BASF Coatings launches tool for calculating the CO₂ footprint
BASF Coatings has introduced a new digital solution for calculating the carbon footprint of its sales portfolio. The solution replaces an internally developed application that BASF Coatings has been using for several years to provide CO₂ data for its customers worldwide.
BASF Coatings has an agile, reliable and globally applicable CO₂ database for 120,000 sales products. All product-related greenhouse gas emissions, from raw material procurement and transportation to energy use in production, are calculated in a standardized, consistent and system-supported manner. In this way, the company creates the basis for a comprehensible carbon footprint, especially for complex products such as paints with a wide range of color shades. The resulting CO₂ data helps customers to make fact-based decisions and pursue their sustainability goals in a targeted manner. "Climate protection is becoming increasingly important for our customers. With our tools, we can provide them with reliable data and support them with solutions on this basis," says Dr. Markus Piepenbrink, Head of Global Sustainability BASF Coatings. "We already offer them the opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of selected products by using alternative raw materials and renewable energies, for example."
BASF PCF tool integrates CO₂ data on raw materials
A central element of the new PCF tool is the integration of CO₂ data on over 25,000 raw materials sourced worldwide. The individual energy consumption of more than 30 of our own production sites worldwide is also included in the calculation. This enables precise recording of emissions, even for product variants. An important innovation is that other impact categories are now also recorded in addition to CO2. This provides valuable insights for the development of targeted measures to improve customers' sustainability. The global introduction of the new system at all BASF Coatings sites was carried out gradually and in close cooperation with the system provider SAP. The company is now the first and largest supplier of surface solutions to use SAP Sustainability Footprint Management (SFM). "With the introduction of SFM, we are bringing sustainability and digitalization together and creating reliable transparency for us and our customers," says Maximilian Bauer, Global Sustainability Project Manager at BASF Coatings.