UBC Sauder’s Centre for Climate and Business Solutions Launches Supply Chain Partner Program as part of the BMO SME Climate Clinic
Are you interested in partnering?
If you’re an organization that’s ready to empower your SME suppliers and accelerate your climate goals through the resources offered at the BMO SME Climate Clinic, we’d love to connect. Reach out to us at climatecentre@sauder.ubc.ca to learn more about becoming a Supply Chain Partner.
The UBC Sauder School of Business Centre for Climate and Business Solutions is proud to launch the Supply Chain Partner Program as part of the BMO SME Climate Clinic—a significant milestone in expanding access to carbon accounting expertise and emissions data for small businesses. Through the BMO SME Climate Clinic, trained students work directly with SMEs to provide customized carbon accounting support, helping suppliers measure emissions, develop reduction strategies, and contribute meaningfully to collective climate goals.
Building on the momentum of the Clinic’s third cohort, which welcomed TELUS as the second supply chain partner, the program enables large organizations to connect their small and medium-sized suppliers with practical, hands-on carbon accounting support. By doing so, they can better understand, measure, and manage Scope 3 emissions—often the largest, yet least controlled, part of a company’s carbon footprint.
Empowering SMEs, Accelerating Climate Goals
Scope 3 emissions, generated throughout a company’s value chain, typically represent the majority of an organization’s carbon footprint. Yet many small and medium-sized suppliers lack the resources to track or reduce their emissions. This gap not only poses a challenge for SMEs, but also for larger companies seeking to meet their climate targets and regulatory expectations around supply chain emissions reporting.
The Supply Chain Partner Program directly addresses this gap. By equipping SMEs with customized carbon accounting support, the program makes decarbonization more accessible and achievable across the value chain.
Caren Lombard, Faculty Lead – BMO SME Climate Clinic
“I have seen firsthand how this approach benefits everyone: the SMEs, who lack resources, receive tailored guidance and actionable suggestions. Students, who want to make a tangible difference, can do this and gain valuable experience tackling real-world decarbonization challenges. Partner organizations like TELUS, who would like to help the SMEs in their supply chains, now have another solution in their toolkit to create stronger, more transparent and more resilient supply chains.”
Partnering for shared success in Sustainability
As a global leader in environmental performance, TELUS has set bold climate targets—including achieving carbon neutrality across its operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2030, and reducing Scope 3 emissions by setting 2 Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) targets for emissions intensity reduction, as well as supplier engagement. Engaging SME suppliers is critical to these ambitions.
Through the BMO SME Climate Clinic, TELUS has empowered several SME partners to start their carbon accounting journey—helping them collect baseline emissions data and take first steps toward formal climate reporting and reduction strategies.
A key part of this process involves understanding and reporting through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a globally recognized platform for environmental transparency. With support from the Clinic, these SME suppliers have gained the knowledge and tools needed to report their emissions data to CDP, aligning with TELUS’s rigorous sustainability goals and helping drive a broader, more coordinated effort to reduce emissions across the supply chain.
Natalia Bolaños - Procurement Sustainability Lead, TELUS
"At TELUS, our commitment to sustainability extends beyond our own operations to creating meaningful impact throughout our supply chain. By connecting our SME suppliers with the UBC Sauder School of Business SME Climate Clinic, we have not only expanded our suppliers’ climate action capabilities but also made progress toward our own sustainability goals. The SME Climate Clinic exemplifies how academic-business partnerships can drive practical solutions for climate action."
By investing in the capabilities of its supply chain, TELUS is not only advancing its path to net zero—it’s helping build a more sustainable, resilient economy.