STRATEGIES
He says : “ The purpose of that is to improve our understanding and measurement of the carbon impact of our products .
“ When we ’ re selling a side shaft to a customer , they are increasingly wanting to know what the carbon footprint of that is .
“ They want to know whether we ’ ve done a life cycle assessment of that .”
Tom adds : “ What that entails is getting product specific information . So you ’ re looking into the supply chain , looking at the materials that we are purchasing , asking what the environmental footprint is for those and then itemising the carbon and the different processes that we ’ d have at our sites .” The process is getting significan buy-in from GKN ’ s supply chain .
Tom says : “ We ’ re getting more and more requests from our customers , so it ’ s really starting to become embedded in the process .
“ As you do that , you better understand the product life cycle and you ’ re measuring it better . You ’ re getting more data . So then you can start to think about improving it by looking at the materials being used .”
He adds another piece of the PLM puzzle , which GKN launched in 2023 – a new platform to start gathering broader environmental data from its suppliers .
“PLM SYSTEMS HELP OPTIMISE THE PROCUREMENT PROCESS IN SEVERAL WAYS , INCLUDING SUPPLIER SELECTION BASED ON CARBON INTENSITY OF PRODUCTS ”
GEMMA THOMPSON SENIOR CONSULTANT FOR STRATEGY AND GROWTH , PROXIMA
Tom says : “ We reduced our carbon emissions by 10.5 % last year . So we are starting to kind of see some progress .
“ We also have targets around renewable electricity . So 50 % by 2025 , 75 % by 2030 . Actually purchasing renewable electricity will be a really important enabler of getting towards our net zero targets .”
While it is not the panacea , PLM is a central tool that businesses are using to cut their carbon emissions – and those of their supply chain .
The early signs are good With initiatives such as those already mentioned , plus a supply assurance questionnaire , which assesses suppliers on their ESG performance , GKN is seeing significant progress .
148 November 2024