of the footprint. iNova Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Singapore, supplies over 75 markets mainly through third-party manufacturers. Its Scope 3 was 99% of its total footprint.
The GHG Protocol gives four methods for Category 1, from most to least specific: supplier-specific, hybrid, average-data and spend-based. Contract manufacturing suits the first two, because the supplier holds the data. Our guide to methods of calculating Scope 3 emissions covers all four.
[In-text graphic to come: one contract manufacturing site shared by four customers, its Scope 1 and 2 split by an allocation ratio, and your share flowing into your Category 1.]
The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) publishes a decarbonisation pathway for suppliers in four maturity levels. At level three, a supplier gives each member a Scope 1, 2 and 3 footprint in a ratio specific to that member's business or spend. At level four, it reports product footprints.
Buyers have put dates on it. In November 2025, members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Health Systems Task Force, including AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis, Roche and Sanofi, wrote to their suppliers. They asked for third-party validated science-based targets by 2027, product footprints for each supplier's top 10 products by 2028, and 80% renewable electricity by 2030.
Two programmes help suppliers act. Energize, run by Schneider Electric and endorsed by PSCI, helps suppliers buy renewable electricity and now has 26 pharma company members. Activate, run by Secaro (formerly Manufacture 2030), works with API supply chains.
Ask for one of three things, in this order of preference.
| Ask for | What the supplier sends | Method it supports |
|---|---|---|
| Product footprint | Cradle-to-gate emissions per unit, batch or kilogram for each product it makes for you | Supplier-specific |
| Site footprint | Scope 1, 2 and relevant Scope 3 for the site, plus the share of its output made for you (the allocation ratio) | Hybrid |
| Activity data | Energy, steam, solvents and materials used per batch of your product | Average-data, calculated by you |
Be specific in the request. Name the boundary (cradle-to-gate), the reporting year, the unit and the emission factor databases you accept. Ask whether a third party has verified the figure. If your own customers ask you for product footprints, request your suppliers' in the PACT format, so you can pass them on in the same format.
Response rates improve when the request is short and the supplier knows why you are asking. More on this in our guide to engaging suppliers on Scope 3 reductions.
A site footprint covers the whole plant, for all its customers. Chapter 8 of the GHG Protocol's Scope 3 Standard sets an order. Avoid allocation where you can, with a product footprint or sub-metered line data. If you must allocate, use a physical basis such as mass, volume or number of units. Fall back on economic allocation, by market value, when physical data is not available.
The economic route needs care in pharma. The Standard warns that price-based allocation can mislead when a product's price reflects research and development rather than production. PSCI's 2020 guidance accepts pro-rating a supplier's emissions by your spend as a shortcut. It is quick, but it carries the same price problem.
Two rules keep the number usable. Use one allocation basis per site, the same each year, or restate the base year when you change it. And record the basis per supplier: the Standard requires you to describe the allocation methods you used.
Watch for double counting. If you supply the API to the contract manufacturer yourself, that purchase is already in your Category 1. If the manufacturer's product footprint includes it too, take it out of one or the other.
Many contract manufacturers will have no product footprint in the first year. Three fallbacks, from the roughest to the closest:
Record which method you used for each supplier. When real data replaces an estimate, part of the change in the number is a change in method, and the report should say so. Our post on data transparency in Scope 3 reporting explains why.
The tools pharma companies use for supplier emissions do different jobs, and you may need more than one.
| Job | Tools | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier data platform | Terrascope, CO2 AI, IBM Envizi, Watershed, Persefoni | Collects, checks and calculates supplier data inside your Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory |
| Supplier ratings | EcoVadis | Ratings and supplier-reported emissions from a large existing network |
| Product footprints | Sphera, Makersite, SAP | Cradle-to-gate product footprints and footprint exchange with suppliers |
| Spend screening | Fair Supply | Hotspots from spend data, before any supplier contact |
| Supply operations | Veratrak | Operational links to contract manufacturers and logistics providers |
Terrascope. Best for: pharma and consumer health companies that make products through contract manufacturers and want supplier data inside an audit-ready inventory.
Terrascope runs supplier campaigns from the platform. You segment suppliers by emissions impact, spend and maturity, then start a campaign from a template matched to the supplier's industry. Each supplier gets a guided workflow to submit a site footprint with an allocation ratio, or a product footprint or LCA result. Submissions become supplier-specific emission factors.
