Utilities company ENERVIE Gruppe need to ensure they’re partnering with the most sustainable suppliers to meet regulatory targets and advance their net-zero ambitions. With no way of tracking Scope 3 emissions, they teamed up with Celonis platinum services partner Processand to develop an emissions app that provides real-time CO2 data from their suppliers. It didn’t take them long to realize this innovative app could help companies everywhere.
Context: Scope 3 emissions slipping under the radar
ENERVIE Gruppe provides electricity, gas, and drinking water to around 400,000 customers and energy trading partners in South Westphalia, Germany. Environmental sustainability is one of the main strategic drivers for the company’s future.
In 2022, ENERVIE Gruppe stepped up investment to ensure they were working with the most sustainable suppliers. Enter Jannis Nacke and Max Aberman, who had been recruited straight from university in 2020, to help with the digitalization of the company.
The pair, who both wrote theses on process mining, had spent their initial years at ENERVIE Gruppe embedding the technology throughout the utility's operations. They were immediately excited by the prospect of working with the Procurement team on the Scope 3 emissions project.
Scope 3 emissions derive from activities and assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization. They comprise more than 70% of a business’s carbon footprint, but are notoriously difficult to track. When Jannis and Max realized how blunt Scope 3 emissions reporting methods were, they saw a Celonis-shaped opportunity – not just for ENERVIE Gruppe, but for companies the world over.
“Sustainability reporting has been happening for years, but it’s been based on low-quality data. We knew we had a chance to change this.”
Jannis Nacke, ENERVIE Gruppe
To bring the solution to life, they joined forces with Processand, a Platinum Celonis Services Partner. Founded by former Celonis employees, Processand specializes in Celonis implementation, and use case identification to drive sustainable process transformation and real business improvement.
Challenge: A sustainability app for total transparency
The brief from ENERVIE Gruppe’s Procurement team was to quantify the emissions of purchased goods so they could make greener buying and supplier selection decisions. There was technology in the market that attributed a CO2 cost to different types of materials, but Jannis and Max aimed to go one better by factoring in how materials were produced and the environmental standards adhered to.
“We knew there was no way we could get to net zero without data-driven management.”
Ralf Neuhaus, Chief Procurement Officer, ENERVIE Gruppe
A plan was hatched to create an app with Processand that ENERVIE Gruppe could use to:
Quantify emissions of purchased goods
Engage suppliers about sustainability accountability
Enhance sustainability reporting
Inform purchasing decisions
Reward sustainable suppliers
Solution: From transparency to action
Jannis, Max, and the Processand team built an app that uses Celonis’s real-time data extraction – drawing on SAP data within the business – to create a model-based view of ENERVIE Gruppe’s CO2 emissions.
The app aims to “combine external third-party data with transaction data, and realize one central application out of it,” according to Processand CEO Thomas Kerschbaumer. It works out emissions for purchased goods using globally recognized benchmarks for different types of materials. This information is supplemented with data gathered from suppliers via an automated questionnaire sent out by Celonis. A calculation then factors in all CO2 emissions related to the material supplied.
In a nutshell, the app gathers process data and CO2 emission data, creates transparency, and gives ENERVIE Gruppe the opportunity to make Procurement decisions based on this transparency.
Crucially, the app also looks at emissions in relation to revenue – how much CO2 is being emitted per euro of turnover. The Procurement department can now benchmark itself on emissions, so they know how they’re doing relative to the last quarter or last year. ENERVIE Gruppe realized very early that this is “not only valuable for us as an energy supplier, but for every single company out there,” says Jannis.
Vision: Green gains rippling out from Procurement
The EU Supply Chain Act, which places strict obligations on companies to identify and mitigate sustainability risks, is on every European company’s mind.
But with ENERVIE Gruppe’s system-agnostic app now available in the Celonis Marketplace, companies have a clear path towards significantly reducing Scope 3 emissions. “We are creating total transparency in regards to CO2 emissions in our supply chain, and we are moving from transparency towards action in the same app,” explains Jannis.
It’s no surprise, then, that so many other utility companies are telling ENERVIE Gruppe how excited they are about using the app to make Procurement decisions based on environmental impact, and reduce their overall emissions.
ENERVIE Gruppe plans to implement the app deep in their Procurement process and, from 2025, all ENERVIE Gruppe suppliers must use it. Meanwhile, Jannis and Max have all sorts of Celonis-powered sustainability ideas for the future, covering so much more than just carbon emissions. Their green shoots will continue to grow.
