Engaging stakeholders to provide sustainability-related data can be challenging, but there are several ways you can use to improve response rates. By focusing on high-quality contacts and clear communication, you can improve the chances of detailed and timely answers. Here are some tips to help you get better results and remember, if you have 10,000 contacts, you may not go to this effort for every one, so look at your top 10% of suppliers or portfolio companies that are contributing the most to your scope 3 emissions.

Check the Contact Name column: When you populate the upload template, remember “contact name” is going to be how the invite is sent - for example “Hi Hannah…” You don’t want this to be “Hi Transport Pty Ltd” where possible. This personal touch can make a significant difference.

Avoid generic emails: Instead of sending forms to general email addresses like receipts@business.com, try find at least a real person’s email to send it to, even if they’re not the right person to answer, Sumday makes it easy for them to send the invite on to the better contact. This increases the likelihood that your request will be seen and acted upon.

Prioritise key suppliers: For supply chain engagement, often your top suppliers are large companies with sustainability teams. Focus on the top public companies in your list.

Research contacts: Use professional networks like LinkedIn to identify the right contacts. Look for people with titles like Sustainability Manager, Environmental Officer, or similar roles to see whether they have a contact for these purposes, often they do (and Sumday is communicating with companies to share their best contacts as well - watch this space).

Personal communication: Before sending out the request via Sumday and triggering the email invite, send a personal email to your contacts. Inform them about the upcoming request and its importance. This heads-up can prepare them to respond promptly. A draft example you could use and modify is outlined below for suppliers.

Hi [Contact Name],

I hope you’re well. I'm reaching out to let you know we are improving our process for understanding our environmental impact.

As a valued supplier, your emissions form part of our emissions. Rather than use an average to estimate your carbon emissions without engaging with you, we wanted to provide an opportunity to share this information with us. Obviously this is new to many companies, so we’ve arranged for you to have free access to education and support to answer as well, we hope this is valuable to your team more broadly.

We use Sumday to account for our emissions and to request data from stakeholders.

Free Support and Tools

You will receive an invite form Sumday, asking you to sign in so you can share responses. You will also have 60 days free access to:

The Sumday team is ready to engage with your sustainability or finance team to provide support every step of the way.

Deadline for Responses

Please provide a response before: X date.

If you have any questions, please let me know, and I will work with you and the Sumday team to address them.

Looking forward to your response.

Kind regards

[Your Name]