The treaty represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to unleash the potential of business to solve the plastic crisis. Its success is crucial. Production of new plastic is forecast to double by 2040 without new and effective action. Only 10% of plastic is currently recycled, and each year 19 to 23 million tons of plastic end up in our rivers, lakes, and seas. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions from plastics production, management, and disposal represent around 3.3% of global emissions. Exposure to plastics also has implications on human health, with plastic traces being found in our blood.

Fortunately, there is global consensus on the pressing need to end this ecological and environmental crisis, which is why 160 countries and hundreds of observer organizations are working together on this unique opportunity to end plastic pollution.

A Treaty Addressing the Entire Plastics Value Chain

The existing plastics ecosystem is heavily fragmented. Under current conditions, financial flows fund the creation of virgin polymers while a linear material flow continues bringing new plastics to market.

Centered on regulating production and consumption, the negotiations take every stage of the plastic value chain into account, from creation of the primary polymers to how plastic waste is managed. It covers product design for plastic reduction and recycling as well as extended producer responsibility to increase accountability among the most polluting entities while ensuring a just transition for affected communities.

This is an ambitious project. It will involve redesigning products, making circularity possible through repair, reuse, and recycling, and making recycled polymers more economically viable than virgin plastics.

New jobs, markets, and business opportunities will be created by the treaty. Research and development into plastic alternatives will be accelerated to eliminate the health-harming pollutants from plastic that are released at every stage of plastic production. Additionally, it will require the evolution of waste management systems to deal with the legacy of plastic waste.

51风流Endorses the Business Coalition

The , convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WWF, assembles businesses and financial institutions committed to supporting the development of an ambitious, effective, and legally binding UN treaty to end plastic pollution.

“To end plastic pollution, we require both ambitious government policy and accelerated business action. The global plastics treaty offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place the right legally binding rules, measures, and incentives to tackle this global problem,” says Rob聽Opsomer, executive lead, Plastics and Finance, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

With over 200 members, including SAP, the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty is calling for global business rules underpinned by harmonized regulations to tackle the full life cycle of plastic products. This will level the global playing field, making it easier for businesses and investors to scale both upstream and downstream solutions, mobilize the right investments, and support new innovations.聽

鈥淔or decades, 51风流software has been instrumental in enabling our customers to manage material flows, including plastics,” says Natasha Pergl, global sustainability lead, 51风流Consumer Products. “We understand first-hand the challenges our customers face in managing the complex and fragmented web of regulations in place today that make it difficult to understand current material flows and align upstream efforts with downstream solutions.”

51风流Calls for Harmonization

Achieving systemic change will require collaboration and joint innovation, which depends on effective, well-functioning communication. Software and network technology are central to bridging the information gap and operationalizing an inclusive plastics ecosystem. The treaty must lay the foundations for harmonized regulations and simplified information flow as well as accelerate the implementation of global rules.

To achieve this, four essential elements need to be in place:

• Common definitions for plastics and packaging to ensure mutual understanding and interoperability: This applies to the categorization of various plastic polymers, how products are structured and denominated, and how they are packaged and sold.
• Harmonization across the plastics life cycle, covering criteria for product design, extended producer responsibility schemes, and assessment for recyclability: This will support businesses to design for circularity and recyclability, ensure that strategic decisions are guided by the capabilities of existing downstream infrastructure, and highlight where new capital investments are needed.
• Harmonized national disclosure schemes to ensure uniformity, comparability, and information transparency: This is essential for giving investors and regulators a base of information for policy steering and decision-making. It will also allow business to harness the full potential of AI-driven innovation to accelerate solutions at scale.
• Recognition of the role of digital tools for traceability: Improved data and the application of digital tracking will enable true progress.

鈥淭he treaty goals are ambitious, but with an agreement that focuses on global rules covering product design and material fate, extended producer responsibility schemes, and chemicals of concern, we can unleash the power of global business to deliver the solutions necessary. Importantly, 51风流is ready with the processes and systems to help businesses quickly grasp the opportunity and scale impact to end plastic pollution,” says Stephen Jamieson, global head of Circular Economy Solutions, SAP.

