Data Sharing for Product Carbon Footprint Transparency

 

Sustainability has now become a key driver for competitive advantage. In a recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey, 80% of study participants reported that their company plans to transition to carbon-neutral operations. Nearly one-third (31%) plan to become carbon neutral by 2025, and approximately 60% plan to achieve this goal by 2030.

However, in order to progress in the decarbonization agenda, manufacturers are realizing that they need to go beyond carbon-neutral operations within companies’ boundaries and involve stakeholders from their value chains and business ecosystems to tackle the largest contributors to total emissions.

The challenges of Product Carbon Footprint data-sharing

In the decarbonization journey of supply chains, the first step is to gain an understanding of a product’s carbon footprint (PCF). The importance of establishing an emissions baseline is reinforced by the growing consciousness in society and the demand from consumers, investors, and governments for the correct labeling of a PCF. The challenge for many manufacturers is the accurate reporting of not only the internal emissions related to a given product but also the external supply chain emissions. These emissions may be estimated using emission factors and aggregated data from lifecycle databases and other sources whenever the required data is not available.

Granular emissions inventory through Product Carbon Footprint data sharing

To understand their main emission drivers, many companies, however, want a more detailed understanding of their emissions, accounting for parameters such as differences in geography, fuel sources, and process variations, in all areas where PCF can be measured based on real data. This granularity and correctness of data will allow firms to precisely track the impact of improvement and reduction measures from cradle to gate. Sharing data with customers and obtaining data from suppliers is therefore becoming crucial to establishing a granular and accurate emissions baseline.

Organizations showing stewardship in carbon transparency at product level

As businesses build clarity on their Scope 3 emissions, there is pressure on suppliers to provide this data to enable accuracy. At Carboledger, we are inspired by the work of a few leading organizations that have been leaders in being transparent about their practices with their customers.

Chemical sector

Chemicals sector has been one of the leaders in carbon transparency with initiatives such as Together for Sustainability (TfS) helping enterprises adopt to standardised measurement methodologies. 

Case Study : Perstorp

Perstorp is aligning with the new industry standard for product carbon footprint (PCF), developed by the industrial initiative Together for Sustainability. Perstorp can already share product carbon footprint values for about 85% of its products (based on sales volume) and is continuously adding more products. All the PCF values for Perstorp’s pro-environment products, contributing to the sustainable transformation of value chains by substituting fossil feedstock with renewable and recycled, are ISCC PLUS certified. Learn more here.

“Transparently sharing this type of information with our customers is an important part of being a sustainable solutions provider and serving value chain needs,” says Anna Berggren, VP Sustainability at Perstorp. “Product carbon footprint is an important way of providing value with our Pro-Environment products; it shows how they reduce CO2 emissions by substituting fossil feedstock with renewable or recycled alternatives, which has an effect on all downstream parties and products in the value chain.

Commit to transparency by disclosing the methodology, data sources, and assumptions used in calculating Scope 3 emissions, ensuring stakeholders can understand and verify the reported figures. Companies are increasingly embracing granular data by disclosing product or service-level footprints to customers.

Case Study : Brenntag

Brenntag, the global market leader in chemicals and ingredient distribution, has started sharing comprehensive product carbon footprint data (PCF) with customers. This unique service is part of Brenntag’s sustainability strategy to promote and enhance transparency about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to drive reductions across the entire supply chain. Brenntag calculates the product carbon footprint data according to the different stages of the supply chain: The first part represents Brenntag’s upstream Scope 3 emissions, from the extraction of resources through the manufacturing of the product up to the plant gate of our suppliers.

Andreas Kicherer, Vice President Sustainability Brenntag Group, adds: “Our concept of providing extensive product carbon footprints for our portfolio provides highly valuable answers to how much GHG emissions are associated with a product along its entire life cycle. We are continuously working to enhance this system by further improving the data quality as well as the number of available data points.” Learn more here.

Brenntag’s service is built on a database that provides PCFs of high quality for a large number of products and has started sharing data with customers in the form of pilot cases. These master data are gradually refined for each product with further details from suppliers. In parallel, the integration of these data points and the creation of specific service offerings are developed to drive automation and scaling.

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