Carbon Footprint Management

Product Design

Client: Samsung

Jan - Feb 2023

Samsung Electronics has declared carbon neutrality by 2050 to actively participate in efforts to overcome the global climate crisis. Samsung Electronics commissioned SAP for a proof of concept project to establish a process and platform for reliable measurement and systematic management of carbon emissions. In this project, as a design lead , I collaborated with environmental solution experts, analytics experts, and solution experts to design Samsung Electronics' carbon emission management platform. This includes designs specifically for the use of sold product scenarios, among solutions at both the corporate and product levels.

Role

Design Lead, UI Design

Team

Solution Expert, Sustainability Experts, Software Engineers, UX designers

Tools

SAP Fiori design system, Figma

Challenge
  • Samsung's challenge lies in the absence of granular climate and sustainability data for their operations, hindering comprehensive reporting and the alignment of environmental considerations with financial performance. Bridging this data granularity gap is crucial for effective integration with finance, a key benefit sought by the company.
  • Establish a company-wide and product-specific carbon emission measurement system for the 2025 carbon emission disclosure obligation.
  • Digitalize the measurement of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, which was previously calculated manually.
  • Design a system for the Scope 3 use of sold products scenario: products that directly consume energy during the direct product use phase.
Benefits
  • Samsung can track carbon emissions based on GHG Protocol at every location and manage product specification and substance information for every product they produce.
  • The company benefited from a human-centered design approach for indirect climate actions.
  • The customer gained from a fully digitized greenhouse gas emission management system by leveraging SAP’s technologies.
  • Identified users' pain points and innovation opportunities that significantly improve the user experience and prioritized use cases.
Workscope

Overview of GHG Protocol scopes and emissions across the value chain

The Design Solution

We defined the scenario for measuring the carbon footprint of sold products as follows: It consists of a product master management page for product registration and assigning responsible persons, to pages for calculating and monitoring the product's power consumption and emissions.

A. Manage Product Master
  • Review the new product list in the product master.
  • Assign personnel responsible for entering the consumption amount for each product (appointments are made automatically).
  • Verify the list of products requiring registration through the system.
B. Define Consumption Activity
  • Calculate total activity consumption.
  • Automatically map the registration type of electricity consumption according to each country's energy regulations and display the calculation formula, or manually select the registration type.
  • Enter data for each field based on the formula corresponding to the selected type of power consumption.
C. Calculate Product Consumption
  • Collect Activity Confirmation: Annual electricity/water consumption, Electricity/water consumption based on product lifespan, Total company-wide electricity/water consumption, reflecting product sales volume, Calculate consumed tap and sewage water
  • Validate activity data
  • Calculate total activity consumption (Mass)
D. Calculate Product Footprint
  • Perform emission calculations using electricity, water, and filter emission factors
  • Prepare and submit the GHG Regulatory Report
E. Monitor Product Footprint and Business Log
  • Review emissions results by model, region, country, and corporate level.
  • Confirm emissions for use in reporting.
  • Manage calculation outcomes and history of recalculations.
What I Learned

As part of the efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, I have researched how SAP's solutions can help companies conduct environmentally sustainable business. Through this project, I was able to understand how the overall task of managing carbon emissions should be conducted. Additionally, I learned about the key roles required for each task and how collaboration occurs between them. Furthermore, I could see how companies break down and allocate targets, and how carbon emission data collection and monitoring are conducted to achieve their carbon emission goals.

2024
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Earl Kim