There are many requirements and obligations for industry and infrastructure on the road to climate neutrality. Comprehensive energy efficiency expertise and a well-considered, data-based approach to achieving sustainability targets are therefore of great value.
In February 2025, the EU Commission presented the Clean Industrial Deal to the public. This package of measures is intended to enable the EU to tackle three urgent challenges at the same time: climate change, competitiveness and dependence on critical raw materials. Decarbonization is central to this; a decarbonization strategy should become a strong growth driver for the Union. The Clean Industrial Deal is therefore an economic plan geared towards transformation, in which climate protection, circularity and competitiveness are embedded in an overarching growth strategy.
The objectives of the European Green Deal continue to apply. Europe has thus set itself the goal of decarbonizing its economy by 2050. The agreement stipulates a 55% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and an interim target of a 90% reduction by 2040, both based on 1990 levels. This is to be achieved by promoting renewable energies and improving energy efficiency, among other things. The Green Deal also promotes innovation and the development of new business models in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the industry.
Both EU strategies mean significant changes for industrial companies and present them with major challenges. For example, industrial companies must make their production processes more sustainable and comply with stricter environmental regulations. The starting point for this is data transparency and the derivation of technical measures. The traceability of emissions and resource consumption in supply chains is also becoming increasingly important. In addition, the requirements of the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) force companies to present qualitative and quantitative key figures in a transparent and auditable manner. Investments in new technologies are often essential to overcome these challenges.
Support in achieving sustainability goals
Siemens offers comprehensive products, solutions and services for companies of all sizes and supports them in achieving their sustainability goals. “We support our customers in achieving their goals with regard to European requirements. We work closely together to draw up a decarbonization roadmap and determine which measures should be implemented and with what priority. The basis for this is a well-considered, targeted collection of data,” says Markus Bachl, Product Portfolio Manager in the Industrial Sector at Siemens Austria.
“In close cooperation, we are drawing up a decarbonization roadmap and looking at which measures need to be implemented and with what priority.“
Markus Bachl, Siemens Austria
“Data becomes information, information becomes value,” says Bachl, summing up how data analysis creates energy and therefore CO2 transparency and uncovers weak points. Examples of this include calculating the energy consumption for each machine status in order to recognize how much energy is used for actual production, or calculating the energy consumption for different product batches. The topic of energy procurement is also included in the decarbonization roadmap.
SIMATIC Energy Manager from Siemens is the tool that enables company-wide energy management and, as a result, a corporate carbon footprint for an entire company or plant. This energy management system is certified to ISO 50001 and can be used to display energy flows and consumption values of processes in detail and thus assign them to the respective consumers. “SIMATIC Energy Manager can do much more than just save energy costs. The powerful, scalable system links energy and production data and thus helps to determine product-specific key figures,” says Bachl, who, together with his team, is driving forward the development and further development of this energy management system.
“Energy management projects take place in a broad ecosystem with customers and partners. The most important thing here is the added value for customers.“
Nicole Graf, Siemens Austria
Energy management solutions based on SIMATIC Energy Manager in Austria have already been implemented at the Stoelzle Glass Group and CocaCola HBC Austria, among others. A project is currently underway at Dunapack Packaging – a Prinzhorn Group company with 17 plants that specializes in the production of corrugated cardboard packaging. “Such projects take place in a broad ecosystem with customers and partners. One platform that will become increasingly important in this context is our Siemens Xcelerator. The most important thing is the added value for customers. Such practical implementations provide us with valuable input for the further development of our products and solutions,” adds Nicole Graf, Business Development Sustainable Process Industries at Siemens Austria.
Implementation of energy management solutions based on SIMATIC Energy Manager: for example at CocaCola HBC Austria.
The counterpart to the corporate carbon footprint is the product carbon footprint – the CO2 footprint at product level. In future, the CO2 footprint could be added as a third criterion alongside price and performance to determine whether a product or service is successful with customers. Calculating this for a particular product is often very time-consuming for manufacturers. This is because the lion’s share of CO2 emissions is not generated in the factory where the product is manufactured, but upstream, in widely ramified supply chains (Scope 3).
Forward-looking emissions management
With SiGREEN, Siemens also has a pioneering solution for this, which allows industrial products to be displayed transparently. With the help of this emissions management system, companies can map emissions data from the entire value chain and exchange it easily with their suppliers. To ensure that the data is recorded as effectively as possible and to the required extent, both the operating technology (OT) in production and the respective IT systems can be connected to SiGREEN. It is also possible to automate the data flow between SiGREEN and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. A lot of information on CO2 emissions from individual components is already stored in the ERP systems of a company and its suppliers. SiGREEN is also available on the Siemens Xcelerator digital business platform, alongside other sustainability management tools.
Other sustainability topics that Siemens is focusing on and for which it has solutions in its portfolio include the digital product passport, software for CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) management and internal product evaluations – Siemens has introduced its own label for the latter with EcoTech.
“An important aspect of sustainability projects at EU level is the topic of international partnerships. Working together on a global level also brings great added value to these issues,” says Nicole Graf. “International companies are increasingly setting sustainability targets for their globally distributed locations in the form of increasing efficiency or reducing resource consumption,” says Graf. In line with these requirements, an Eco Efficiency Solution Hub was recently set up at Siemens Austria to support global energy and carbon management projects.
Infobox The Eco Efficiency Solution Hub in Linz is a global implementation partner for energy and carbon management projects. It handles global customer requirements from the creation of a measuring point strategy for data generation to the establishment of an energy management system. The competence center works together with local Siemens units on site to achieve the best possible customer output and ensures that the implementation of improvement measures runs smoothly. There is a close exchange with the portfolio management of the SIMATIC Energy Manager, also based in Upper Austria, so that valuable feedback from customer implementations can flow directly into the further development of the portfolio.
In addition to industry, climate and energy-oriented building refurbishment is also affected by EU climate protection efforts. In addition to the projects mentioned at the beginning, the EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) and the EED (Energy Efficiency Directive) also apply here. The potential savings in buildings are often quicker and easier to achieve than in industry, as buildings are generally less complex. All these considerations are also based on energy monitoring. “We measure the entire energy consumption of a building and analyze it. And for every energy source, regardless of whether it is electricity, gas, oil or something else,” explains energy efficiency expert Werner Kerschbaumer from Siemens Austria. We can then define exactly how much energy is consumed, where there is potential for savings and where investments are required to leverage this potential, in the same way as for production facilities.
Siemens is a general contractor for the implementation of energy efficiency measures and the conversion to renewable energy: for example at Autefa Solutions Austria.
Energy monitoring is carried out using various measuring devices, whereby existing meters from all manufacturers can be integrated into the energy monitoring tool. This is a major advantage for customers who can continue to operate existing systems or components. Non-networked meters can be manually transferred to the system via smartphone or tablet. Depending on the requirements, Siemens acts as a total solution provider. The advantage for the customer: there is only one contact person. “Based on the data obtained, our experts analyse the results and link them to suggestions on how and with what priority energy consumption can be optimized. Here too, the holistic approach of the Building X building management platform based on Siemens Xcelerator with its many digital tools comes into its own,” says Kerschbaumer. But that’s not all: “Based on the analyses and proposals, we also offer the overall implementation of the proposals as a general contractor.”
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