Global Warming Potential Assessment for Sustainable Procurement in Production Supply Chains

As climate regulations tighten, investor expectations rise, and customers demand transparency, the ability to measure and understand supply chain emissions has become essential. Beyond enabling targeted decarbonization, emissions data now plays a critical role in assessing a company’s long-term resilience and competitiveness. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) assessment approach presented in this paper provides a standardized, transparent approach for measuring greenhouse gas emissions in terms of carbon dioxide equivalents along supply chains, enabling consistent comparisons of production options and procurement strategies. The approach is based on open-source Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data and combines process-and country-specific emission factors to estimate GWP impacts for individual production and transport steps. Features of the approach can be used for raw material extraction, intermediate processing, final assembly, and transportation, identifying hotspots and prioritizing measures. Scenarios can be analyzed, making it possible to assess how alternative supplier locations, transport routes, or energy procurement decisions affect overall GWP and associated operational risks. By providing reproducible metrics and scenario comparisons, the approach supports evidence-based mitigation measures, more resilient procurement decisions, and sustainable procurement planning.