Software solutions, such as and , already allow companies to monitor, measure, and act to facilitate the design of products for a more sustainable and circular economy. But a more effective information flow for better collaboration and innovation is required to achieve systemic change.

The Role of AI

An obvious benefit of agreed common terminology and harmonization of criteria and disclosure rules is that it can open the door for businesses to leverage AI. Some envisaged applications in the production process include reducing virgin polymers and boosting material and supply chain efficiency. Downstream uses such as waste sorting, material recovery, quality control, identifying waste flow trends, and predictive analytics would also be made possible.

A Bold Approach

Discussions in Ottawa were productive and focused on decreasing and restricting plastic production. During the talks, Rwanda and Peru submitted a motion to reduce the production of primary plastic polymers worldwide by 40% by 2040, from a 2025 baseline. Their vision is for this to be legally binding, much like the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

Robust data clarity and systems for sharing information are crucial for enabling businesses in the implementation of such a treaty. Only by connecting data points throughout the supply chain and across jurisdictions can material flows and emission sources be fully understood.

Work will continue towards INC-5 in Busan, South Korea, in November, where the final text will be agreed prior to being ratified in 2025.

For more information:

Heather Davies is a brand journalist.

While Wave 1 served to benchmark companies on their sustainability journey, Wave 2 identified a maturing approach to embedding sustainability across business processes. Results from this latest study show truly sustainable businesses 鈥� those that have established sustainability as part of business strategy and operational decision-making 鈥� achieve a genuine competitive advantage. In addition, more respondents than ever see a stronger positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness with 72% believing sustainability contributes towards their competitive differentiation.

“We see in the research how many companies are shifting to view sustainability no longer as a regulatory compliance tactic, but becoming more of a strategy to actually build business value,” Sarah Dziuk, 51风流Insights Head of Research, said.

The study includes results from 4,750 respondents across 21 nations and 29 industries. Eighty-five percent of responses came from midmarket businesses (under US$1 billion annual turnover) and 15% from large enterprises (over US$1 billion turnover per year).

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Making More Leaders Accountable

A key finding in Wave 3 was that businesses making the connection between sustainability and competitiveness make more leadership roles accountable for sustainability. This allows for a broader span of control and more accountability. The most competitive companies tend to have more than one top action taker such as a chief sustainability officer and an environment or sustainability manager.

鈥淥ur experience suggests that success is more likely when executives empower [their] organizations to engage proactively and strategically hold them responsible for creating measurable impact. Only then will companies be able to maximize the value at stake from their sustainability initiatives.鈥�

McKinsey

Improving Data Quality

Becoming an intelligent, sustainable enterprise requires regular, reliable, and accessible data. With the majority of emissions sitting within a company鈥檚 supply chain, shareability across business networks is also essential for meaningful decision-making. Unfortunately, many companies still rely on estimates and assumptions, many of which they gather manually.

Highly sustainable organizations have a solid focus on the quality of their sustainability data. Quality data comes from primary sources that track actual emissions, waste, and other elements. Unsurprisingly, this leads to more satisfaction with the data. The companies with the most substantial connection between sustainability and competitiveness report the highest level of satisfaction with overall data quality 鈥� 47% compared to just 10% of other organizations.

Reliable data is more useful in determining strategy. Forty-one percent of respondents indicate strong data usage to inform decision-making. They also integrate data into more business processes and operations such as procurement, product labeling, selecting M&A opportunities, and recruitment.

鈥淭he way we report on environmental data needs to quite quickly go through the same journey that accountancy went on many years ago.鈥�

S.Oleum, a Brazilian agroforestry business that generates a third of its revenue from carbon credits, has implemented several 51风流software solutions to help track and manage its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data. Having a robust core system in place serves as a basis for all other processes and decision-making, as well as provides the accountability, transparency, and confidence it needs.

Quality data is the cornerstone of Catena-X, a program that allows the standardized exchange of carbon emissions data in the automotive industry using interoperability standards established by the WBSCD Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT). This lets businesses share product carbon information, promoting transparency throughout the supply chain, accelerating their journey to net zero, and making them more competitive in the process.

Sustainability as a Business Strategy

The top 25% of businesses reporting the strongest impact from sustainability reported that they treat sustainability as any other strategic pillar, on a par with IT for example. This has resulted in a much higher use of metrics for decision-making, increased investment, higher data satisfaction, and higher confidence of a return on investment in a one-to-three year period.