Validation runs at submission. The platform flags missing values, outliers and inconsistencies, and keeps each figure traceable for the auditor. Task statuses show which suppliers have replied. WBCSD lists Terrascope as conformant with PACT Version 3 for exchanging product footprints.
For suppliers that send nothing, Terrascope estimates cradle-to-gate product footprints from the bill of materials, process and packaging, in line with ISO 14067. Ernst & Young has assured the methodology, and climate and carbon specialists are part of the subscription.
CO2 AI. Its Supplier Engagement Hub lets suppliers submit primary emissions data, product footprints and LCAs without a licence or cost. Its product footprint exchange is free for clients and suppliers, and WBCSD lists it as PACT conformant at Version 3. CO2 AI's pharmaceuticals page covers API and raw material supply chains.
IBM Envizi. Supply Chain Intelligence collects corporate emissions, product footprints and targets from suppliers through a central portal, for Scope 3 Categories 1 and 2. IBM says it applies the best available method to each line, from spend-based to supplier-specific. Astellas Pharma is an Envizi customer.
Watershed. Its supply chain module sends data requests, targets and reduction plans to suppliers through a guided portal. A March 2026 partnership with EcoVadis brings in emissions reported by suppliers in the EcoVadis network.
Persefoni. It gives suppliers Persefoni Pro at no cost, so a contract manufacturer without a footprint can measure one.
EcoVadis is a sustainability ratings network, and says more than 150,000 companies are rated. Several large CDMOs publish their EcoVadis medals. Its Carbon Action Manager collects supplier-specific emissions, and its Carbon Data Network passes that data to partner platforms, including Watershed, Sweep, Normative and CO2 AI.
EcoVadis also runs the Responsible Health Initiative, launched by GSK, Teva and Takeda in 2019. AstraZeneca requires an EcoVadis assessment from suppliers it spends more than USD 250,000 a year with, and asks them to complete the Carbon Module.
Sphera. Its Supplier PCF Calculator lets a supplier enter its bill of materials and get a cradle-to-gate footprint, built on Sphera's LCA databases. Sphera describes it as complimentary. Sphera also sells the LCA software formerly known as GaBi, for detailed product studies.
Makersite. It builds product footprints from bill of materials, ERP and PLM data. In 2026 it bought Siemens' SiGREEN, now called Mattermaps, which runs the product footprint exchange of Together for Sustainability, a chemical industry initiative. WBCSD lists Mattermaps as PACT conformant at Version 3. That is useful where APIs and solvents come from chemical companies.
SAP. SAP Sustainability Footprint Management calculates product footprints inside SAP and, SAP says, can set up allocation schemes for shared production. SAP Sustainability Data Exchange collects supplier footprints and exchanges them with Catena-X and PACT.
Fair Supply, based in Sydney, models emissions from supplier names and spend using input-output data, up to 10 tiers deep. Its pharmaceutical page covers chemical producers, API makers, contract manufacturers, packaging and cold chain logistics. Fair Supply notes that the method relies on industry-average factors. Use it to find hotspots and decide which suppliers to ask first.
Veratrak, from Altrincham in the UK, is a supply operations platform built for life sciences. It connects to contract manufacturers, logistics providers and suppliers for stock, order and shipment data. It is an operations tool rather than a carbon calculator. In 2023 it announced a Lune integration to calculate shipping emissions.
iNova sells more than 1,100 SKUs, mainly made by third-party manufacturers. Its spend-based estimates gave high-level numbers with no view by product or supplier. It also faced packaging reporting rules that differed by market.
Terrascope measured iNova's FY'23 Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, matching activity data to over 50,000 emission factors across more than 700 SKUs. Scope 3 came to 99% of the total, with packaging and specific shipments among the major drivers. Terrascope modelled the cost and benefit of each reduction lever. With partner Ricardo PLC, it also prepared EPR packaging data for Singapore, Vietnam and Australia.
For its FY'24 cycle, iNova is working with a prioritised group of suppliers. Paul Smith, Chief Operations Officer, said Terrascope "made it easy for our team to understand our emissions footprint".
Related reading: The best carbon accounting platforms for pharmaceutical companies · Engaging suppliers on Scope 3 reductions · Three steps to start supplier engagement · Terrascope for pharmaceuticals · iNova case study