Henkel is collaborating with its packaging suppliers on a new engagement programme to reduce emissions created indirectly by the German brand owner.
The consumer goods company’s Climate Connect initiative aims to record and reduce Scope 3 emissions from suppliers worldwide, covering packaging, traded goods and raw materials.
Scope 3 emissions are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation, but that the organisation indirectly affects in its value chain.
Under new European Union (EU) sustainability reporting rules – the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive – companies will now be required to make a deep assessment of their Scope 3 emissions.
Henkel's goal is to “advance decarbonisation along the value chain through the collection of emissions data, jointly defined actions for reduction and continuous upskilling,” read a statement from the company, which owns hair care brand Schwarzkopf.
Henkel is collaborating with Manufacture 2030 on the scheme – a technology company which works with manufacturing businesses to help them reduce their environmental footprint within global supply chains.
Manufacture 2030 will help Henkel address its contract manufacturers and suppliers of traded goods worldwide, where reportedly a total of more than 90% of its Scope 3 upstream emissions occur.
The programme will record key figures on energy, water consumption and waste volumes.
It will then be gradually adapted to an increasing number of suppliers in Scope 3 categories in the future.
Henkel’s new programme supports suppliers to take action on decarbonisation (Image credit: Henkel)
“Compared to large companies, our small-and medium-sized partners often find it difficult to record their CO₂ emissions as they lack the capacity to do so,” said Bertrand Conquéret, Chief Procurement Officer at Henkel.
“Yet this data is hugely relevant as it is the only way to define targets and measures to reduce these emissions.
“For us, this in return is the basis for reducing our Scope 3 emissions and achieving our climate protection targets.
“The Climate Connect programme is, therefore, designed as a long term partner project with which we want to support our suppliers directly and as individually as possible.”
Henkel and Manufacture 2030 will offer participating suppliers support in assessing their baseline and setting measures for climate actions.
Suppliers will be able to track their progress in environmental key figures and make the data generated in Manufacture 2030 visible for other customers as well.
This includes exporting relevant data for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) – a global disclosure system to manage environmental data.
This is the latest environmental move by Henkel as it aims to reduce its CO₂ emissions from raw materials and packaging by 30% by 2030.
The company has set targets for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, aiming to reduce these by 67% in this timeframe.
Henkel is also developing a net-zero pathway for its Scope 3 emissions along the value chain, in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) standard.
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