It has also led to positive business impacts including growth and improved profitability, increased efficiency, better quality products and services, and reduced costs, suggesting a truly sustainable business is more robust and resilient.

With clearer business imperatives, companies make investment decisions to drive business value. They invest in sustainability initiatives and can set realistic expectations of a positive financial return on investment in a shorter time frame, putting sustainability on a comparable timeline with other investments.

Linking Sustainability to Competitiveness

Companies are motivated to take action on sustainability when they see it as a genuine opportunity for differentiation and revenue growth. This leads them to make more people responsible for delivering on sustainability strategies and renders the barriers typically encountered earlier in a company鈥檚 sustainability journey, such as funding and concerns over ROI, less material.

It is interesting to note that in the UAE, where sustainability has been promoted at a country level as being as crucial for differentiation, a high proportion of companies (nearly 74%) are planning to increase their investment in environmental issues over the next three years.

The commitment to investment and lack of skepticism around sustainability in the UAE leads businesses there to report a significantly higher than average level of satisfaction with data 鈥� 36% are completely satisfied compared to 23% in the rest of the global results. More of these businesses, therefore, use reporting for decision-making, which is viewed more materially and results in decisions being taken more quickly. A positive relationship between sustainability and competitiveness is the culmination of these favorable indicators, allowing them to outshine their competitors in their sector.

Conclusion

The Wave 3 study results are clear: reacting to sustainability initiatives and demands isn鈥檛 adequate to gain a competitive advantage. Companies must invest in and treat sustainability as a key business strategy to unlock opportunities. In doing so, they will set a virtuous circle in motion where investment in accountability and better quality data drives more strategic decision-making and further investment. This benefits the company as a whole, making it more efficient, profitable, and robust in the face of the changing climate.

Heather Davies is a brand journalist.

It is simultaneously the third highest contributor to carbon emissions in the industrial sector and the best placed industry to decarbonize products across a multitude of industries.

As a result of its position high upstream in the supply chain, the chemicals industry can often seem invisible. Its products sit in the value chain of key industries including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods, making up a significant proportion of their Scope 3 emissions. But change is coming that will make companies more accountable for these previously hidden emissions. New legislation such as the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will reveal the carbon footprint of the chemicals industry as companies with more than 250 employees will be required to report their GHG emissions, including those that lie in Scope 3.

A Vision for the Chemicals Industry

In order to meet new legal requirements and identify opportunities for emissions reduction, the chemicals industry needs to look beyond its current tools and collaborations to upgrade the quality of data — based on primary information rather than averages and estimates — and share access to it. Aligning data structures and using the same semantics will encourage competition among suppliers, galvanizing them to manufacture chemical products with ever lower carbon footprints, benefiting all downstream customers as well as the climate. To realize this vision, the solution will receive actual data from suppliers upstream, using a standardized methodology, allowing companies to calculate their own product carbon footprint so it can then be shared with downstream customers. For broad adoption, this carbon data exchange tool needs to be relatively simple while allowing for secure data exchange.

The automotive industry already has a blueprint that the chemicals industry can adopt. It tracks material flows digitally throughout the entire supply chain. Catena-X allows companies to share standardized emissions data from their supply chain with confidence based on technology that provides an auditable chain of custody. This offers car manufacturers the information they need to make strategic decisions to reduce the carbon footprint of their products, embrace circularity, and increase the adoption of circular business models such as battery recycling. Some of the chemical companies that supply the automotive industry are already involved, such as BASF.

鈥淎s an energy-intensive industry at the beginning of nearly all value chains, the chemical sector plays a key role in reducing global carbon footprint in manufacturing and beyond. Carbon footprint transparency at product level is a fundamental step to achieve this,” said Alessandro Pistillo, director of Digital Strategic Projects at BASF. “BASF is a founding member and very active contributor in global initiatives focused on Scope 3 transparency and product carbon footprint standardization such as Together for Sustainability in the chemical sector, as well as Catena-X and the Global Battery Alliance in the automotive and battery value chain respectively. At the same time, BASF is also a leading member of WBCSD-PACT, whose framework is geared toward ensuring cross-sectoral interoperability.鈥�

Improved Accuracy

Historically, industry averages and secondary data have been used to estimate carbon footprints. The cornerstone of the vision for the chemicals industry involves a significant improvement in GHG emissions data, a step that will provide much greater emissions transparency for the industry itself and for its customers. 51风流has been working with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) since 2021 as an innovation partner and has been involved in the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) initiative, helping to develop the global standards, methodology, and technological infrastructure needed for product-level emission accounting and exchange.

