today 141
today 141
On the way to climate neutrality, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) have made it their aim to integrate the environmental impact caused by products and services into their procurement process. The model, which will be introduced here and which has been developed by ÖBB Procurement with the support of Graz Technical University, allows the specific calculation of the environmental impact caused in manufacturing, construction, service life, and recycling of products and services.
Sven Schirmer
Corporate Procurement Coordinator and expert in decarbonization, ÖBB-Holding AG
This environmental impact can be monetized and integrated into the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) so it can be included directly in the procurement process. The methodology developed allows for sustainability considerations to be integrated into life cycle considerations; and this is possible across all industries, from sole traders and SMEs through to large corporations. This way, every company can get ready for the increasing requirements laid down by legislation as well as clients.
Currently, companies are facing various challenges. Sustainability is an economic factor [1]. This fact and current demands from politics led the Strategic Purchasing department of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) to expand their existing TCO model in 2020. In addition to the non-recurring cost, construction cost, and running costs, it was expanded by the cost caused by environmental impact.
One challenge for ÖBB was to ensure that this could be applied to all product groups. Whether it be the purchase of laptops or the construction of infrastructure: each procurement project should be user-friendly to carry out and at the same time manageable for clients and suppliers.
From the start, all possible and known influencing factors were taken into consideration in the model development in order to come up with an ecological assessment model than can be used by all parties involved.
For such a detailed calculation that allows a comparable assessment of the bids from various suppliers, the ÖBB model needs relevant input data from certificates or primary data sources. These require a certain degree of detail to be able to map the life cycle in the necessary quality. ÖBB decided to opt for greenhouse gas emissions in the form of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) in line with defined rules [2]. Unlike other environmental factors, this data is already available in sufficient amounts worldwide, is transparent, objective, and comparable. As can be seen in Figure 1, the model developed covers all phases.
The model requires comparable input data, i.e. materials and processes, to be able to calculate the emissions for each phase based on existing emission factors. This data includes transport processes where intermediate or end products are transported from A to B, utilization processes of the application phase, and the processing steps required to make an intermediate or end product from input materials with energy consumption. In all these steps, CO2 can be generated directly or indirectly (through energy consumption); this is depicted in the material flow assessment. The diagram in Figure 2 demonstrates this using the life cycle of a laptop as an example.
The present TCO-CO2 model can be used by both private and public purchasers. All requirements were taken into consideration, among them the necessary transparency in the calculation as well as the utilization of freely available emission factors. Here, the publicly accessible data of the Federal Environmental Agencies in Austria [3, 4] and particularly Germany [5] were consulted. A positive side effect is the free use of these scientific data sets.
In addition to the standard emission factors for processes and materials, the client also has to provide information that we call the parameters of the LCC approach. These include a detailed description of the product or service under consideration, the place of delivery for calculating transport costs and emissions, required work on-site (e.g. setting up), the usage information (e.g. how many hours per year and under what conditions a device will be used), and, finally, the desired treatment at the end of the service life.
Another added value for users of the TCO-CO2 tool: various scenarios of product development or service processing can be played out in order to derive strategies for one’s own further development, e.g. by changing the mode of transport, exchanging materials, changing the energy supplier, etc. The cost-benefit comparison can thus also be carried out under ecological aspects.
[1] zukunftsInstitut [futureInstitute]; https://www.zukunftsinstitut.d...
[2] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol on accounting of emissions and assigned amount, 2008
[3] Umweltbundesamt Österreich [Austrian Federal Environmental Agency]; https://www.umweltbundesamt.at...
[4] Umweltbundesamt Österreich; GEMIS Globales Emissions-Modell integrierter Systeme – Österreich, Version 4.9
[5] Umweltbundesamt Deutschland [German Federal Environmental Agency], ProBas: Prozessorientierte Basisdaten für Umweltmanagementsysteme, https://www.probas.umweltbunde...
