How a global staffing leader moved from estimations to activity-based Scope 3 data
About Spencer Ogden
Established in 2010, Spencer Ogden is a global specialist recruitment partner with 11 offices worldwide. It connects expert talent with high-impact projects across critical infrastructure, natural resources, sustainability, and finance, supporting the full project lifecycle from investment through engineering, construction, and long-term operations.
Aiming to become the global sustainability staffing leader, Spencer Ogden has long recognised that delivering sustainable staffing solutions requires more than internal action; it demands systemic change. This is why, having achieved significant early milestones such as fully reducing its Scope 2 emissions and obtaining ISO 14001 certification in 2022, the company is now turning its attention to the more complex challenge of Scope 3.
Regan Callender
Global ESG Manager
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‘We didn’t just want to tick boxes, we wanted to understand where our real emissions lie, and build our net-zero strategy on credible foundations. Working with Furthr has helped us take that leap.’
total tCO2e offset in 2023 and 2024
1,432
6
offset projects funded so far
Roadmap built for long-term, credible decarbonisation
2035
Spencer Ogden’s Net Zero target year
Scope 3 data consists of the emissions that come from a company's value chain rather than its direct operations. These are notoriously difficult to measure, especially in Category 1 (Purchased Goods & Services), which encompasses everything from software to office supplies. Spend-based estimates only add to the difficulty, introducing variability through market prices and making it hard to measure impact accurately.
For Spencer Ogden, cutting through the noise meant cleaning and categorising spend data into meaningful groupings, highlighting high-emission suppliers and spend areas, and laying the groundwork for collecting activity-based data in future cycles. To tackle this, they needed a partner like Furthr, a leading carbon management service with an embedded sustainability team to guide them from measurement to meaningful action.
Overview
To achieve their Net Zero Target by 2035, Spencer Ogden recognised the need to go beyond the direct emissions and examine their Scope 3 data. This meant tackling emissions from business travel, purchased goods and services, and employee commuting.
They partnered with Furthr to identify emission hotspots, gather better data, and build a comprehensive roadmap to long-term decarbonisation.
Key challenges to address
Taking carbon management Furthr
Making Scope 3 tangible
Furthr helped Spencer Ogden optimise the measurement of Scope 3 emissions by:
Cleaning and categorising their spend data to reflect meaningful groupings
Highlighting high-emission suppliers and spend areas
Laying the groundwork for collecting activity-based data in future cycles
This clarity allowed their ESG team to go beyond spend-based data estimation and start designing targeted action plans.
Why activity data matters
Activity-based data, such as flight distances in miles or electricity used in kWh, gives a far more accurate picture than spend-based estimates, which often overestimate a company's carbon footprint. By removing the variability introduced by market prices, activity-based data lets companies measure their impact with far greater accuracy. For Spencer Ogden, this has been a turning point.
Furthr’s sustainability experts explain: “The insight you gain from proper activity data is powerful. It shows not just where your emissions are, but what you can actually do with your suppliers to change them.”
By identifying specific behaviours and supplier activities driving emissions, Spencer Ogden is now better equipped to take real action, whether that’s changing travel policies, adjusting supplier terms, or improving procurement standards.
Engaging suppliers: A for multiplier
A significant portion of Spencer Ogden’s emissions stem from a handful of key suppliers. By pinpointing these relationships and opening up conversations, the company is entering a feedback loop that benefits both sides: they get better data, suppliers get insight into reducing their own emissions, and everyone moves closer to net zero.
This type of supplier engagement also builds long-term resilience. It ensures that Spencer Ogden’s climate goals are embedded into how they do business, not just how they operate internally.
What Furthr brings to the table
Spencer Ogden's partnership with Furthr has helped make emissions reporting more approachable, actionable, and insightful. The platform itself is intuitive, but the real value lies in Furthr's expert team acting as an extension of their own, absorbing the operational burden at every step.
Regan underlines: “Furthr’s team expertise and hands-on support gave our team the clarity and reassurance needed to move efficiently through the process.”
From identifying early wins to future-proofing measurement practices, Furthr provided both strategic guidance and technical delivery, helping Spencer Ogden embed sustainability into its core operations.
The Impact
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Supported Projects
CO2OL Biodiverse Forest, Panama
2024 - 51 tCO2e Offset
Smallholder Agroforestry, Uganda
2024 - 68 tCO2e Offset
Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project
2024 - 221 tCO2e Offset
Mangrove Restoration Project, Pakistan
2023 - 109 tCO2e Offset
Biomass Energy Generation, India
2023 - 655 tCO2e Offset
Improved Cookstoves for Schools, Burundi
2023 - 328 tCO2e Offset
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