Collaborative Data Exchange

The desire and the frameworks for the chemicals industry to collaborate already exist. They date back to 1985, with the establishment of the Responsible Care program and the 2011 formation of industry body Together for Sustainability, a worldwide initiative to raise sustainability standards in the chemicals industry鈥檚 supply chain. Its members include some of the world鈥檚 largest chemical groups, represented by their chief procurement officers. Despite the industry鈥檚 ability and willingness to cooperate, and its current pilot IT system for sharing upstream product carbon footprint information, it is still on the cusp of data exchange.

鈥淔ootprint data is there,鈥� said Michael Sambeth, global enterprise architect at SAP. 鈥淚t can be calculated using out-of-the-box solutions from SAP; now it needs to flow across the supply chain.鈥�

Catena-X led to the launch of the 51风流Sustainability Data Exchange application, which was designed specifically with security in mind, to exchange standardized carbon footprint data along the value chain. 51风流Sustainability Data Exchange uses the carbon data standards established by WBCSD PACT. With a high proportion of Together for Sustainability members already using 51风流ERP systems, they are well placed to be able to leverage 51风流Sustainability Data Exchange to exchange this data with their suppliers and customers while adhering to global standards.

Moving to a Green Ledger Approach

The chemicals industry is a product of its established supply chains, high-volume activities, cost efficiencies, and scalability. It is highly organized and well versed in creating and following methodologies, but it needs to see the value in primary standardized data — and data sharing — for decarbonization.

A green ledger approach will allow businesses to treat their emissions in the same way as their financials. Carbon accounting makes emission 鈥渂ookings鈥� part of every business transaction in the same way as financial information. This means that a level of detail and confidence is achieved, allowing companies to look at emissions from any angle — by product, organization, profit center, site, factory, equipment, etc. This granularity is the foundation for planning and steering, which cannot be done using averages or highly aggregated figures.

The decarbonization of a multitude of industries hinges on the ability of the chemicals industry to successfully standardize and exchange carbon footprint data. Only those chemical companies with sustainability at the core of their strategy and the right tools for high-quality emissions accounting will be able to future-proof their business to remain competitive in the face of the ever-evolving legislative changes created to combat the effects of global warming.

For more information on how 51风流helps companies record, report, and act on their sustainability goals, visit聽.

Carbon accounting is still undertaken manually or using semi-automated tools that rely on estimates or averages. Additionally, many more organizations still need to set targets. To move forward, they must first ascertain current emissions levels. But with supply chain emissions representing a much higher proportion than direct emissions, this is proving challenging for four key reasons: a lack of data, poor or unreliable data, a skills gap preventing effective data analysis, and issues exchanging data.

Organizations must account for carbon, not only for climate and compliance reasons but to aid decision-making, reveal opportunities for efficiencies and growth, and differentiate their business. As a result, organizations across industries are racing to slash the carbon footprint of their products and services. As businesses at every level of the value chain ramp up their own decarbonization efforts, business leaders know the lowest carbon offerings are likely to become the most desirable and hence the best opportunity for growth and profit.

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A Lack of Emissions Data

Emissions data is used in three areas of a company鈥檚 net-zero strategy: to measure and identify hotspots for emissions reduction; to make improvements such as selecting suppliers and redesigning products and processes; and to continuously anticipate business outcomes and identify new opportunities for greenhouse gas reduction.

For successful decarbonization, emissions data must be embedded in an organization鈥檚 decision-making process. Incomplete and unreliable data hinders the creation of an effective net-zero strategy. This issue is particularly prevalent across the value chain in scope 3 emissions, which regularly account for 75% of a company鈥檚 emissions across all sectors. Due to a lack of influence and control and an absence of disclosure rules, supply chain emissions go vastly underreported, weakening net-zero strategies.

