How Komar Untangled Scope 3 Complexity with Actionable Insights from Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator

Article key points: 

• Komar moved beyond GHG estimates to establish credible, repeatable product-level Scope 3 emissions measurements.
• Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator enabled Komar to convert primary supplier data into accurate, actionable product impact insights.
• Connecting products to real facility performance accelerated reporting cycles and strengthened internal data governance.
• The Product Impact Calculator now powers Komar’s material models and supplier choices helping the brand confidently justify decarbonization investments.
• A standardized, primary-data-driven methodology is positioning Komar for evolving product-level regulations and industry alignment.

Komar’s sustainability goals

The following are just some select sustainability goals from Komar’s publicly announced 2030 sustainability strategy, “SUS-TEX 2030”: 

Product goals:

• Sourcing 100% sustainably sourced cotton for all its cotton-based products by 2030.
• Sourcing 100% recycled polyester for all its polyester-based products by 2030.
• Sourcing 100% of manmade cellulosic fibers (MMCFs) from Green Shirt (light green or dark green) Certified suppliers by 2030
• Committed to 100% of packaging being reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2030 

Energy & emissions goals:

• 46.2% absolute reduction in scope 1 & 2 emissions and 27.5% absolute reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2030, compared to the 2019 baseline (SBTi-validated)
• Net-Zero emissions across global operations by 2050 (submitted for SBTi validation).
• Sourcing 80% of electricity from renewable sources at its own facilities by 2030.
• Source 40% of electricity from renewable sources in its supply chain by 2030.

Key Results: 

• Time savings of multiple days per month in the ongoing process of calculating and reporting product-level emissions. 
• The ability to calculate real supply chain performance at scale across nearly 100 percent of Tier 1 manufacturing facilities.
• The ability to align with emerging global frameworks such as Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) using the primary supply chain data Komar already collects.
• The power to simulate and model the product-level emissions impact of variables such as materials choices and energy sources.  

For many apparel and consumer goods brands, measuring and managing Scope 3 emissions have become the defining challenge of modern sustainability work. They represent the largest share of a company’s carbon footprint, yet they remain the most difficult to measure accurately. Data gaps, inconsistent methodologies, and expensive one-off lifecycle assessments often force brands to choose between incomplete numbers or unusable ones.

But as global reporting requirements advance, “good enough” is no longer enough.

Komar, a U.S.–based, family-owned apparel company with over 100 years of history, reached its tipping point when manual product impact methods no longer met its needs. With ambitious climate goals, including supply chain decarbonization high on its list, the Komar team knew that progress depended on reliable product-level data they could trust.

This is the story of how Komar replaced GHG assumptions with evidence, brought primary data into everyday decision-making, and created a future-ready foundation for Scope 3 action using Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator.

The outsized impact of Scope 3 emissions

According to research from Boston Consulting Group and CDP, corporations’ Scope 3 emissions (also referred to as indirect emissions) account for, on average, 26 times that of their direct emissions. Despite the outsized impact of Scope 3 emissions, many organizations still don’t collect data on their upstream suppliers—often because it’s difficult, expensive, and complex. When it comes to calculating product impact, sustainability teams have long had to choose between two nonideal options: Blunt spend-based models that miss what’s really changing in the supply chain, or one-off life cycle assessments (LCAs) that are costly, slow, and often inconsistent.

Unfortunately, without specific primary data about their Scope 3 emissions, companies cannot accurately account for the true environmental impact of the products they sell. And without accurate product environmental impacts, companies can neither comply with emerging regulations nor truly know if they’re meeting their sustainability targets.  

This is why environmentally responsible brands like Komar have begun to invest in the process of collecting Scope 3 data. 

Why accurate product-level data was critical for Komar’s climate strategy

Most brands know that their largest environmental impact comes from upstream manufacturing. Komar is no exception: Roughly 70 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions are produced by Tier 1 and Tier 2 manufacturers.

The brand started from a strong position of already achieving 100 percent completion of the Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) among its Tier 1 and Tier 2 facilities. This meant Komar already had access to unusually robust primary data about facility energy use, water consumption, and emissions. Yet even with this strong supply chain engagement, Komar faced a familiar problem: Typical lifecycle assessment tools are unreliable, even when fed the same primary data.  

“If you look at five different product lifecycle assessment service providers, you’ll get five different results because they use different factors,” said Dr. Thiwanka De Fonseka, Komar’s Chief Sustainability Officer.

