Tucker’s Natural, a South Australian family-owned artisan baked snack producer, has become the first food and beverage company in Australia to track and measure its supply chain emissions using Siemens’ innovative Sigreen platform.
The Sigreen pilot that Siemens launched in South Australia earlier this year in collaboration with Food South Australia (Food SA) and the South Australian Department of Industry Innovation and Science, has now been completed.
Using Sigreen and working closely with the Siemens team for over three months, Tucker’s Natural was able to track verifiable Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data across its supply chain – an essential measure for anyone committed to net zero.
According to Sam Tucker, Founder and Managing Director of Tucker’s Natural, the pilot enabled the award-winning artisan baked snack producer to take giant strides towards its net zero commitments and Responsible Sourcing Program.
“Put simply – we can’t reach net zero without tracking supply chain emissions. Siemens Sigreen has enabled us to do this in a way that provides verifiable data. The results have been invaluable,” said Mr Tucker.
Tucker’s Natural was founded on the principle of producing ‘better for you’ baked snack products that are the best quality, all natural, sustainable and made with locally sourced ingredients.
The Sigreen pilot has given Tucker’s Natural an unparalleled opportunity to engage with their supply chain on a product level and quantify the CO2 contribution of individual components and suppliers, enabling a cross-company effort towards decarbonisation, carbon reduction and net zero targets.
“The challenges we faced in collecting this data goes to show that many businesses in Australia haven’t started on this journey yet. The major supermarkets have set aggressive emissions reduction targets, and I am really pleased that Tucker’s Natural, because of the pilot, is in a position to help them now. Having gone through the exercise with one product line, we can easily scale and replicate the measurements for our other products. We can calculate and attribute emissions data back to our production and then products so that in the future, when a consumer buys a Tucker’s Natural product, we can provide transparency of the emissions that have been generated in the production and delivery of that product, added Mr Tucker.
“The pilot has supported our family business by providing access to the latest global technology helping accelerate sustainability goals.”
Milan Bawa, General Manager of Factory Automation at Siemens Australia and New Zealand said, “It has been great to work with a company like Tucker’s Natural who are strongly committed to business and environmental sustainability and keen to make a difference in future. The pilot has proven that PCF tracking is a critical step for companies of all sizes aiming to address net zero.
“Siemens began its journey in South Australia in 1872 with the Overland Telegraph – a technological breakthrough which opened communication links with the state and the world. It feels very natural to continue that pioneering spirit in South Australia with the latest digital and software tools to help the F&B sector reach net zero. We believe that digitalization is the key to accelerating sustainability. Australia’s contributes around 1% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions and that’s what net zero is trying to address. However, we could do so much more,” added Mr Bawa.
Using innovative technologies, Sigreen makes it possible to exchange emission data along the supply chain - from sourcing raw materials and packaging right through to customers enjoying the end product.
Background information
The transition towards a low carbon economy is gaining momentum worldwide. Most companies today measure their energy-related emissions – and an increasing number of them are pursuing emission reduction measures. The decarbonisation of value chains is a challenge which cannot be overcome by one company alone. In fact, the upstream supply chains account for a major part of the Product Carbon Footprint, rather than a company’s own manufacturing process. Suppliers produce so-called Scope 3 emissions – and quantifying these emissions is of critical importance. Collecting precise and trustworthy information on the emissions originating from a company’s partners in the supply chain requires considerable effort in today’s world.
To address this issue, Siemens has developed an ecosystem-based approach for the exchange of trustworthy product emission values. As recommended by leading NGOs (WRI, GHG Protocol, and GIZ), it is based on a Distributed Ledger. In contrast to existing solutions, the data is not provided centrally by a company or institution. Instead, it is exchanged directly within the scope of customer-supplier relations. Verifiable Credentials optionally issued by trusted third parties are exchanged via a Distributed Ledger in order to verify the data provided – and to enable the trustworthy aggregation of an overall Product Carbon Footprint across the supply chain – without the companies involved having to disclose data of strategic relevance, for example details of their own supply chains.
Simplifying the communication with partners in the supply chain and optimizing the calculation of a company’s own gate-to-gate emissions can significantly reduce the effort required to determine a CO2 footprint compared to other approaches available on the market.
