SCHOTT is the first specialty glass manufacturer to present a certified guideline for calculating the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) of its products. This product-specific sustainability assessment that is based on greenhouse gas emissions provides a quantified and well-founded statement about the climate impact of a product and is increasingly becoming the focus of the company’s climate strategies.
SCHOTT is taking another important step by developing this standard. The company can offer calculations for first selected products. The goal is to help customers choose low-emission products and thus advance their own decarbonization goals. At the same time, the technology Group is setting a milestone on the road to a PCF industry standard in the specialty glass industry.
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.
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.