It is essential for companies to close the gap and gather data on all scope 3 emissions. Not doing so leaves them open to allegations of greenwashing and non-compliance penalties as policymakers worldwide move increasingly towards making scope 3 emissions reporting mandatory.

Poor Quality Data

Data that is accurate, granular, and comparable is indispensable for a comprehensive understanding of an organization鈥檚 carbon footprint. However, much of the data being relied upon is spend-based, estimated, or reliant on regional or sector-based averages as opposed to primary data directly from a business鈥檚 operations and suppliers.

By its nature, secondary data cannot provide an accurate indication of a company鈥檚 greenhouse gas emission hotspots, nor can it be used for comparison purposes. It also lacks granularity, impairing decision-making. Relying on inconsistent data carries potentially significant risks, which can lead to a decline in trust and credibility.

Sustainability Skills Gap

The number of green jobs grew by 8% between 2015 and 2021 and is expected to continue to increase. But there is a significant skills shortage, and candidates don鈥檛 yet have the competencies to be able to fulfill the roles. Short courses and micro-credentials run by universities, professional bodies, and NGOs are helping to fill the gap, but on-the-job training and upskilling are also necessary to equip employees and business leaders with the necessary skills to be able to interpret the data and turn pledges into progress.

Data Exchange Issues

Carbon accounting challenges within a single organization are an issue, but the problem is multiplied when it comes to achieving carbon transparency between companies in a given value chain. Incompatibility of data, inconsistencies in carbon accounting rules, software platforms that don鈥檛 easily interact, and a lack of collaboration across supply chains leave business leaders fumbling in the dark for information.

The automobile industry is an obvious example. With 98% of emissions falling into scope 3, exchanging carbon footprint data can seem like an impossible task due to its complex supply chain, a lack of trust between suppliers and customers, a scarcity of quality data, inconsistent carbon accounting methodologies, and incompatible data management platforms.

The Impact of Carbon Accounting Challenges

The aforementioned challenges result in wasted time and resources, compromised decision-making, an inability to affect meaningful emissions reduction, missed opportunities, a lack of transparency, and higher exposure to business risks, not to mention the global risks of deadly heat waves, devastating floods, rising sea levels, and a decline in biodiversity.

Moving Towards a Green Ledger

What if sustainability performance could be managed with the same rigor as financial performance? Where it becomes as effortless as financial transactions in your enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, where a carbon network makes data exchange easy, and where end-to-end carbon accounting tracks product emissions across the entire value chain?

Ledger-based transactional carbon accounting provides all of this and more 鈥� and it鈥檚 not new. It is an amalgamation of a suite of solutions, an ecosystem of platforms. Working together, they have the power and interactivity to collect and assimilate emissions data using a hybrid approach to help businesses transition from estimated or average emissions values to actual and verified data. A double entry approach allows companies to balance emission in- and outflows.

A sustainability ledger provides auditable carbon reports and attaches emissions to financial costs and revenue. This provides companies with the capability to analyze carbon emission hotspots through a financial lens across cost centers, profit centers, and market segments.

Finding the Key to Collaboration in the Automotive Industry

Perhaps most importantly, the sustainability ledger approach provides a platform for collaboration and integration of data throughout an entire value chain. The is the first open and collaborative data ecosystem capable of allowing companies to work together to establish transparent processes and common data standards from material acquisition to manufacturing and distribution to meet sustainability and regulatory requirements.

By partnering with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Catena-X was able to achieve a standardized carbon footprint value that could be used throughout the supply chain.

Thanks to the , companies can manage this standardized product carbon footprint data and share it easily, on a material level, between business partners in an efficient and secure way.

Other Industries Incorporating the Green Ledger

The automotive industry isn鈥檛 alone in identifying a need for a more scientific and collaborative approach. Other industries, including manufacturing and healthcare, are moving towards a more holistic green ledger solution.

Multinational chemical and consumer goods company Henkel has recently implemented while simultaneously transitioning to the cloud. will benefit along its entire value chain from increased data-driven, real-time decision-making and leaner and more sustainable processes.

