Is buying from a local supplier always lower carbon?
No. Transport is often a small part of a material footprint; how it is made usually matters more. Steel from an electric arc furnace far away can beat local steel from a coal-based route. Compare cradle-to-gate footprints plus transport for each option, using supplier data where you can get it.
How to compare
- Supplier footprint per tonne, cradle to gate.
- Transport mode and distance to your gate.
- Packaging and losses in transit.
When local wins
For heavy, low value materials moved by road, such as sand, aggregate and bricks, transport can dominate, and local is usually lower.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads bills, fuel invoices and production records into dated, fingerprinted records, so the figure you send a buyer can be traced to its documents.
Sources: GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard, Smart Freight Centre, GLEC Framework, GHG Protocol standards, including the Product Standard
Last reviewed 2026-10-23.