ABeam helps companies calculate per-product carbon footprints (CFPs) and build sustainability data platforms to connect entire supply chains
Supporting the Construction of Platforms to Underpin the End-to-End Visualization, Control and Sustainability Management of GHG Emissions from Product to Company-wide Level
Solution
To calculate and control the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from corporate activities, companies need to be abreast of precise information across products, locations and entire supply chains. This necessitates using core systems such as ERPs and frameworks for coordinating and using data end-to-end from upstream to downstream.
ABeam Consulting goes beyond mere support for information disclosure to contribute to making products more competitive and raising corporate value through sustainability compliance.
By supporting the implementation of frameworks that enable the gathering and sharing of emissions data across the entire supply chain, we help companies improve coordination with business partners. This builds highly transparent information platforms.
Background
Demand for change aimed at strengthening regulation and a decarbonized society is growing at home and abroad
The establishment of international sustainability disclosure standards such as the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) are making rapid progress, and we are seeing disclosure begin to be made also gradually mandatory in Japan. This is having the result that companies are being required to comprehensively calculate and disclose their emissions, including Scope 3, in addition to Scope 1 and 2.
It is difficult, however, to ensure accuracy and reliability through the traditional manual and estimates-based calculation methods. Furthermore, the fact that suppliers provide information in differing formats also serves as a major barrier to visualizing emissions on the level of the entire supply chain.
In response to such challenges, ABeam Consulting supports the creation of frameworks that enable the calculation and sharing of emissions volume through the use of sustainability solutions. This allows companies to go beyond compliance to build up sustainable value chains and to raising corporate value through sustainability initiatives.
Challenges
Companies need to accurately grasp and control GHG emissions across their entire supply chains, as well as frameworks for improving the environmental performance of their products and their corporate value
Pitfalls
- CFP calculations are dependent on manual work done through Excel and email, creating a risk of human error due to the labor involved in aggregating data, and rendering it difficult to ensure the accuracy of the results. The details of the work are also highly individualized to the people responsible for these calculations, so efforts towards standardization and streamlining are failing to make headway.
- Companies particularly lack frameworks for comprehensively ascertaining their emissions volumes across supply chains, including Scope 3 emissions. This makes it difficult to think through overall optimization and to formulate reduction measures.
- Because calculating CFPs involves many different processes, the composition of reports, including clarifying the bases for numbers and how they were calculated and formulating tables, takes significant time. Handling corrections in reports also involves significant labor, so when there is variation in the numbers, broad-ranging corrections are required.
Approach
Recent years have also seen increased focus on the environmental performance of products and on sustainability information in investment decisions and supplier selection. This has made disclosure of per-product emissions more important than ever. Companies thus need to show environmental information in quantitative terms to improve their ability to promote their environmentally-friendly products and to raise their brand value.
To accurately manage emissions volumes, companies need to link performance data such as ERP and external data such as electricity usage volume, logistics and input emissions coefficients, and they need frameworks for comprehensively and precisely ascertaining their Scope 1-3 emissions.
By putting place environments where emissions data can be frictionlessly exchanged across their entire supply chain, companies can ensure transparency with their business partners and enable cooperation and collaboration on emissions reduction targets. This directly contributes to compliance and the maintenance of global competitiveness.
ABeam Consulting offers companies end-to-end support from defining requirements to designing systems and handing disclosure processes, in line with industry characteristics. We also facilitate enhancements to emissions volume management and the execution of CO2 reduction measures. This directly contributes to more sustainable management and improved corporate value.
Key features
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ABeam directly uses core system transaction data to achieve highly reliable emission calculations
Companies can achieve highly reliable emissions calculations without relying on manual data entry and estimates by directly making use of product data stored in core systems such as ERP as well as transaction, accounting, purchasing and other data.
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Easily track emissions across operations and the entire supply chain
In addition to their own business activities, companies identify potential reductions and areas to target for improvement by comprehensively ascertaining emissions, including Scope 3 emissions. Furthermore, by introducing frameworks for efficiently aggregating and exchanging emissions data from suppliers, companies can quickly and accurately compare and analyze emissions, and improve transparency across the entire supply chain, as well as their ability to execute on reduction measures.
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Speedily create emissions reports
Because our approach allows companies to quickly create emissions reports just by following a simple work sequence, it allows companies to not only consider internal policy, but also to efficiently handle audits and fulfil their duty to explain to investors. Through a variety of dashboards, we enable companies to make smart analyses across locations, products and processes, and thus support strategic decision making.
Achieving high-precision emissions volume calculations using core system performance data
By making direct use of performance data stored in purchasing, production and other core systems, companies can calculate highly reliable and accurate GHG emissions volumes without relying on traditional manual work and estimates. This allows companies to secure the precision needed to withstand audits and external disclosure, and can also be used to promote environmentally-friendly products and improve corporate ESG evaluations.
ABeam Consulting supports the introduction of sustainability systems, beginning with SAP® Sustainability Footprint Management, SAP® Sustainability Data Exchange and booost Sustainability, as well as linking them to existing core systems. We can also design and develop interfaces for communicating with other systems, and build environments that allow companies to efficiently and flexibly obtain the data they need. By doing so, ABeam seamlessly integrates on-the-ground operations and emissions volume management, thus improving company-wide sustainability compliance ability.
Furthermore, by clarifying emissions data thus calculated in terms of the environmental value of products and services, this contributes to building greater relationships of trust with customers and investors.
Comprehensively ascertaining emissions volumes targeting the entire supply chain centered on your company and building the foundations for coordination
By comprehensively calculating and managing emissions across their entire supply chains, including suppliers, logistics and emissions incurred in using and disposing of products (Scope 3 emissions) on top of their direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2 emissions), companies can holistically grasp their CFPs across the entire lifecycles of their products, enabling them to design high environmental-performance products and formulate measures for improvement. In manufacturing, in particular, emissions volume management on a per-component or per-input basis is a critical part of improving the environmental value of products.
Introducing frameworks that allow companies to efficiently aggregate and exchange emissions data with business partners also lets companies reduce the work involved in aggregating and integrating data, and thus lets them improve the transparency and reliability of data across the entire supply chain.
ABeam Consulting offers support for everything from designing emissions volume models to formulating briefings and trainings for internal and external stakeholders, and rules for exchanging data. We help companies improve their ESG evaluations and market competitiveness by creating sustainable frameworks across industries and regions, and through improvements to environmental performance on a per-product level.
Speedily create emissions reports
The sustainability solutions that ABeam Consulting helps provide companies with an environment where they can centrally manage everything from aggregating and organizing emissions data to drafting reports. Users can use the dashboards to check emissions volume trends and per-department breakdowns in real time, enabling them to quickly draft reports through intuitive operations alone. This results in massive efficiency gains in drafting disclosure materials, which previously required significant time and labor. Companies are thus able to provide highly reliable information to leadership and investors in a timely manner.
Furthermore, we design reporting frameworks based on the industry-characteristics and the existing sustainability activities of each company, as well as supporting the construction of systems that apply emissions volume data to corporate controls. Leveraging environmental performance as an indicator for management allows companies to both improve the quality of their decision making and to broadcast information that clearly shows the environmental value of their products and services.
ABeam helps companies put in place sustainable frameworks that can flexibly handle changes to reporting requirements or revisions to systems. Such efforts connect sustainability compliance with strategic information disclosure and continuously drive improvements to corporate reliability and value.
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