Celonis Sustainability Layer: An integrated suite for sustainability measurement, reporting and improvement

Consumers and business leaders agree that sustainability is important. According to surveys conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value, 49% of consumers say they've paid a premium for products branded as sustainable or socially responsible, and 77% of executives say that sustainability can accelerate business growth. Yet, almost 75% of leaders say they don't have the "capabilities to monitor and measure" sustainability performance in real-time.

At many companies, the data needed to operationalise sustainability goals are spread across systems, people, and processes, and the methods for collecting that data are manual and error prone. And sustainability goals have to be met while also achieving business performance. This is where technology can help.

According to the World Economic Forum, digital solutions can reduce global emissions by 20% in the three highest-emitting sectors (energy, materials, and mobility) by 2050 if deployed at scale. Those sectors can already reduce their emissions by up to 10% by 2030 through the adoption of digital technologies. The Celonis Sustainability Layer can play a major role in helping those and other sectors reduce their environmental impact and comply with the growing maze of sustainability reregulation.

"For Celonis, sustainability is a core part of how we operate and create value," said Janina Bauer, Global Head of Sustainability at Celonis. "Internally, we've set up our Net Zero Strategy, which includes emissions reduction targets, clear reduction measures, and investments in high-quality climate projects beyond our own value chain. And for our customers, the Sustainability Layer enables them to identify, prioritise, and activate initiatives that drive environmental impact and business performance." 

The Celonis Sustainability Layer: Measurement, reporting and improvement
By their nature, sustainability metrics are cross-process. Data needed to operationalise sustainability strategies are spread across a complex landscape of systems, people, and processes. The Celonis Process Intelligence Platform is uniquely positioned to help companies measure, report and improve these metrics.

The Celonis platform uses industry-leading process mining technology to present companies with a living digital twin of their end-to-end processes, and combines AI with over a decade of process knowledge to guide process analysis, improvement, and monitoring. This process digital twin is enriched with sustainability data and knowledge, for example, emission factors or supplier ratings. AI-driven mapping increases speed and accuracy. Sustainability metrics become more accurate and are made available more quickly and holistically across existing business processes.

Companies can then use pre-built components and apps that package domain knowledge on how to report, set targets and reduce emissions in their supply chain processes. And all of this happens within the existing systems and at the speed of their business - for fast and impactful results.

Celonis is the connective tissue that unites sustainability data across the business and links the data to people, creating a single source of truth to improve both the business and its sustainability performance. Celonis embeds sustainability into everyday operations, so team members don't need to be sustainability experts to prioritise actions that are not just good for the business but also for the planet.

Celonis Sustainability Apps
With out-of-the-box apps and additional custom solutions, Celonis enables companies to operationalise their sustainability strategies across the entire supply chain.

Shipping Emissions Reduction App
The Shipping Emission App enables companies to transform their shipping strategy with real-time, granular insights into global emissions. Powered by Celonis data models and the Climatiq carbon calculation API, it offers a fast and transparent, GLEC-certified approach for precise reporting.

The app helps users find and address the causes of emission hotspots, such as rushed orders or insufficient loads, to achieve significant carbon and cost reductions - while keeping their supply chain running.

Sustainable Spend App
The Sustainable Spend App provides detailed information on suppliers to help companies' Procurement teams better understand where and with whom they're spending so they can prioritise sustainability and minimise risk.

With the app, Procurement can see suppliers' sustainability scorecards, more easily track suppliers' compliance with sustainability regulations, and be alerted of suppliers' risky or unethical business practices. Automatic flags and redirected spending help enterprises ensure they're working with the best suppliers for their ESG goals (and their bottom lines). The app is available in versions supported by IntegrityNext and Ecovadis.

Material Emissions App
With Procurement often being the most important area for emission reduction, the Material Emissions App reveals the hidden impact of every purchase and guides companies toward meaningful reduction opportunities, ensuring every material tells a story of sustainability.

It intelligently maps purchasing data to accurate, both primary and secondary emissions data, allowing companies to easily calculate the real-time carbon footprint of the materials used in their products. Users can identify high-emission areas to avoid and automate supplier and material selection to balance sustainability with cost. The App is supported by the Climatiq carbon calculation API.

Celonis helps customers achieve their sustainability goals
Sustainable change takes time, effort, and ingenuity. We're working with industry-leading companies, like those featured below, to operationalise their sustainability goals and produce impactful, long-lasting results.

Case Study 1 - Dürr AG
The Dürr Group is one of the world's leading mechanical and plant engineering firms with particular expertise in the technology fields of automation, digitalisation, and energy efficiency. Working with Celonis, the Dürr Group has implemented the Celonis Sustainable Spend App to integrate IntegrityNext supplier ESG ratings, as well as the Material Emissions App to manage Scope 3.1 emissions and track imported materials affected by CBAM (the EU's Carbon Birder Adjustment Mechanism). Together, these apps help automate the measurement of Procurement sustainability performance and provide analytics for improvement potential. Through continuous improvement of data and measurement methodologies, the Dürr Group and Celonis are working together to meet both short-term reporting requirements and long-term decarbonisation targets.

"At the Dürr Group, our objective is to measure and systematically reduce all emissions
within our supply chain," said Alexander Carls, Director of Procurement, Dürr Group. "Celonis, Climatiq and the Dürr Group ran a co-innovation project and results were achieved with lightning speed: a prototype is live and the rollout to our organisation is in progress."

Case Study 2 - thyssenkrupp Rasselstein
thyssenkrupp Rasselstein, one of Europe's largest manufacturers of packaging steel, serves clients in more than 80 countries globally. thyssenkrupp Rasselstein co-innovated with Celonis to develop the Shipping Emissions App. The app analyses truck movements out of thyssenkrupp Rasselstein's sites and, coupled with contextual data, calculates the associated emissions. Over three months, the app analysed more than 49,000 outbound truck movements with activity data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, resulting in a granular, automated calculation of total emissions of more than 58 million kgCO2e. Through intelligent optimisation of truck load factors, an emissions reduction potential of more than 4.5 million kgCO2e was identified.

Case Study 3 - Syngenta Group
Syngenta Group is one of the world's biggest agricultural technology companies and has set sustainability priorities to achieve higher yields with lower impact, create a regenerative soil and nature, and improve rural prosperity and sustainable operations.

After successfully working with Celonis on experimental projects as part of Celonis' Process Earth Sprint, Celonis and Syngenta are co-innovating on a solution to embed material emission factors in operational procurement data, with the goal of automating measurement and analysing performance. An AI model is also being evaluated to map external emission factors against Procurement, reducing the manual effort required for mapping. Together, this could provide the foundation to standardise emissions measurement methodologies across the organisation and prioritise the improvement of data quality and supplier data collection.

Download the Celonis 2023 Sustainability Report 
At Celonis, one of our core values is 'Earth is our future,' and one of our key value propositions is delivering green-line value for our customers. For more information about how Celonis has built sustainability into how we run the company and how we help our customers operationalise their sustainability goals, download the Celonis 2023 Sustainability Report.