In the joint project climate bOWL, a consortium from research and business is developing an intelligent assistance system for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in industry. Greenhouse gas emissions occur along the entire value chain. The identification of suitable reduction measures goes hand in hand with transparency about the emitters of greenhouse gases and is associated with high transaction costs due to the interactions and interdisciplinarity of production, energy and information technology. Consequently, on the way to climate neutrality, a holistic approach is needed to aggregate and assess greenhouse gas emissions and to identify and prioritize greenhouse gas emission reduction measures along the entire value chains. This challenge is taken up by the interdisciplinary project team of climate bOWL.

The achievement of climate neutrality by companies has increased in importance for various reasons. The increased sustainability demands of stakeholders and shareholders, rising energy and CO₂e costs, and tighter political conditions are key drivers to focus on decarbonizing corporate commerce. The mandatory 65% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 2030 relative to the 1990 reference year, as mandated by the Climate Change Act, and the achievement of climate neutrality by 2045 underscore the need for companies to move quickly on the path to decarbonization.



THGE are emitted throughout the value chain of products. Currently, transparent and holistic mapping of GHGs in the lifecycle and automated derivation of GHG reduction measures is not available. With the development of a digital assistance system, this gap can be closed by supporting companies both in the balancing of GHGs and in the holistic development and evaluation of measures and roadmaps to achieve energy efficiency and climate goals.  



The order of deployment on this path to climate neutrality is minimize, substitute and offset. The core of corporate climate management and at the same time the first step is to improve the material and energy efficiency of companies. Every kilowatt hour that does not have to be used does not emit any greenhouse gases (GHG) and does not incur any costs. This is where the joint project "Climate bOWL" starts. 



Development of a digital assistance system for balancing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in industry

The overall goal of developing GHG reduction measures requires transparency of GHGs along the value chain and is based on the interdisciplinarity of production, energy and information technology. Accordingly, a holistic approach to the aggregation and evaluation of GHG is necessary, which allows both the identification and prioritization of measures for GHG reduction.



The first subgoal of the project is therefore the development of a product-specific carbon footprint tracking system to name, which realizes the required transparency through a consistent, automatic validated and location-independent data management of THGE.



Building on the tracking system, the second subgoal is the automated development of climate protection and energy efficiency measures. For this purpose, a intelligent assistance system developed, which is based on energy and material flow data automated - supported by machine learning methods - GHGs to their consumers, derived efficiency potential and determined the GHG avoidance potential. 











Efficiency checklist

One of the project objectives is to develop a (partially) automated algorithm to identify potential for increasing the efficiency of processes, cross-sectional technologies and energy supply. The analysis starts with the requirements of the processes and not with the existing energy supply. It is important to question what actually triggers the energy demand and how this can be reduced. The efficiency checklist published under Documents can provide initial assistance in scrutinizing the current process conditions according to efficiency principles.