Finance & Operations

UK Sustainability Reporting Standards stall supplier payments

Michelle Higgins · 2d ago

Operations teams are drowning in Scope 3 emissions surveys to satisfy the new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards. Half our vendors don't understand the spreadsheets we've sent out, and they're ignoring the deadlines because they've got their own cash flow pressures. Has anyone found a practical way to collect this data without delaying supplier payments, or are we just going to have to estimate and accept the audit findings?

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4 replies

Miles Fox · 2d ago

Same here, we’ve stopped holding invoices over emissions data, we pay on the normal 30 day terms and run the survey as a separate Microsoft Forms link capped at 10 minutes. I’ve found suppliers respond when it’s one named owner and five fields, and for anything still missing we use DEFRA spend based estimates, log the gap, then fix it in the next cycle.

Iris Russell · 1d ago

I tried rolling out a Google Form for the data. Most of our smaller suppliers couldn’t even open the link, so we got less than a quarter of the responses and had to revert to the old spreadsheet chase, which just delayed payments further.

Ralph Obrien · 1d ago

What worked for us was weaving the data request into the invoicing process itself, so suppliers fill out a quick section on the invoice form rather than chasing separate spreadsheets. We use an add-on in our Coupa system that flags incomplete disclosures but auto-releases payment if the data’s missing, so they can’t stall cash flow while still getting their numbers in within a week. It’s not perfect, but it cut our delays by two thirds and stopped the “I didn’t get your form” excuses.

Hector Ray · 1d ago

Honestly, we just built a simple Airtable form linked to our accounting software and got 85% of suppliers to respond within a week. In my view, just pay on time and let the data come in later, it’s the only way to keep cash flow smooth.