How Can the Chemicals Industry Capitalize on Carbon Reduction Opportunities? - Seite 2

The automotive industry already has a blueprint that the chemicals industry can adopt. It tracks material flows digitally throughout the entire supply chain. Catena-X allows companies to share standardized emissions data from their supply chain with confidence based on technology that provides an auditable chain of custody. This offers car manufacturers the information they need to make strategic decisions to reduce the carbon footprint of their products, embrace circularity, and increase the adoption of circular business models such as battery recycling. Some of the chemical companies that supply the automotive industry are already involved, such as BASF.

"As an energy-intensive industry at the beginning of nearly all value chains, the chemical sector plays a key role in reducing global carbon footprint in manufacturing and beyond. Carbon footprint transparency at product level is a fundamental step to achieve this," said Alessandro Pistillo, director of Digital Strategic Projects at BASF. "BASF is a founding member and very active contributor in global initiatives focused on Scope 3 transparency and product carbon footprint standardization such as Together for Sustainability in the chemical sector, as well as Catena-X and the Global Battery Alliance in the automotive and battery value chain respectively. At the same time, BASF is also a leading member of WBCSD-PACT, whose framework is geared toward ensuring cross-sectoral interoperability."

Improved Accuracy

Historically, industry averages and secondary data have been used to estimate carbon footprints. The cornerstone of the vision for the chemicals industry involves a significant improvement in GHG emissions data, a step that will provide much greater emissions transparency for the industry itself and for its customers. SAP has been working with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) since 2021 as an innovation partner and has been involved in the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) initiative, helping to develop the global standards, methodology, and technological infrastructure needed for product-level emission accounting and exchange.

Collaborative Data Exchange

The desire and the frameworks for the chemicals industry to collaborate already exist. They date back to 1985, with the establishment of the Responsible Care program and the 2011 formation of industry body Together for Sustainability, a worldwide initiative to raise sustainability standards in the chemicals industry's supply chain. Its members include some of the world's largest chemical groups, represented by their chief procurement officers. Despite the industry's ability and willingness to cooperate, and its current pilot IT system for sharing upstream product carbon footprint information, it is still on the cusp of data exchange.