STS Exchange — demo specification

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For: AKFI and the STS working group · From: Apiko · Date: 26 October 2026 · Status: draft for the call

Purpose

Make STS labelling tangible: show that one Scope 3 label, defined once, lets suppliers answer in their own format and lets the customer read, trace and query the result — without every company adopting the same data structure. It is a 1–2 day illustration for the working group, not a product build.

The scenario

One presenter walks the working group through the demo, playing every party in turn with a switch. There is no sign-in.

• The customer is a battery manufacturer. It sets up the example, sends the request, reviews the responses, asks questions and exports the data.
• Three suppliers form one chain:
  1. a mine, which extracts lithium concentrate;
  2. a refiner, which turns the concentrate into battery-grade lithium carbonate;
  3. a carrier, which takes one container of that carbonate to the customer.
• The prepared example. Every figure is synthetic and in tCO2e. A second prepared industry, food packaging (a recycled-PET tray chain), comes with its own figures, documents and example queries and shows that the label follows the customer's choice. Company names can be changed on the spot.

The label

The label is defined once and is the same for every party and every industry. Its names and definitions are the demo's own, because no STS dictionary exists yet. A Label definition screen gives each entry its meaning, its unit, where its value comes from and what stands in when there is none.

• The six fields you named:
  • originating company ID;
  • units of measurement;
  • source of data;
  • verification;
  • Scope 3 emissions;
  • how the Scope 3 were produced.
• The method of each figure: measured, or estimated and how.
• The eight questions you listed: who, what activity, which product, where, how calculated, when, which STS transactions support it, and how it rolls up.
• The profile: the industry, the product, and for each place in the chain its party, its activity and the Scope 3 category it fills.

How it works

1. Set up. The customer keeps the prepared example, picks the other prepared industry, or renames the companies. The label is created from that input.
2. Request. One request about one container goes to the three suppliers at once.
3. Respond. Each supplier uploads a simple text document (for example a PDF) in its own layout, stating only its own emissions. Its request shows what arrives with the container: the previous party's transaction and its emissions total.
4. Interpret. An existing AI service reads each document into one STS transaction:
   • each value with its unit, source and verification;
   • each own figure marked measured or estimated, with how the supplier allocated it to this container;
   • beside each value, the term the document used for it.
   A carrier's own figure is the transport of the container, by its own vehicles or subcontracted. Each supplier allocates its own emissions to the material in the container and says how; the demo computes no allocation. The emissions received come from the parent transaction, not from the document, and the label adds them. A missing mandatory value, unit or method is an error that names the missing item; nothing is guessed. Each supplier can read its own label, read only.
5. Review. The customer reads the labelled values and their context, never the supplier's file. It then either accepts the response or requests clarification with a note.
6. Trace. The chain view shows the container's path: mine → refiner → carrier → customer. Every number opens the transactions behind it. The roll-up is:
   • each party: its own Scope 1–2 plus what it received;
   • the customer's Scope 3 for the container: the carrier's total, split into Category 1 (the mine and the refiner)
   and Category 4 (the carrier).
7. Ask and export. The customer asks the five example queries in plain words. Each answer cites the transactions behind each number. The labelled data goes out as a CSV file (Excel and JSON if time allows), with a preview first; its columns say which figure adds up to the customer's Scope 3 (each party's own) and which already include upstream (what was received, the reported total).

In the demo, and not

In:

• one customer, one chain of three suppliers and one container;
• two prepared industries;
• the label with its definition and profile;
• three response documents in three layouts, including one that leaves a mandatory value out;
• interpretation, review, the chain, the roll-up, the five queries and CSV export.

Not in — most of it is what you deferred to a PoC or MVP:

• supplier confirmation before submitting;
• consistency checks, conflicts and unit conversion;
• clarification rounds (an answer by a new document is ready if you want it);
• the customer seeing a supplier's file;
• a custom or privately hosted model;
• forward-looking targets;
• dictionary approval and versions;
• other Scope 3 categories;
• water, waste, social and governance data;
• per-unit product footprints;
• automatic collection from systems such as an MMS;
• accounts, invitations and email;
• dashboards and integrations.

If time allows: live AI generation for an industry that is not prepared, a document of the presenter's own, Excel and JSON export, and the clarification answered by a new document.

Still open

Your answers of 22 October settle most of the demo; everything above that rests on them is not asked again. These nine are what the answers leave open, or what the thread did not touch. Each is the answer we go with until you say otherwise; the showcase page Questions for AKFI gives the reasons, and lists what we took from your answers.

1. The chain. One chain of three suppliers in one industry (mine → refiner → carrier) — or, as on 20 October, three companies from different industries?
2. The customers. One customer, a second shown by renaming the example — or two or three side by side?
3. Who runs it. A presenter in front of the working group, or members trying it themselves from a link?
4. When, and who presents. The date of the working-group session, and whether you or we present.
5. The name. "STS Exchange Platform", from our design concept, or a neutral STS or AKFI name?
6. Allocation. Each supplier allocates its own site emissions to the material in this container and states how (by mass, here); the demo computes no allocation or yield.
7. What goes on to the next supplier. The refiner sees the mine's 23.3 tCO2e, the carrier the refiner's 35.7 — acceptable?
8. The Category 11 query. Keep it, answered "not in this chain yet", or replace it with one the chain can answer.
9. Queries for the second industry. For food packaging, "PET recycling" and "Category 12, end-of-life treatment" in place of lithium extraction and Category 11.

Written from the project blueprint; the showcase shows every screen and flow.