United by the Together for Sustainability (TfS) initiative, thirty-seven companies from the chemical sector have supported a new Guideline for Product Carbon Footprint to lower emissions across the value chain.
The guideline, combines calculation methods from across the industry, and provides specific instructions for companies in several sectors on how to track their emissions from cradle to gate when dealing with most chemical products. Once this data is obtained, it will allow them to identify and change unsustainable practices throughout the production process.
Vice president of Corporate Sustainability at BASF, Dr. Christoph Jäkelsays that the company is “proud to contribute to this guideline through our pioneering work in PCF (product carbon footprint) calculation and methodology over the past years. This industry-wide agreement among leading global chemical and process industry manufacturers as members of TfS brings us a big step closer to achieving unrestricted comparability of product carbon footprints and, therefore, a level playing field within the chemical industry.”
According to BASF, its existing digital solution for calculating product carbon footprints, which claims to adhere to the relevant ISO standards and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard while narrowing its specific focus to the chemical industry, will be adapted to fit the new TfS calculation rules. Nonetheless, this calculation method will continue to contribute to the regulation of emissions.
“Such groundwork has brought things to the next level,” said Prof. Dr. Peter Saling, director of Sustainability Methods at BSF and chair for the guideline development at TfS. “We now have an even more wide-reaching and comprehensive guideline to assess the PCFs of chemical materials in a consistent fashion that has been jointly developed and officially endorsed by many global leaders in the chemical industry.”
Other sectors are also looking to tackle high emission rates. More than 200 industry leaders are supporting the Mission Possible Partnership’s new target to decarbonise the steel, trucking, shipping, and aviation industries by 2030. They hope to achieve this by using near-zero emissions materials such as aluminium and primary steel.
This year Boston Consulting Group won the ‘Best Practice’ category at the Sustainability Awards for its own, AI-powered digital solution, which allows corporations from any industry to track and reduce their carbon emissions at scale.
