Carbon accounting software for retailers
For most retailers, emissions don't sit in your stores. They sit in the products you buy to sell and the suppliers who make them. Gaia measures Scope 1, 2 and 3 across your whole range and turns messy supplier data into audit-ready reports.
Carbon accounting built for retail supply chains
For most retailers, the large majority of emissions sit in Scope 3: the products you buy to sell, plus the suppliers and logistics behind them. Your own stores and offices are a small slice by comparison.
That makes retail carbon reporting a data problem more than anything else. Gaia collects emissions data across hundreds of suppliers and thousands of product lines, then turns it into reports for Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
CDP, the environmental disclosure platform, reports that supply chain emissions are on average 11.4 times higher than a company's own operational emissions, based on companies disclosing through its supply chain programme.
The footprint is on your shelves
The biggest part of a retailer's footprint is usually the goods themselves, from raw materials through manufacturing to the moment they reach your stores. Gaia measures Scope 3 across your product range, so you can see which categories and suppliers carry the most emissions and where a change would actually move the number.
Hundreds of suppliers, one place to work
A mid-sized retailer can buy from hundreds of suppliers, each holding data in a different format. Gaia's supplier survey feature sends automated requests and collects the replies in one place. Its document extraction then reads the PDFs, spreadsheets and invoices they send back, pulling out the figures and calculating the emissions for you.
Distribution, packaging and store energy
Beyond the products, emissions come from moving stock, packaging it and running your stores. Gaia tracks energy across every location in one view and takes in your logistics and distribution data. Anomaly detection flags a reading that looks wrong before it ends up in a report.
What Gaia helps retailers measure
Gaia uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) methodology and the UK conversion factors published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), so your numbers stand up to scrutiny.
Purchased goods
Store and site energy
Logistics and distribution
Packaging materials
Supplier engagement
Multi-location tracking
Retail carbon accounting, answered
Why does Scope 3 matter so much for retailers?
For most retailers the majority of the footprint sits in Scope 3, and within that, the goods you buy to sell. Gaia focuses on automated Scope 3 data collection so you can measure the part of your footprint that actually drives the total, rather than just your stores and offices.
We work with hundreds of suppliers. How does Gaia handle all that data?
Gaia's supplier survey feature sends automated requests and gathers the responses in one place. When suppliers reply with PDFs, spreadsheets, Word documents or CSV files, you drag and drop them in, and Gaia extracts the figures and calculates the emissions, so nobody is rekeying data from hundreds of documents.
Can Gaia produce SECR and CSRD reports?
Yes. Gaia generates audit-ready reports for Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), along with B Corp and GHG Protocol formats. You can export each one as a web link or a PDF.
What if a supplier can't give us emissions data?
Retail chains rarely have complete data on day one. Gaia's data completion feature estimates the gaps with ranged estimates, and anomaly detection flags figures that look unusually high or low, so you can prioritise the suppliers and categories worth chasing for primary data.
Does Gaia connect to the systems we already use?
Gaia integrates with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and Oracle NetSuite, and offers application programming interface (API) access, so financial and operational data can flow in without manual exports. From there you can build a decarbonisation strategy and offset residual emissions through Gaia's marketplace of verified carbon credits.
Trusted carbon data
Aligned with the standards your reports rely on
Gaia is aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) methodology and uses recognised industry-standard data to calculate your emissions, including the annual UK conversion factors published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).