Achieving Scope 3 Targets: The Role of Supplier-Specific Carbon Footprint Data in Chemicals and Plastics Value Chains
14 Nov 2024
The environmental impact of chemicals and plastics depends mainly on the supply of raw materials and chemical intermediates used in their production. To mitigate these impacts, chemical producers can build more sustainable supply chains through strategic purchasing decisions. However, this requires detailed information about the environmental impact of the production routes used by the various suppliers in the market, which is often unavailable. In this presentation, we introduce teh Carbon Minds database, a product carbon footprint and life cycle inventory database designed to systematically support the identification of environmental impact reduction opportunities through purchasing decisions. Unlike other databases, the Carbon Minds database maps the production of high-volume chemicals and plastics at the plant and supplier level across over 190 production regions worldwide. This higher level of granularity highlights differences in environmental impacts between countries, technologies, and individual suppliers. Using a case study of the climate impact of polypropylene production, we show that the carbon footprint of polypropylene supply can be reduced by up to 68% through choice of production regions and by up to 90% by choosing particular suppliers. Such insights can guide purchasing decisions, enabling substantial improvements in Scope 3 emissions to achieve climate targets.