Value chain analysis on the CO₂ Performance Ladder: from ranking to an approved chain analysis

Why does a value chain analysis pay in a Dutch or Belgian tender?

The CO₂ Performance Ladder (CO₂-Prestatieladder) is a Dutch certification scheme, run by the foundation SKAO, used inside public procurement. Around 8,000 organisations hold a certificate, roughly 75% of them small and medium-sized enterprises, and more than 300 contracting authorities apply the scheme. A short introduction sits on our CO₂ Performance Ladder page.

The commercial mechanism has a Dutch name worth learning, because you will meet it in tender documents: gunningvoordeel, tender award advantage. A contracting authority uses your certified ambition level as an award criterion and notionally reduces your bid price for evaluation only, usually as a fictieve korting (fictitious discount), a fixed amount, or points. If you win, you are paid the full price you quoted. A bid of 30 million euro at a level worth 4% is evaluated as 28.8 million, beats an uncertified bid of 29 million, and still invoices 30 million. Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch national infrastructure agency, applies 2% at Step 1, 4% at Step 2 and a maximum of 6% at Step 3 for procurements published from 1 July 2026. Chain analyses sit at the levels carrying the largest advantage.

Two vocabularies exist in parallel and both are still live. Handbook 3.1 has five niveaus (levels). Handbook 4.0, published on 14 January 2025, replaced them with three treden (steps). The mapping is set out in why the Ladder now has three steps instead of five levels. Match your vocabulary to your handbook: practitioners report auditors reacting sharply to the wrong word.

What is a value chain analysis and when is it required?

SKAO states the purpose plainly: to identify reduction opportunities in the chain, organisations carry out a value chain analysis from Level 4 (version 3.1) and from Step 2 (version 4.0).

Two consequences follow. First, scope 3 only enters at Level 4 in handbook 3.1 and at Step 2 in handbook 4.0. At Level 3 and at Step 1 no chain analysis is required at all.

Second, the term changed. SKAO's list of changes between 4.0 and 3.1 records it in Dutch: "De term ketenanalyses is vervangen door waardeketenanalyses (vertaling van value chain analyses uit het GHG Protocol)." Ketenanalyse became waardeketenanalyse, as a translation of value chain analysis from the GHG Protocol. The scope of the document widened with the name.

SKAO also maintains a public register of published value chain analyses written by certificate holders. At the time of writing it holds over 1,200 documents, sorted by category: subcontractors and suppliers (207), logistics and transport (177), construction (96), avoided emissions at third parties (84), business processes (78), advisory services (76), landscaping (69), IT services (24) and more, with material use under scope 3 the largest at 440. It is also the reason that searching for "ketenanalyse niveau 4" returns mostly other companies' PDFs.

How do I rank my most material scope 3 emissions?

The ranking (rangorde) is the foundation. Without it you cannot justify why you analysed this particular chain, and that justification is the first thing an auditor asks for.

The difference with scope 1 and 2 is set out in SKAO's own practical guide, part 2: for scope 3 the scheme weighs the absolute size of the emissions and, explicitly, the degree of influence you have over them. A very large emission source you cannot change does not belong at the top.

The guide describes six steps:

1. List your activities, core processes, products and services. In 3.1 these are called product-market combinations (PMCs).
2. Determine per activity which scope 3 emissions are significant, upstream and downstream.
3. Determine per scope 3 emission whether it is large or small.
4. Determine what effect measures could have.
5. Determine your market share or revenue per activity.
6. Rank the emissions.

Step 1 is the hardest in practice, for reasons that have nothing to do with carbon. The activity taxonomy you inherited was usually invented by someone who has since left the company, and nobody owns it now. One practical rule helps: overhead is not an activity. A category with no chain of its own does not belong on the list.

Industry classification codes are a related trap. A group doing mobility, water and energy work does not sit neatly under one code, and a split based on codes rather than chains produces a ranking nobody inside the company recognises.

How many chain analyses do I need at Level 4?

Two. And the choice is constrained.

The selection rule is stated literally in SKAO's English practical manual: "choose one source of emissions from the top two and one other source of emissions from the top six in your ranking list."

Small organisations get one exemption. Same manual: "For small organisations, it is sufficient to perform one chain analysis for a top two emission." Handbook 3.1 says the same in its normative Dutch text: "Kleine organisaties dienen bij eis 4.A.1 in plaats van twee, slechts één ketenanalyse te maken." That exemption applies to small organisations only. Medium-sized organisations still produce two.

