KMD Brands is Proving That Scope 3 Decarbonization Starts With Accurate Product-Level Impact

Article key points: 

• Spend-based Scope 3 models lack the accuracy needed to support product-level decarbonization and supplier engagement.
• KMD Brands needed a scalable way to connect product decisions, supplier performance, and emissions outcomes without adding friction for product teams.
• Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator enabled KMD to activate existing Higg FEM and Higg MSI data for accurate, product-level emissions insights.
• Within weeks, KMD Brands added 7,000+ products and linked 23,000 purchase orders to supplier data—unlocking real-world scale and adoption.
• Product-level visibility is now helping KMD Brands identify hotspots, run scenario modeling, strengthen supplier collaboration, and prepare for upcoming regulations like DPP and PEF.

For brands and retailers serious about hitting their climate targets, the impact of Scope 3 emissions can’t be overstated.

At KMD Brands—the parent company of Kathmandu, Rip Curl, and Oboz—about 80 percent of total emissions come from purchased goods and services. Like many companies, KMD Brands historically relied on spend-based calculations to estimate the Scope 3 impact of its products. And like many sustainability teams, it knew that approach couldn’t support the level of accuracy required to drive decisions and meet the company’s science-based climate goals.

What KMD Brands needed wasn’t just more data. It needed the right data that was accurate enough to provide insight into the impact of each product, and a way to connect product decisions, supplier performance, and emissions outcomes—at scale. Plus, it needed all of that without creating friction for internal teams.

That shift is now underway thanks to Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator.

Why spend-based Scope 3 models break down in practice

Spend-based methods are often the first step in Scope 3 emissions accounting. They’re fast, familiar, and relatively easy to implement. But they also flatten reality because they only take one variable into account: Dollars spent. They can’t distinguish between other important variables such as conventional versus regenerative materials or a manufacturing location with a fossil-fuel heavy grid compared to one that’s mostly based on renewable energy.

For KMD, that limitation became a blocker to knowing its true product impacts, which is the important first step toward making progress on impact reduction goals. 

A short-lived lifecycle assessment pilot revealed friction in the process

KMD Brands explored a traditional product lifecycle assessment (LCA) platform in a four-month pilot. The promise was precision—but the reality was manual data entry, heavy lift requirements, and limited adoption from the product teams whose input was essential.

As Shasta O’Loughlin, Head of ESG at KMD Brands, put it, “Without the product teams fully on board, it was going to be difficult to get meaningful results that would translate to product-level decisions.”

Accuracy without adoption wasn’t progress. KMD Brands needed a solution that balanced primary data, operational reality, and speed.

From manual analysis to real-world scale—in weeks, not years

Once KMD Brands decided to implement the Product Impact Calculator, they made progress quickly. 

Within the first few weeks:

• KMD Brands added 7,000+ of its products to the Product Impact Calculator
• KMD Brands linked 23,000 purchase orders to supplier-level data
• Product, sourcing, and sustainability teams were working from the same view

What had previously been slow, manual, and siloed became part of normal business operations.

As O’Loughlin noted: “One of the biggest benefits of choosing Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator is that the product teams were more engaged with this program because it didn’t take much of their time to get information into the system.”

Turning existing supplier data into product-level insight

The Product Impact Calculator empowers brands to translate complex supply chain information into clear, product-level environmental insight. By bringing together product attributes, material composition, facility-level environmental performance, and sourcing data in a single system, it delivers a holistic view of a product’s impact—without requiring product teams to become lifecycle assessment experts.

For KMD, the Product Impact Calculator unlocked a new level of clarity. Instead of viewing sustainability data in isolation, teams could see how materials, manufacturing choices, and sourcing decisions directly influenced product-level emissions. This shift made environmental impact tangible at the point where decisions are made—during product design and development.

The result is more than better reporting. With the Product Impact Calculator, KMD Brands gained a practical decision-making solution that turns data into direction, enabling teams to evaluate trade-offs, prioritize improvements, and design products with impact in mind. What once lived in spreadsheets and disconnected systems became a single source of truth that bridged the gap between supplier performance and smarter product outcomes.

Early insights are already reshaping how KMD Brands prioritizes action

Even in the early stages, the Product Impact Calculator is giving KMD Brands visibility that spend-based models never could.

Teams can now:

• Identify category-level hotspots (for example, T-shirts as a high-impact category)
• Compare products across materials, suppliers, and production locations
• See where default values remain—and where better data will drive better accuracy
• Begin scenario modeling to test material changes, factory shifts, or process improvements

Just as importantly, supplier improvements no longer disappear into reports. Facility-level actions—like energy efficiency upgrades—now show up directly in product emissions profiles, making the impact visible to the teams designing and sourcing those products.

Why accurate product-level emissions matter

For KMD, the Product Impact Calculator is as much about engagement as it is about emissions.

By clearly linking supplier data to product outcomes, KMD Brands can now show suppliers how their improvements influence brand-level decisions and ground factory conversations in shared, credible data.

The level of accuracy KMD Brands gets, down to the product-level, also gives the brand the ability to prove its progress toward decarbonization goals with real data, not estimates. 

Building a foundation for future regulations and deeper decarbonization

KMD Brands is still early in its journey, but the direction is clear.

With product- and facility-level data connected, the company is now better equipped to:

• Move beyond spend-based Scope 3 reporting
• Prepare for future rebaselining using primary data
• Expand Tier 2 and Tier 3 coverage
• Prepare for upcoming regulations like the Digital Product Passport, Product Environmental Footprint, and French Environmental Cost

Most importantly, KMD Brands has created internal alignment around how product decisions drive climate outcomes—turning Scope 3 from an abstract reporting exercise into a practical, shared responsibility.

To see Worldly’s Product Impact Calculator in action for yourself, watch a demo now.