We buy things that we need to survive. Other things to underpin our status. We have many things in multiple versions and always like to have something new. Not all pants are replaced when they can no longer be mended. But more and more people in the throwaway society want to save the world with their purchasing decisions, or at least not cause any further damage.

They try to consume sparingly. They create or share high-quality, energy-efficient and repairable goods with a long service life. A sustainable lifestyle should by no means be underestimated as a personal contribution. However, it is equally clear that responsibility must not rest solely on the shoulders of motivated individuals. Companies are required to offer products that are environmentally friendly, non-toxic, socially just and affordable. Industry has the longer leverage to save CO₂ emissions, energy and resources. Almost 75 percent of Europeans expect companies to invest in sustainability. Just as many are calling for stricter government regulations for environmental protection.

Sustainability is moving from niche to mainstream. In German-speaking countries, this factor has become a strong purchasing motive and a sought-after product feature, as various surveys show. 57 percent of Austrians rate their own consumer behavior as sustainable – the highest value in a 14-country study. In Germany, more than a third agree with this. In Europe, the state of the planet, the environment and the climate are now among people’s biggest concerns, with 40 percent agreeing. Half of those surveyed in Germany are prepared to pay more for regional or organic food – despite inflation. When it comes to larger purchases, almost three quarters would pay a premium – 67 percent say the same about everyday products. There are almost certainly differences between the loyal statements in surveys and the weekly shopping, but the results are certainly a test of sentiment.

© Getty Images

Sustainable consumption patterns, especially among younger people: plant-based nutrition, second-hand and sharing.

How sustainable consumption is practiced differs from generation to generation, by place of residence and also between the sexes. In many cases, younger people are the drivers of new sustainable consumption patterns (second-hand, sharing, plant-based nutrition), while older generations score points through consistent everyday routines (avoiding waste, saving energy). Women are slightly more sustainability-oriented than men. People who live in the city show more sustainable purchasing behavior – certainly also because the supply and infrastructure for this has been expanded, for example unpackaged stores or public transport. According to a Deloitte study, 80 percent of Germans are concerned about climate change and environmental protection – their own health and ethical reasons also motivate them to do so.

However, industry and politics are primarily responsible for structural changes. In surveys, Germans attribute the greatest responsibility for sustainable action to the government and large companies. The situation is similar in Austria, where producers and suppliers are seen as having the greatest obligation to act more sustainably. A good third of the population emphasizes in surveys that efforts by individuals “won’t have any effect anyway” if the major players don’t get involved. Companies decide on product design, use of materials, manufacturing and supply chains – all of which determine the environmental impact of goods even before we can choose them in the store. So if you want to consume sustainably, you also need to trust the supply chain of manufacturers – it is the invisible part of the purchasing decision. The ASCII research institute was founded in Vienna to investigate these relationship networks. But it will be a while before we get a good insight and trustworthy labels (see interview at the bottom).

© Getty Images

Many European companies have supply chain networks around the world. To improve them, you first have to know them inside out.

Supply chains determine how, where and under what conditions products are manufactured – in other words, whether the process is fair, environmentally friendly and transparent. Often only the last processing step or the production site is declared on the packaging. This is obvious in the food sector. Where does the pork for the bacon that was smoked in Tyrol come from? Were the eggs in the packaged Striezel laid by free-range hens? We can only be completely safe if we buy less processed food or directly from the producer. When unboxing an iPhone, we learn that it was designed in California. But where were the rare earths mined? Where and under what conditions was it assembled?

Being able to track and document the supply chain means being able to answer these questions for your own products from the raw material to the shelf. The EU has recently put the issue on the political agenda with climate targets and reporting obligations. As a b2b provider with 177 years of engineering history, Siemens helps companies comply with regulations and achieve their ESG goals. These are specific requirements that companies define in order to improve their sustainability performance (environmental, social and governance dimensions).

Siemens products make a difference

The Siemens sustainability report documents the company’s own efforts, but also provides calculations on the difference Siemens products make for customers. In 2024, Siemens succeeded for the first time in avoiding more emissions in the business divisions than were generated along our own value chain. 144 million tons of carbon dioxide were saved through the three levers of energy efficiency, electrification and the expansion of renewable energies compared to reference solutions. The electric locomotives delivered in 2024 alone enabled Siemens Mobility to save around 18.5 megatons of CO₂. The “revolutionary potential of technology” for climate protection can also be found in inconspicuous things such as frequency converters, building management systems, electrification and automation offerings.

An inconspicuous product from Siemens could actually soon be installed in many homes. It saves us from disaster and is a prototype for the development effort of a solution that has been awarded the Siemens EcoTech label. If the residual current circuit breaker trips, it protects us from an electric shock, alerts us to wiring faults and reduces the risk of fire. DOMO Chemicals and Siemens have joined forces as suppliers of polyamide solutions for a new generation of RCDs. The covers and housing of the SENTRON 5SV3 are made from a material that consists of 50 percent recycled components. Chemically recycled material is used, which is gentler to produce. The PA6 polyamide is based on a phosphorus- and halogen-free flame retardant system, is easy to process, has good electrical properties and can be colored as desired.