For a company with science-based targets and a commitment to measurable decarbonization, this lack of consistency wasn’t workable. Spend-based models were too abstract to show real change. Consultant-led LCAs were too slow, too costly, and too variable to scale across the company’s portfolio.

Komar needed a methodology that was reliable, repeatable, and industry-specific: something that would honor the quality of data the team was already collecting.

That need led them to Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator: A new product from the platform Komar already used to collect its primary supply chain data. 

How the Product Impact Calculator helped Komar replace assumptions with real data

Komar chose the Product Impact Calculator because it’s purpose-built for consumer goods and grounded in industry-standard data from the Higg Materials Sustainability index (Higg MSI). The Product Impact Calculator provides a credible baseline out of the box, then lets teams progressively sharpen accuracy by layering in supplier performance, material specificity, and product attributes—all at scale using inputs like:

• Verified Higg FEM data
• Facility-level energy and emissions performance
• Material specificity and component-level detail
• Product-level attributes such as weights and construction

Crucially, Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator connects to Komar’s supply chain. Komar links its Tier 1 facilities in the Product Impact Calculator, replacing default industry averages with actual facility performance. As Tier 2 coverage expands, that specificity deepens. The result is a portfolio view that reflects how products are really made—so sustainability, sourcing, compliance, and leadership teams can work from the same verifiable foundation.

The Product Impact Calculator also helps teams future-proof against regulatory change. From a single connected dataset, Komar can support corporate Scope 3 reporting and generate product-level outputs like French Eco-Scores today, with the EU’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements coming soon—all without duplicating work across multiple tools or platforms.

With this data foundation in place, the team could move beyond simply knowing its footprint to actively influencing it.

The operational transformation: faster work, better decisions, stronger alignment

The shift to using the Product Impact Calculator triggered a series of internal improvements across Komar that changed not just how the team calculated Scope 3 emissions, but how it acted on them.

1. Data cycles that once took days now take hours

Monthly reporting used to require complex manual calculations and reconciliation. With Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator, those same tasks take a fraction of the time, and teams can update results as often as they need without setting baselines again or worrying about shifting methodologies.

Komar’s team can now use the time saved to focus instead on strategic planning, supplier engagement, and decarbonization initiatives.

2. Data gaps became visible, enabling improvements to PLM and supplier records

Linking products to facilities surfaced areas where product information was incomplete or inconsistent—such as missing component weights or ambiguous material breakdowns. Those gaps became catalysts for tightening internal data governance and improving the quality of supplier-reported information.

3. Supplier engagement became a driver of accuracy and impact

Over the last couple of years, Komar has made Higg FEM completion a requirement for all Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, with a strong expectation that they will also verify self-assessment results. This policy shift didn’t just support better Scope 3 results, it helped suppliers build baselines, identify hotspots, and become more competitive with sustainability-focused brands.

4. Decisions are now backed by evidence, not estimates

Perhaps the biggest shift is how Komar evaluates decisions that could impact its supply chain emissions and help achieve its goals. The team can now simulate scenarios before acting, for example: 

• What happens if a material is swapped for a lower-impact option?
• What if production shifts from Supplier A to Supplier B?
• What if a facility upgrades boilers or energy systems?

Instead of guessing which actions deliver the highest return, Komar can model the outcome instantly—and justify investments with confidence.

Why Komar sees primary data as the future of Scope 3 emission measurement

As product-level regulations emerge—from French Eco-Scores to Product Environmental Footprint and Digital Product Passport requirements—Komar believes the industry needs a standardized, credible way to calculate impacts.

Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator provides that foundation: a single connected dataset, one shared methodology, and the ability for multiple brands to reflect real facility performance instead of divergent assumptions.

Dr. De Fonseka sees this as essential for moving the industry forward together: “Decarbonization cannot be done with just one or two brands; it requires the entire industry,” he explains. 

When everyone works from the same baseline, the industry can finally compare apples to apples, identify shared hotspots, and accelerate progress collaboratively.

The takeaway: When product data reflects reality, sustainability becomes actionable

Komar’s experience reflects a broader shift happening across the industry: Companies are moving from reporting emissions to reducing them. But that shift is only possible when product-level impacts are grounded in the real supply chain performance, not assumptions and estimates. 

With Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator, Komar turned measurement into momentum, and created a scalable, defensible foundation for long-term decarbonization. Learn more about the Product Impact Calculator today and see how your business can untangle complex Scope 3 supply chain data like Komar did.