Tuna traceability reduces the burden of Scope 3 emissions reporting by providing verified, batch-level supply chain data that companies can use directly in their emissions calculations. Instead of relying on industry averages or supplier estimates, a digital traceability platform captures real activity data—fishing trips, vessel routes, transshipment events, and logistics steps—that closely maps to the emission sources companies are required to report under Scope 3 frameworks.
Estimating Scope 3 emissions without supply chain data is eroding your reporting credibility
When tuna companies report Scope 3 emissions using generic emissions factors or regional averages, they are essentially guessing. Auditors, investors, and regulators increasingly recognize the difference between estimated and verified data. If your upstream emissions figures cannot be tied to specific fishing trips, vessel types, gear methods, or logistics routes, your sustainability disclosures carry less weight—and in some jurisdictions, may not satisfy regulatory requirements. The fix is straightforward: collect the supply chain activity data that emissions calculations actually require, rather than retrofitting estimates after the fact.
Scattered, manual supply chain documentation is holding back accurate emissions accounting
Most tuna supply chains still rely on fragmented paper records, disconnected spreadsheets, and documentation that arrives late or incomplete. When calculating Scope 3 emissions, finance and sustainability teams often spend weeks chasing vessel logs, transport records, and processing certificates from multiple suppliers. That manual process introduces errors and makes year-on-year comparisons unreliable. Digital, batch-level traceability replaces that reactive scramble with structured data that is already organized and audit-ready when reporting season arrives.
What is Scope 3 emissions reporting in the seafood supply chain?
Scope 3 emissions reporting refers to the measurement and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions occurring outside a company’s direct operations—specifically those generated by upstream suppliers such as fishing vessels, transshipment carriers, processing facilities, and logistics providers. For tuna brands and retailers, this typically includes fuel use at sea, cold-chain transport, and processing energy.
Under the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain Standard, the most material upstream categories for a tuna brand often include purchased goods and services (Category 1), transportation and distribution (Category 4), and processing of sold products (Category 10). Seafood supply chains are particularly complex because the fishing trip itself is often the most emissions-intensive stage and the hardest to document—catch may be transshipped at sea, and the chain of custody passes through multiple hands before reaching a processor.
Why is Scope 3 emissions reporting so difficult for tuna companies?
The core problem is that emissions-relevant activity data—fuel burned per trip, distance traveled, vessel engine specifications, cold storage duration, and transport mode—sits with many different supply chain actors who may not collect or share it consistently. A tuna brand sourcing from multiple fisheries could be dealing with dozens of vessel operators, several transshipment carriers, and multiple processing facilities, each with different record-keeping practices.
Traditional traceability systems compound this by starting at the processing stage rather than at sea. By the time a company tries to reconstruct emissions-relevant data for a specific batch, first-mile records may be incomplete or unavailable—forcing sustainability teams to fall back on industry-wide emissions factors, reducing the accuracy and credibility of reported figures.
How does tuna traceability help collect emissions-relevant supply chain data?
Tuna traceability captures verified activity records at each supply chain stage—starting with the fishing vessel—and links those records to specific product batches. This means data needed for Scope 3 calculations is collected as a byproduct of normal traceability operations rather than assembled separately for reporting.
A platform capturing vessel movements via satellite VMS and AIS generates records of where a vessel fished, how long the trip lasted, and its route to port—data that corresponds directly to fuel-use and transport emissions. When each batch carries a unique Raw Material ID linked to its vessel of origin, fishing trip details, and discharge records, those identifiers anchor emissions calculations to real, verifiable events rather than averages.
What types of Scope 3 emissions data can traceability platforms provide?
A first-mile traceability platform may provide data relevant to the following Scope 3 categories:
- Upstream transportation (Category 4): Vessel routes from fishing grounds to port, carrier routes between transshipment points, and container logistics data from port to processing facility.
- Purchased goods and services (Category 1): Batch-level records of fishing method, gear type, and vessel specifications for applying more accurate emissions factors.
- Processing of sold products (Category 10): Records linking specific batches to processing facilities, which may have their own energy and emissions certifications.
- Downstream transportation (Category 9): Shipment tracking data from processor to retailer or warehouse.
Platforms that start at the processing stage will not have vessel-level activity data, which is often the most important input for upstream emissions calculations in wild-capture fisheries.
How does verified traceability reduce manual effort in emissions reporting?
Verified traceability centralizes supply chain activity data in a structured, digital format organized by batch, vessel, and supply chain stage. Without digital traceability, a sustainability team may spend weeks contacting suppliers for records arriving in different formats and languages. With a traceability platform capturing those records in real time, the same retrieval could take hours.
Digitally captured, batch-linked records are consistent in format, time-stamped, and linked to verification sources—making them more defensible in audits. For companies operating under multiple regulatory frameworks, a single source of verified supply chain data can serve multiple reporting purposes simultaneously.
What’s the difference between traceability data and estimated emissions factors?
Traceability data refers to verified, activity-specific records from actual supply chain events. Estimated emissions factors are industry-wide averages applied when activity-specific data is unavailable. The GHG Protocol recognizes a hierarchy of data quality—activity-specific data is considered higher quality than spend-based or average-factor approaches.
Many tuna companies currently use a combination of both. The goal of improving traceability coverage is to reduce reliance on factors and increase the proportion of Scope 3 figures grounded in actual supply chain activity. Even with good traceability data, converting activity records into emissions figures still requires calculation methodologies—traceability provides the inputs that make those calculations more accurate and auditable.
Which regulatory frameworks require this kind of supply chain emissions data?
Several frameworks now require, or are moving toward requiring, supply chain emissions data that traceability platforms can help provide—including the EU CSRD, the SEC’s climate disclosure rules, and the UK’s SECR framework. The EU CSRD requires Scope 3 disclosure under ESRS, making upstream supply chain activity data directly relevant to compliance for food and seafood companies.
The direction across jurisdictions is toward greater supply chain transparency. Companies that build robust traceability infrastructure now may find the same data serves multiple compliance purposes—reducing the total reporting burden rather than adding to it.
How SmarTuna helps with Scope 3 emissions reporting
SmarTuna provides a digital traceability and verification platform that captures supply chain activity data from the first mile through to product delivery, giving companies structured, batch-level records for Scope 3 calculations rather than estimates.
Specifically, SmarTuna enables companies to:
- Access verified vessel trip records, including satellite VMS and AIS data, that support upstream transport and fuel-use calculations.
- Link each batch of tuna to its fishing origin, gear method, and vessel type for more accurate, activity-specific emissions factors.
- Retrieve audit-ready documentation across the supply chain without manual assembly.
- Use the same traceability records for multiple compliance purposes, including EU CATCH forms, US SIMP, FSMA requirements, and sustainability reporting frameworks.
- Support Digital Product Passports that surface supply chain data for buyers, partners, and regulators through a traceability code-accessible interface.
If your team is spending significant time chasing supply chain records for emissions reporting, or your current Scope 3 figures rely heavily on estimated factors, explore how a first-mile traceability platform could change that. Learn more about what SmarTuna’s digital traceability solutions can provide for your supply chain reporting needs.