Organizing Buyer‐Side Scope 3 Governance: Sensemaking in Supply Network Decarbonization

Abstract

For many large manufacturers and consumer brands, most greenhouse gas emissions arise outside their own operations and within supplier networks they do not fully control. However, regulators and investors increasingly expect firms to show credible progress on reducing these emissions. This creates a practical governance challenge for procurement: buying firms are expected to drive decarbonization across multitier supply networks even when supplier data are incomplete, difficult to verify, and uneven across tiers. Drawing on paradox theory and sensemaking theory, this study examines how firms interpret and respond to that challenge. The analysis is based on a multicase study of four European multinationals and 32 interviews with procurement actors conducted in two waves. It identifies five recurring governance difficulties: estimating emissions from weak supplier data, verifying claims that cannot be directly observed, balancing short‐term commercial pressures with long‐term decarbonization goals, creating impact beyond a small set of suppliers, and working with suppliers that are unwilling or unable to change. The findings show that firms facing similar pressures pursue different governance responses. Four distinct response patterns emerge: concentrated oversight of key suppliers, broader supplier capability building, industry collaboration platforms, and efforts to influence wider market conditions. The study contributes by providing an empirically grounded account of how buyer‐side Scope 3 governance is organized under persistent constraint, and by showing that governance responses are shaped not only by external conditions, but also by how procurement actors define the governance problem itself.