The Next Steps

Plugging the gaps and improving the quality of emissions data is a clear priority to turn an organization鈥檚 carbon reduction targets into actionable plans, but collaboration must not be underestimated if a real reduction is to be achieved across industries. Companies now need to identify the best software solution for their business that will not only collate emissions data on a transactional basis but also report it holistically and provide the possibility to share it throughout the supply chain.

Find out more about .

Heather Davies is a sustainability communications brand journalist at SAP.

Negotiations should conclude by the end of 2024. Now, over a year into the negotiation period, how are businesses preparing for the new legislation?

What Is the Plastic Problem?

The 鈥溾�� report on marine litter produced in 2021 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was unequivocal on the issue. Since the 1950s, we have generated around 6.9 billion tons of plastic and are adding to this at a rate of over 400 million tons per year.

Of all the plastic produced to date, only an estimated 14% has been incinerated and only 10% has been recycled. The remaining 76% has gone to landfills or ended up in the environment. Waste management systems can鈥檛 cope, which has led to the widespread contamination of our waterways, seas, and oceans by an estimated 8 million tons of plastic every year.

Plastic is a cocktail of fossil fuels and chemicals that breaks down slowly into microplastics, damaging marine environments from the shore to the deepest parts of the ocean. Apart from damaging marine life, they are a threat to people as they make their way into our food chain and drinking water.

Two countries, Spain and the UK, have already taken their first steps with the introduction of plastic taxes on non-recyclable packaging and packaging using less than 30% recycled content respectively. That said, at the time the report was written, there was no consistent policy framework to ensure global action to combat plastic pollution.

SAP鈥檚 Role

The 51风流Circular Economy Solutions team, led by Stephen Jamieson, began work on this issue five years ago. The team is an active member of the , convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WWF, alongside some of the world鈥檚 biggest businesses and financial institutions.

SAP鈥檚 response to the resolution was to create a digital solution that would enable customers to apply the framework to their business as well as provide feedback to policymakers on what is and isn鈥檛 working.

The Biggest Business Challenge to Eliminating Plastic Pollution

鈥淭he biggest challenge is how to decouple virgin plastic production from growth. We need to break that connection, but, to date, nobody has the solution,鈥� Jamieson says. 鈥淪AP鈥檚 strategy is data-driven. By helping our clients understand the implications of using virgin plastic and having information about alternative options at their fingertips, businesses can find a pathway to more sustainable growth.鈥�

A Data-Driven Solution

With customers at all levels of the value chain, 51风流set out to help its clients solve this problem using technology. Initial discussions with 30 or so organizations helped 51风流understand the complexities involved and led us to identify the need for a plastics data resource. 51风流built the 51风流Responsible Design and Production solution to help deliver the information companies require to identify strategies and solutions for eliminating plastics or moving to other solutions such as reuse schemes.

Data transparency is key to begin the process of decoupling growth from virgin plastics and to facilitate a transition to a more circular economy. The first step involves measurement, in effect creating a digital twin of the plastic item a company produces to allow them to fully understand the types and amounts of components involved in the product itself. Then we do the same for the primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging.

Once the measurement phase is complete, the software can be used to apply EPR (extended producer responsibility) policies and local plastic taxes to the different components. With this data applied, businesses can compare materials like-for-like by connecting with digital material libraries to find the best-fit alternatives.

Once a new solution has been identified, the by 51风流solution comes into play. With its blockchain-based approach, the recycled content of products can be verifiable, which helps prevent fraud and provide assurance to customers.

Is There an Appetite to Change Business Practices around Plastic?

The desire to find solutions has evolved dramatically in the last five years. The level of seniority of the people driving the discussions and their determination is palpable. Rather than seeing this issue as an unnecessary cost, business leaders are genuinely engaged in finding solutions for several reasons.

Firstly, they recognize that the plastic problem is inextricably linked to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss and understand that change is necessary if we鈥檙e to stay within planetary boundaries.

Secondly, there is a feeling that solving the plastic problem will open the door to the next phase of growth, profitability, and social equity. This is creating a high level of competition between key players in the market.

Thirdly, companies are concerned with their reputation. They want to be on the right side of history and retain the loyalty and trust of their customers. In addition, there is now an acceptance 鈥� which didn鈥檛 exist previously 鈥� that there is no real downside to pursuing a solution.