© Siemens

DOMO Chemicals has intensively tested the polyamide. It impressed with the same performance and durability – compared to conventional materials – and meets the strict requirements for a safety product. The aforementioned EcoTech label stands for a product that promotes the transformation of industry and infrastructure through climate protection and dematerialization. It is intended to offer customers transparency about materials, design and the use phase right through to the end of the life cycle. In addition to hardware, software and services will also be included in future.

The use of technology “made by Siemens” supports companies in low-carbon operation and in the energy infrastructure. However, many emissions are not generated in production, but in the upstream and downstream supply chain. Recording the actual product carbon footprint (PCF) is time-consuming. Either trustworthy data on emissions must be collected by partner companies themselves. Or your own data is sent outside the company to have it calculated.

PCF tracking tool SiGREEN

Siemens has developed its own software solution for the efficient retrieval, calculation and transfer of information about the PCF. With SiGREEN, the real data is not stored centrally, but is exchanged, verified and aggregated directly along the customer-supplier relationships using blockchain technology. All industrial companies share the desire to reduce the CO₂ footprint of their products. To do this, they first need to know the exact CO₂ emissions of their supply chain and know which adjustments they can make to save the most CO₂. SiGREEN brings much-needed transparency to supply chains while protecting the confidentiality of data. The SiGREEN tracking tool is currently being tested in a pilot project in a consortium of 47 international companies in the chemical industry. The members of the “Together for Sustainability” initiative are committed to decarbonizing their supply chains and have harmonized the calculation approaches in 2022.

As consumers, we should be interested in the use of resources in the manufacture of everyday products. However, it is still difficult to see how products perform along the supply chain up to the raw material sources, whether human rights and labor law are respected worldwide and whether environmental impacts are reduced as much as possible. The European Union’s tight course is currently experiencing a strong headwind. Complexity researcher Peter Klimek, who deals with supply chain networks, is convinced that there is no way around implementation: “The transformation will take place because the pressure is not just coming from the EU, but also from other economies such as China.”

“Nur 6 Prozent der Unternehmen kennen ihre ganze Lieferkette.“

Peter Klimek, Leiter des Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria (ASCII)

Complexity researcher Peter Klimek, Head of the Supply Chain Intelligence Institute Austria, in an interview about closely interwoven networks, black sheep and why we should appreciate it when companies identify problems in the supply chain.

Why do complexity researchers work on supply chains?

We estimate that less than one percent of all supply relationships have ever been observed. In principle, little is known about what supply chains look like globally. We have identified reliable data sources – the first step in being able to answer questions about resilience, sustainability and functionality. There are around 30 million companies in Europe. We know from studies that each one has an average of 30 to 50 suppliers, large ones tend to have thousands. Of course, most companies know their direct suppliers. According to surveys, only 10 to 20 percent of companies know their suppliers’ suppliers. And only six percent of companies say that they know their entire supply chain, including the suppliers of the suppliers of the suppliers, etc., right down to the raw materials. As an interdisciplinary, application-oriented research institute, we have a lot to do.

How much influence do global politics, national or EU legislation and corporate guidelines have on supply chains?

With the multiple crises, problems have become apparent to which politicians have reacted. A legal framework has been created to counteract this with obligations for supply chain care, sustainability reporting, the Clean Industrial Deal, the Critical Raw Materials Act, the Chips Act and the Battery Ordinance. Until now, companies have designed their supply chains efficiently – often at the expense of redundancy or sustainability criteria such as labor standards. Some industries want or need to change their technological basis in the future. Such transformation processes take years to decades. Unfortunately, we can see that the EU regulations are not entirely consistent. There are accusations of overregulation. We will only see how all of this plays out in the coming years.

They are trying to collect information from various data sources and evaluate it on a large scale using AI. What do we get to see?

The topic of sustainability has become relevant for various stakeholders. Security of supply, for example, is important for Policymaker because we in Europe are dependent on raw materials, but also on critical and strategic products: electric cars, batteries, chips, and we’re not even talking about digital dependencies. Large companies have expertise and competence in supply chain management, but they have to prove where their products come from and how they were produced.

Do you have the impression that the supply chain is an issue for consumers? To get an insight to select brands or companies?

Currently, the price is certainly the best selling point. If you want sustainability in your products, you have to pay for it. I’m a little skeptical that the topic has reached a broad section of society. Temu and Shein are currently demonstrating the opposite model.

Perhaps it will become more transparent for consumers if there are more media reports on human rights violations in supply chains, for example?

In view of the close links, we have to assume that there are problematic suppliers in every supply chain. A few black sheep are enough to indirectly put many companies at risk. So we need to change our mindset and give companies credit when, for example, they identify human rights violations, address the issue and work on it. If you castigate them for it, it’s an incentive to sweep it under the carpet.