There is also requirement 4.A.3, professional review. Either a knowledge institute helps you draft one or both analyses, or it comments on at least one finished analysis. SKAO is explicit about who has to do it: "The involvement of a knowledge institute is compulsory for small organisations. For medium-sized and large organisations, scoring sufficient points to obtain a certificate is possible without enlisting support or requesting comments, provided that the chain analyses are of a good quality."

What do requirements 4.A.1 to 5.D.1 actually demand?

Two requirements are verifiable word for word. SKAO publishes them in the English version of handbook 3.1:

4.A.1: "The organization has demonstrable insight into the most material emissions from scope 3, and can submit at least 2 analyses of GHG-generating (chains of) activities from these scope 3 emissions."

4.B.1: "The organization has formulated CO₂ reduction targets for scope 3, based on 2 analyses from 4.A.1… An accompanying action plan has been drawn up, including the measures to be taken. Objectives are expressed in absolute numbers or percentages in relation to a reference year and within a specified time frame."

The ellipsis in 4.B.1 is deliberate. We could not verify that part of the sentence word for word, so we leave it open rather than fill it in.

A target without a base year and without a deadline does not pass 4.B.1.

The table below summarises the scope 3 requirements as SKAO describes them in the practical guide and the handbook. The Level 5 wordings are paraphrases of SKAO's explanatory material and not normative text.

Requirement 5.A.3 consumes the most elapsed time in practice. SKAO's English manual describes it as requesting specific emission data from the relevant immediate partners in the chain: life cycle assessments, use phase information or organisational footprints from parties one link away. The heavy work sits in the asking. You put the same question a hundred times to people who have no stake in your certificate.

Which exemptions apply to small and medium-sized organisations?

Handbook 3.1 puts it this way: "Voor kleine organisaties gelden de eisen 5.A.2-2, 5.A.3, 4.C, 5.C, 4.D en 5.D niet." Those six requirements do not apply to small organisations.

The English manual adds the aspect-level picture: "At Level 4, small and medium-sized organisations need to meet the requirements for Aspects A and B only. These organisations are exempted from the other requirements via a fictitious score." And: "At Level 5, small organisations need only meet some of the requirements for Aspect A and the requirements for Aspect B... Medium-sized organisations must meet all of the requirements of Aspects A, B and C." The four aspects (invalshoeken) are A insight, B reduction, C transparency, D participation.

What medium-sized organisations share with small ones is the Level 4 exemption from Aspects C and D. The single analysis and the compulsory knowledge institute apply to small organisations only.

Check this table before you start, because checklists commonly show every requirement, including the ones that do not apply to your level or step and your size.

What is the difference between Level 4 and Level 5?

In one line: Level 4 is qualitative, Level 5 is quantitative. SKAO's practical guide describes Level 5 as deepening your insight into significant scope 3 emissions by quantifying them roughly.

The jump from 4 to 5 sits in the data flow. What you can still describe at Level 4 from your own knowledge of the chain has to line up at Level 5 with figures your suppliers hand you.

How do I write a chain analysis, step by step?

SKAO's practical guide describes execution in running prose. Here it is condensed into seven steps: the numbering is ours, the content is SKAO's.

1. Decide which part of the chain you are analysing.
2. Map that chain at a high level.
3. Determine which emissions are material.
4. Describe the chain steps, the activities and the responsible parties.
5. Collect data from specialists and chain partners.
6. Calculate the emissions.
7. Identify reduction measures and opportunities for collaboration.

Step 3 is where most analyses grow too wide. SKAO steers on proportionality: "Het is van belang te focussen op de materiële emissies en niet te lang stil te staan bij de niet materiële emissies." Focus on the material emissions and avoid dwelling on the immaterial ones. An analysis that genuinely calculates three chain steps is more useful than one that touches on everything.

Step 5 is where the elapsed time comes from, and it depends on how quickly your chain partners respond. Plan it well ahead and work around the Benelux holiday periods, while most reporting deadlines fall in December, March and the first quarter.

There is no SKAO template for the document itself. A sustainability lead put it like this: "We now generate our own format. But I am not sure if it is in line with what the auditor expects." That makes the register of 1,200 plus published analyses more useful as a format reference than as a source of content. Find an analysis from an organisation with a comparable chain and look at how the justification is built.

How do I get emissions data from chain partners?

This is requirement 5.A.3, and it is a people problem before it is a data problem.

The most useful observation from practice: suppliers who do not respond are usually interested. As one practitioner put it: "They seem to be not engaged, but in truth they are embarrassed because they do not have the answers." Someone who does not understand the question usually just leaves it, and sustainability acronyms make that easy.

