Certify it!
Achieving net zero in the given tight timeframe requires…
… access to an extensive toolkit of decarbonisation technologies and many billions in investment.
All the options need careful and effective lifecycle calculations to ensure that every stage of the decarbonisation process is supported by data and standards to make informed decisions.
Sectoral roadmaps will draw the pathway to net zero, and within those guidelines, companies will have to build their own strategy to get to net zero in a certain period of time. In order to avoid inconsistency and provide transparency in these long term plans a new scheme of certification body’s is being developed.
Nowadays, companies not only need to seek innovations, technologies deployments and value chain collaborations as it has never been attempted in history, they would also need to certify every step of the journey to ensure legitimacy. The proliferation of independent, science-based body’s is in the rise. Moreover, the array of specialized services goes from setting emissions reduction targets to audit the different value chains involved in each specific solution.
In the last decades, certification – an independent seal showing that a product, process, system or service satisfies a certain standard – has become an important tool for governments and companies to show their sustainability performance. Currently there are certification schemes available for almost every product and service.
Tracking systems can be based on different chain of custody models, such as book-and-claim or mass-balancing.
For the chemical industry the use of alternative fuels and recycled materials is key to achieve net zero ambitions, although calculating the footprint of waste and bio-derived goods is not straightforward. Furthermore, the tracking systems are not at the same stage of development.
When we consider biomass, which use is well stablished, we can find plenty of certification bodies. The challenge here might be how to select which one is the most appropriate. Nevertheless, since more than a decade guidelines, created by governments, exist to help develop more sustainable biomass production chains.
But, if we move in the direction of less developed supply chains the tracking systems seem to encounter challenges that are still to be paved. This is the case of the green hydrogen. Creating a cost-effective green hydrogen tracking system based on internationally agreed hydrogen principles will still require joint efforts by governments, industries, civil society organisations and science-based technical bodies.
In the case of carbon removal technologies such as CCS and CCU, which are still in their infancy, certification schemes will also have to be put in place. In fact, the European Union has already started planning for negative emissions.
On top of the certification race, companies must manage the task of collecting lifecycle assessment (LCA) data across many hundreds and thousands of chemical products in their portfolios. Life cycle thinking can be used to understand the contributions of the chemical industry to a more sustainable economy through the application of its products. A full life cycle analysis will help identify both the negative and positive aspects of a product or service.
LCA is standardized in the International Standards Organisation (ISO) 14040 series
Typical types of systems boundaries include:
a. Cradle-to-gate: From raw material extraction to factory gate.
b. Cradle-to-grave: From raw material extraction through product use and disposal.
c. Gate-to-Gate: From one defined point along the life cycle
In a near future these companies will have to substantiate their claims using a single EU methodology called Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). Whether PEF will be a mandatory or voluntary requirement is still not clear. Making visible the environmental performance of products comes with pro’s and con’s that would need to be carefully weighted.
