Supplier data requests

California now asks companies to report their suppliers’ footprint. That data sits in other people’s filing cabinets.

Not sure what buyer questionnaire, Scope 3 or SB 253 means? Definitions explains every term on this site, two lines each.

Why suppliers stop halfway

Most forms ask for numbers nobody keeps in that shape — annual kilowatt-hours, head per acre, percent recycled.

  • Your supplier has a drawer of utility bills and a herd record
  • So the form gets started and abandoned
  • And the chasing falls to you

This one starts from the drawer.

  • The supplier uploads what they already hold, and it reads the figures out
  • Anything left has a calculator behind it
  • Which works the number out from things they can answer without leaving the room
  • Every field says where the number lives — which bill, which line.
  • Most fields carry a calculator. Head and acres in, stocking density out.
  • Blanks are allowed, and a gap is recorded as a gap rather than as a zero.
  • Answers can be changed after they are sent. Nothing locks.

Write a request

Nothing is sent. You get the letter and a working form, and you can open both yourself before a real supplier ever sees them.

This decides which questions the form asks. A dairy is asked about herd and manure; a glass plant about furnace and cullet.

Both sides are live

Form built
The form your supplier sees Open it and fill it in yourself. It is the quickest way to know what you are asking of them. The report you both read Where their answers land, with the totals worked out. Empty until they start.

The letter

A draft, not a template you are stuck with. Rewrite any of it. The link stays live whatever you do to the wording.

Requests you have sent
What changes when this is your account Demo run

The letter and the form are both real and both work. Nothing was sent to anyone.

Four things change once this runs for your company.

  • The link stops being the credential. Your supplier gets a one-time code at their work email and sets a password, so a forwarded link opens nothing.
  • A data-use notice comes first. Your statement of what you do with their figures, who inside your company reads them, how long you keep them, and whether they reach a retailer. They accept it before the first field, and the acceptance is dated.
  • Answers reach your reporting. They land in your Scope 3 total and your SB 253 gap analysis instead of stopping at a demo report.
  • Reminders go out without you. Anyone still unstarted after two weeks is nudged, and you hear who is stalling before the deadline rather than after it.

Already true in this demo:

  • The upload step reads documents
  • Every field carries help and a calculator
  • Both sides can edit the form after it has been sent
Changing the form itself Sender

Open the supplier’s form above and use Add a question of your own at the foot of any step.

  • What you add stays on that supplier’s form permanently
  • It appears the next time they open their link
  • Answers they already gave are untouched

Sending does not close anything.

  • A figure needs correcting in six months? The supplier reuses the link they already have
  • You see the new version and the date it moved
  • The previous one stays on file