Calculate CO₂ emissions in materials trading

If you want to move forward, you have to make a difference. And if you want to make your products more sustainable, you first need to know their carbon footprint. That's exactly what thyssenkrupp Materials Services makes possible - with the Product Carbon Footprint Calculator. In an international team, the largest materials trader in the Western world has developed a calculation approach to quickly and easily calculate the carbon footprint for each product supplied to its customers.

Calculate the carbon footprint for all products along a supply chain? Sounds complicated, but it's not. At least not anymore - thanks to the Product Carbon Footprint calculator from thyssenkrupp Materials Services.

The team explains to us in an interview how the tool works and how the material trader have introduced it in their company. Featuring: Helene Leneschmidt, Tanja Nigbur, Fabio Ezio Frattesi, Yannick Fasters, Oliver Grewatsch, Márton Tóth und Valery Malave Matute.

Making the carbon footprint of products measurable

The team's goal was to develop a digital product for all relevant companies of thyssenkrupp Materials Services that enables CO2 emissions of all products in the portfolio along their supply chains to be calculated. The result is the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) calculator.

For this purpose, the Expert:in specially developed a complex calculation approach that has already been certified by the international classification society DNV. "This calculation approach enables us to determine the carbon footprint for each individual product in our portfolio very precisely at order and supply item level," explains Helene Leneschmidt, Governance, Sustainability and Environment Manager.

With data to certification

After the experts successfully implemented the first computer at the Materials Processing Europe operating unit, the tool was also introduced at thyssenkrupp Materials de México, thyssenkrupp Materials Hungary and thyssenkrupp Plastics GmbH. "Other organizational units are already waiting in the wings," says a delighted Oliver Grewatsch, Head of Governance & Procurement. "We can tell there is a lot of interest! In all areas of Materials Services, our colleagues would like to be able to show their customers the carbon footprint of our products."

But getting there was not so easy! "Our biggest challenge was to simplify the different product groups in such a way that an emission value could be calculated for each product in our portfolio in the first place," explains Márton Tóth, Supply Chain & Logistics Management Specialist. In addition, the various input data to be included in the PCF calculator first had to be provided by the business units. A lot of data entry effort, which has now paid off:. Thorsten Sörje's team has managed to obtain certifications for the above-mentioned thyssenkrupp Materials Services companies.

Agile Management - The Key to Success

But where do you even start with such a mammoth project? Tanja Nigbur, Agile Coach & Scrum Master, explains: "To ensure that our colleagues were able to use the PCF computer in the shortest possible time, we exchanged information within the team on a daily basis. Thus, with regular meetings, the Expert:in ensured that they kept an eye on their set 2-week goal and always shared the progress of their tasks transparently with each other. "We also communicated with our contact persons in the companies on a 2-week cycle," adds Yannick Fasters, Project Manager Excellence & Performance Tribe. "Their feedback helped us to continuously develop our approach and thus the project." Through regular recaps and evaluation of the collaboration, the experts were also able to quickly adapt and improve their approach.

Challenges & influencing factors

"Thanks to the agile approach, we were able to react flexibly to the participants, to business-specific conditions and to our customers," says Tanja Nigbur, Agile Coach & Scrum Master. This is an important prerequisite, since the international team was confronted with many unknown influencing factors in the process and had to serve very different requirements.

The guiding principle for collaboration: unleash the potential of employees through a culture of autonomy and trust. "Thanks to this approach, we managed to achieve our goal within the set timeframe, stay focused throughout the project, use our scarce resources effectively, and make their success measurable," Nigbur continues.

Emissions transparency in supply chains

The provision of the Product Carbon Footprint calculator for all companies of thyssenkrupp Materials Services makes it possible to precisely calculate the CO2 emissions for each product in the portfolio of the internationally operating materials trader. "We are therefore providing emissions transparency for the entire supply chain and contributing to the sustainability strategy of Materials Services and thyssenkrupp AG," says Valery Malave Matute, Junior Project Manager LOG/ TIS, proudly. In this way, the team aims to reduce indirect emissions in the company's value chain by at least 16 percent in the coming years.

A common goal that motivates

But the calculation of emissions data is not only an important milestone for achieving the materials trader's own climate targets; thyssenkrupp Materials Services' customers also benefit from the successful project implementation: They receive accurate and certified baseline values for their own PCF calculations.

Fabio Ezio Frattesi, dual student, Project Management, agrees that this is an achievement the team can be proud of: "Implementing a project of this magnitude in such an agile way and as part of an international team was a great experience. The fact that it also contributes to our own sustainability and that of our customers was an additional motivation!"

Find out more about sustainable technologies from thyssenkrupp in our Sustainability Stories.