The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires quantifying the environmental impact and the product's carbon footprint in a standardized and reliable way. Through assessment of the vehicle components, it is possible to identify the environmental hotspot(s) and take appropriate measures to mitigate, reduce or eliminate them through change of critical materials, processes, or product designs. For each component, sub-component or process that contributes to the realization of the product, it is possible to calculate the carbon footprint with primary data (actual data coming from measurement) or estimates using secondary data (average data coming from a database).

According to the different stages of the vehicle’s life cycle, different types of life cycle assessment (LCA) can be obtained. The most common approach for an LCA is the so-called “cradle-to-gate” approach, which considers the contribution of products and processes from the extraction of raw materials to the customer gate. Other types of LCA are “cradle-to-grave” (from raw material extraction to the disposal of the product) or “cradle-to-cradle” (to the recycling of the product). Besides, it is possible but not common to calculate the LCA between steps/entities within a “gate-to-gate” approach.

According to the analysis conducted, it is possible to provide different indicators about the environmental impact and pollutants, as well as the quantity of water consumed. Related to the carbon footprint, the result is expressed in CO₂e (“CO₂ equivalent”) in which all the different substances (CO₂, NOx, NH₃, …) are converted to use a common unit of measure. CO₂ represents the baseline with a factor of 1.

Vitesco Technologies is proactively participating in different consortia (Catena-X, IMDS) to help gain a better understanding of how our supply chains and manufacturing processes work and can be improved to reduce the CO₂ footprint of our products.