What works against that:

• Ask for source data: litres, kilometres, kilos, kWh. A supplier knows their diesel consumption. Translating it into a scope is your job.
• Keep the explanation short. Two targeted minutes on exactly the question you are asking. With an hour long tutorial you have forgotten the opening before the sixteenth minute starts.
• Take one supplier and one figure and finish it completely, including the evidence, before you write to fifty parties.
• Attach the provenance to the data point itself. A separate column in a workbook comes loose from the figure the moment somebody sorts the table.

That last point separates an analysis that passes the audit from one that does not. The sharpest practitioner definition of audit-ready we have heard: "If we can have a disclosure, all the evidence locked to the data point, and the text with evidence where it got it from, then I think we already won the discussion with the auditor beforehand."

Audit duration follows from SKAO's audit days table (auditdagentabel) and depends on your size and ambition level. Expect several audit days a year in practice, with no appetite for pre-engagement. Anything that is not immediately findable during those days comes back as a finding.

What changes in handbook 4.0?

Handbook 4.0 was published on 14 January 2025 and the value chain analysis changed in four ways. SKAO's own list of changes is clear about them. The document is Dutch only, so the quotations below are Dutch with an English rendering.

The coverage rule is the largest substantive change. SKAO writes it out in full: "De waardeketenanalyses moeten betrekking hebben op de belangrijkste activiteiten (dus 50% van de totale scope 1, 2 en 3 uitstoot). Dit kan afhankelijk van de indeling bij 2.A.3-1/3.A.3-1 één of meer ketenanalyses betekenen (dus niet meer 1 of 2 zoals bij handboek 3.1)." In English: the analyses must relate to the most significant activities, meaning 50% of total scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, and depending on the classification under 2.A.3-1/3.A.3-1 this can mean one or more chain analyses rather than the fixed 1 or 2 of handbook 3.1.

Note the condition in the middle of that sentence. The number of analyses follows from your activity classification under requirement 2.A.3-1 or 3.A.3-1. The unit of measure shifts from the count of analyses to the share of your emissions those analyses jointly cover. An organisation with one dominant chain may land on a single analysis; a group with many different activities may need several.

Then there is OBE, overige beïnvloedbare emissies, other influenceable emissions: emissions outside your scopes that you can still influence, such as building with reused material or sharing energy with a neighbouring site. SKAO asks for a qualitative OBE analysis from Step 2. At Step 3, organisations must show "met cijfers (kwantitatief dus)", quantitatively, how they will achieve CO₂ reduction within their organisation, their chain and where relevant beyond it, heading towards 2050.

The combined movement is fewer separate analyses, more coverage, and a mandatory link to your activity classification. An untidy classification becomes visible inside your value chain analysis. For groups with dozens of business units across several legal entities the problem starts at the organisational boundary rather than in the chain, which we treat separately in organisational boundaries across multiple entities.

When exactly you have to switch, and what you can reuse from your existing 3.1 documents before the 14 January 2027 deadline, is covered in moving from 3.1 to 4.0: what you can reuse.

What are the most common mistakes?

From the requirements, the guides, and what keeps coming back in practice:

The ranking is missing or cannot be reproduced. The analysis exists, the justification for choosing that chain does not. That hits 4.A.1 directly.

The wrong sources chosen. Two analyses from the top two, or two from the tail. The rule is one from the top two and one other from the top six.

Targets without a base year or a time frame. 4.B.1 asks literally for absolute numbers or percentages against a reference year within a specified time frame.

One average across all activities. A single blended intensity figure overstates the emissions intensity of your cleanest activities, which is commercially damaging when customers request your figure for their own scope 3.

Granularity that shifts between years. Collect at the finest level you can manage; reconstructing a finer level afterwards is not possible.

A fuller treatment of findings and rejections sits in what auditors reject on the CO₂ Performance Ladder. What the extra audit days and consultancy hours at Step 2 and Step 3 cost is set out in what the CO₂ Performance Ladder costs in 2026.

How Palau handles this

Requirement 5.A.3 asks literally for emissions data from direct chain partners. Palau has a contributor portal for that: external suppliers and subcontractors enter source data through their own access, without a licence and without spreadsheets circulating by email. What they submit lands in Reef, the data layer, and the evidence stays attached to the data point in Vault, including where in the document it came from. Your value chain analysis and your CSRD reporting share that structure, which we work out in CO₂ Performance Ladder and CSRD: one dataset, two reports.

Want to see it running on your own chain? Request a pilot.