Coating solutions company Hempel (Lyngby, Denmark) is now sharing carbon footprint data on its product data sheets. By providing sustainability product scorecards, the company is aiming to support customers in delivering on sustainability commitments.
The move, which Hempel says is an industry first, is part of the group’s Double Impact strategy.
According to the company, the sustainability product scorecards are a tool to quickly and easily measure the environmental impact of various paint systems. A comprehensive evaluation of the sustainability issues facing the coatings industry resulted in the selection of eight metrics.
Sustainability scorecards are available for all of Hempel's products as part of a plan to provide customers with sustainability decision-points when deciding on which Hempel solution to choose. Carbon footprint data is now included on the product data sheets of over 160 products within the marine, energy, and infrastructure assortments. The ambition is to cover all Hempel’s solutions in these industries by the first quarter of 2024.
“Sustainability is not only our journey,” explains Monica Li Avram, director of solution management for Hempel’s infrastructure business. “We see an increased number of requests from our customers on detailed sustainability data on our solutions, both as a requirement for their projects, or as a differentiator.”
“We have been providing our customers with the carbon footprint data related to their annual spend or a specific project for a while now,” she adds. “It was a natural next step to include the information directly on our product data sheets.”
The scope of the carbon footprint on these product data sheets includes raw materials, in-bound transport to the Hempel factory, Hempel manufacturing processes, and any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted during and after applying the product. Thus, it accounts for the most significant impacts across the value chain.
“We planted a seed a few years ago to develop a sustainability product scorecard to account for environment, circularity and chemicals metrics across our product assortment, using a lifecycle assessment approach where relevant,” says Emily Adair, senior sustainability project manager.
“Sharing sustainability data in this way enables fair comparison, allowing our customers to consider both the efficiency and durability of Hempel’s coatings systems,” Adair adds. “Our customers have welcomed the transparency, and the scorecard is actively used across our company from customer engagements to steering the course for our future solutions. The tree has grown to include carbon footprint reports for our customers, and this new section on our product data sheet puts the data directly into their hands.”
Source: Hempel, www.hempel.com.