A first in the specialty glass industry: SCHOTT prepares guideline for calculating a Product Carbon Footprint

Climate protection is a declared company goal for SCHOTT. However, more and more of the specialty glass manufacturer’s customers and partners also prioritize the purchase of products with the lowest possible impact on the climate in order to integrate these into the balance of their own products. The Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) helps here: this figure provides information on the quantities of greenhouse gas emissions that arise during the life cycle of a product. The figures calculated according to the certified method enable the company to determine where there is still room for improvement at the product level. Together with its customers, SCHOTT can develop solutions for new CO₂-reduced products.

In its PCF Guideline, the Group takes the product life phase “from the cradle to the factory gate” into account (cradle-to-gate), i.e. from the extraction of raw materials through all manufacturing processes to the finished and packaged product on the SCHOTT premises. Customers can use an Executive Summary to gain an overview of the most important points of the guideline.

“Thanks to our certified PCF Guideline, we can now calculate reliable CO₂ data for first products and reliably determine Scope 3 emissions together with our customers. This helps us and our customers to develop lower-CO₂ products and achieve our decarbonization targets. We are thus contributing to the development of more sustainable, transparent value chains and taking our climate strategy an important step forward,” explains Marius Amschler, Product Manager and Sustainability Expert for the Business Unit Tubing. “We are already in contact with several customers who have expressed a strong interest in medical glass packaging with a PCF value. Together, we can work on solutions here.”

Calculating the CO₂ values for the Group's many different specialty glasses, glass-ceramics and other products is a challenging task. That is why SCHOTT is proceeding step by step.

The business units with a wide range of products will therefore determine reliable CO₂ data for product groups according to the PCF guidelines over the course of time. Since the product offerings are different, communication with customers from each business unit will follow a separate schedule - but always reliably according to the PCF guidelines.

Internationally recognized standards and external certification

Developing the PCF Guideline was a difficult task for the experts at SCHOTT, not least because there are no standards for the specialty glass industry and the company had to do pioneering work. At the same time, SCHOTT had to take many different products and their manufacturing processes into account, as well as determine the emission values for components and raw materials from upstream suppliers.

To ensure that the extensive work can serve as a reliable basis for further measures, the engineers proceeded with particular thoroughness: The guideline was aligned with current, internationally recognized standards and its requirements follow the ISO 14067 standard as the basis for PCF development, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol for accounting for greenhouse gas emissions, and the PCF Guideline from TfS (“Together for Sustainability”), an overarching sustainability initiative of the chemical industry.

An interdisciplinary group from various departments worked together at SCHOTT to develop the PCF. For example, all Business Units as well as interfaces from purchasing and development were part of the team. SCHOTT was supported by the sustainability specialists from the management consultancy sustainable AG, while the recognized, independent testing company GUTCert took over the external certification. The development process was carried out jointly in an intensive exchange.

Setting standards for the specialty glass industry together

“Our guideline provides a standardized and transparent calculation method for the first time ever. Based on our method, which we have worked on intensively, our customers and, of course, we ourselves can now identify levers for avoiding greenhouse gas emissions much more easily,” says Anja Schlosser, who coordinates the PCF team of experts at SCHOTT. “Last but not least, our guideline helps set the appropriate standards in the specialty glass industry. We would like to engage in an exchange with other players in this area in order to jointly promote sustainable standards in our industry.”