Asahi Kasei to Provide Carbon Footprint Data for Its Plastic Resins

Asahi Kasei has established a platform jointly with Tokyo-based IT  business service NTT Data Corp. to grasp the amount of GHG emissions and calculate the carbon footprint of products (CFP) for each grade of its high-performance thermoplastics used for automotive structural parts, electrical equipment,and consumer electronics.

The applicable performance plastic products are Leona nylon 66 resins, Tenac and Tenac-C homopolymer and copolymer acetal resins, Xyron modified PPE alloys with PPS, PP or nylon, and Thermylene chemically-coupled glass-reinforced PP resins. Use of the Platform began in April 2022, and CFP data provision to customers will begin in May 2022.

Asahi Kasei and NTT Data jointly established a platform enabling Asahi Kasei’s performance materials business to grasp comprehensive management information globally in fiscal 2020. The Platform was expanded to grasp CFP.

 ▪  Characteristic 1: Inclusion of GHG emissions from procurement and transportation to outsourced processing, in-house manufacturing, and shipment. The CFP of each material procured from upstream suppliers is added to the GHG emissions calculated proportionally in outsourced processing and in-house manufacturing processes, enabling visualization of CFP inclusive of the supply chain from upstream to manufacturing and shipment. (For calculating CFP of materials, LCI database “IDEAv2.3” provided by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is used.)

 ▪  Characteristic 2: Monthly calculation of CFP for each final product is possible even with complex supply chain The performance plastic products supply chain is a complex one, with many different product grades, manufacturing sites spread around the world, and numerous production process steps. In order to cover the complex supply chain, “Anaplan” planning and analysis tool featuring high-speed mathematical processing was introduced. Grasping monthly CFP for each product is enabled by inputting various data on materials and production sites into Anaplan.

 ▪  Characteristic 3: Dual analysis of cost and CFP achieved by combining with management information As the Platform was created by expanding an existing management information platform, combined analysis of cost and CFP from various perspectives, such as by final product or by customer, is enabled. As these analyses are visualized using the business intelligence (BI) tool “Tableau,” not only CFP reduction but also proposals emphasizing the balance of cost and CFP can be made to customers.

Moving forward, Asahi Kasei will consider the optimal CFP calculation system and the way of disclosure corresponding to the characteristics of each product. CFP is quantitatively calculated by combining the total GHG emissions from the entire life cycle of products and services, from raw material procurement to disposal and recycling, and then converting the figure into the equivalent amount of CO2. Asahi Kasei’s CFP calculation is based on “Cradle-to-Gate” assessment, which combines upstream emissions of materials and transportation, emissions from in-house manufacturing processes, and energy-related emissions such as electricity used during manufacturing.