Data for Sustainability Helps Address EU Green Deal Challenges

Efforts towards climate neutrality and a circular economy are now embedded in many corporate strategies. The EU Green Deal accelerates these efforts through corresponding regulations and can pose challenges for some companies. The demand for greater transparency regarding their sustainability activities and performance occupies companies daily.

(Köln) Customers are interested in the origin and environmental impact of products, investors demand details on potential environmental risks, and legislators define requirements for corporate reporting, due diligence in supply chains, and consumer communication.

Such requirements include the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The EUDR is a regulation on deforestation-free supply chains and will come into effect on December 30, 2024. The CSRD is an EU directive on sustainability reporting that obliges companies to publish regular reports on their social and ecological risks. These requirements are driven by the EU Green Deal, which has the overarching goal of achieving climate neutrality in the EU by 2050.

A Challenging Task for Companies

It is no easy task for companies, as the timeframe for implementation is short and the approach is sometimes unclear. Parallel inquiries with different approaches to supply chain participants can lead to avoidable additional work. Moreover, the growing complexity of cross-company data exchange plays a significant role. The required information can, in most cases, not be provided by a single company alone. For the information to be meaningful and to ensure comparability between different companies, uniform definitions, measurement, and calculation procedures are also necessary.

To overcome these challenges, companies must cooperate and pursue a common approach. “This is where the GS1 program Data for Sustainability comes into play. With the program, GS1 Germany offers a collaborative solution approach as a platform and multiplier,” explains Christian Przybilla, program manager and lead master data and data exchange at GS1 Germany. He adds: “The goal of the program is to develop a common language based on GS1 standards for sustainability information that enables transformation within companies and simplifies cooperative approaches across company boundaries.” The program is designed for several years. Currently, Phase 1 is underway, addressing the EUDR and CSRD. More than 30 representatives from the FMCG sector, including industry, trade, and services, are involved. This includes well-known companies such as dm-drogerie markt GmbH & Co. KG, REWE Group Buying GmbH, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, and Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG.

Data Standardization is Important for the Value Creation Process

“Since 2019, retailers have been able to highlight the recycled content in packaging at the POS. This has demonstrably promoted more sustainable packaging. This was achieved through the implementation of the data attribute ‘Recycling Material Content’ in the GDSN. This example illustrates how important data standardization is to effectively transform the entire value creation process towards a sustainable economy. Therefore, we continue to actively engage in this area,” reports Dagmar Glatz, product management, sustainability/packaging at dm-drogerie markt.

Dr. Arndt Scheidgen, Director Product Stewardship, Henkel Consumer Brands explains: “We consider participation in the GS1 program ‘Data for Sustainability’ (D4S) essential because many regulations are currently coming into force or are being prepared that require collaboration among all supply chain actors. Each actor relies on robust sustainability data from the upstream supply chain and on standardized transmission. Sustainability data is the largest area of work for industry and trade in the 2020s.”

For 2024, Data for Sustainability initially focuses on the EU Green Deal regulations EUDR and CSRD. In a first work package, relevant cross-company data points will be semantically described to create a common understanding with a focus on the FMCG sector. Subsequently, the data points will be mapped to the appropriate GS1 standards for sharing between partners in the supply chain. If there are missing reporting options in the GS1 standards, these will be incorporated into the global standards. In the long term, automation through digitization is a priority, enabling a sustainable performance increase within companies.

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