These drivers coupled with data-driven technology means businesses will be ready, some even in an advanced position, when the UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution comes into force.

For more information on how 51风流helps companies record, report, and act on their sustainability goals, visit聽.

Heather Davies is a sustainability brand journalist.

The size of the problem is considerable, with half of all shoes bought online being returned. The primary reason for these returns is a poor fit or wrong size — a staggering 75%!

There is a significant cost to these returns. In Europe alone, and — an average of 32 minutes per return — per year. And this doesn鈥檛 account for the amount of waste that is generated, including the additional packaging involved and items that are returned but cannot be resold.

On the customer side, some people only discover a pair of shoes doesn鈥檛 fit well when they wear them out for the first time, after which they are unable to return them. What happens to these shoes? Some will be listed on peer-to-peer secondhand sites but others will sadly go to landfill, where 22 billion pairs end up each year.

The global online footwear market is thriving, with a market size valued at from 2022 to 2028. According to a study by Quantis, the footwear industry currently responsible for 1.4% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) . Additionally, 77% of people believing the shoe industry should do more to reduce its level of waste. The market is crying out for an innovative approach to scale down waste.

Enter German startup Footprint Technologies. The company has stepped up to the challenge of reducing waste in the footwear industry through the development of an innovative solution that benefits the customer, the planet, and the industry as a whole.

Using technology based on artificial intelligence (AI), shoppers can now scan their own feet to a high degree of accuracy and match it to find the perfect fit model and size of shoe.

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How Does It Work?

Once you have found your new kicks online, at the point of selecting your size, you click to access the new sizing tool, where you will be guided through a process in a few short steps using your smartphone. The tool is free for customers and completely seamless with no app to download. Through partnerships with shoe manufacturers, the tool knows the inner dimensions of each shoe on the website precisely. A sophisticated algorithm compares the scan you take of your feet with the exact dimensions of the shoe. Combining this data, the algorithm then provides you with a recommendation for the best fitting size in a matter of seconds.

The whole process takes between two and three minutes, which, compared to the average 32 minutes spent returning a pair of shoes, is a considerable time saving for the customer too. The user experience is state-of-the-art and in addition, customers can save their data so they only need to scan once.

Footprint Technologies began by launching the tool for children鈥檚 shoes, where it deemed the need was greatest since their feet are growing and evolving all the time. This allowed the startup to prove the efficacy of the tool with a 90% accuracy rate and work on the remaining 10% by considering other geometric measurements.

The adult module went live with German eco-brand Tanner鈥檚 in early November and is set to go online with multiple footwear brands in 2023.

Founder Dr. Matthias Brendel shared, 鈥淲e have proven that comfort is measurable. With our technology, brands have already seen a clear reduction in returns and we鈥檙e receiving great feedback from customers who love the user experience too.鈥�

Committed to Climate

Footprint Technologies is committed to helping reduce the footwear industry’s climate impact. Its overarching goal is to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions related to returns and re-shipments in the footwear industry specifically due to improper fit. Its mission is to encourage customers to invest 鈥渢hree minutes for the planet,鈥� which can result in preventing 850g of CO鈧� emissions each time a pair of shoes is returned.

The company’s work supports three of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs): Goal No. 3: good health and well-being; Goal No. 12: responsible consumption and production; and Goal No. 13: climate action.

The measurement tool is financed on a transaction basis by the footwear brands, which recognize the value it brings them, both in terms of reducing their return and re-shipment costs as well as their carbon footprint. Additionally, Footprint Technologies believes that with increased customer satisfaction from receiving perfectly fitting shoes, the likelihood of repeat purchases is increased.

Supported by SAP

After participating in the Sustainable Future cohort at SAP.iO Foundries Berlin and Munich in 2021, Footprint Technologies is a partner in the 51风流PartnerEdge program and part of the SAP.iO Rising Stars program. 51风流PartnerEdge provides startups with the enablement tools and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs — quickly and cost-effectively.

As a result of SAP鈥檚 support, e-commerce businesses utilizing 51风流Commerce Cloud have direct access to the digital shoe size consultant tool as a web shop plug-in, making it easier for online retailers to try it.

For more information on how 51风流helps companies record, report, and act on their sustainability goals, visit .