Aasted is preparing for CSRD reporting with Normative

When you’ve been in business for over a century, you learn a thing or two about adapting to change. 

Aasted, a family-owned Danish company, has been manufacturing equipment for chocolate, bakery, and confectionery production since 1917. As the company looks toward the future, it’s preparing for the challenges ahead – such as complying with new regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and reducing its climate impact.

With Normative’s carbon accounting expertise by their side, Aasted’s team is working toward a compliant and lower-carbon future. Here’s how they’re doing it.

The challenge: full emissions visibility

Rather than treating sustainability as a separate initiative, the team at Aasted has fully integrated it into the core of the business strategy and objectives. As Jesper Jerlang, Sustainability Manager at Aasted, explains: 

“We don’t have a sustainability strategy as such because we have decided that the business strategy itself must include, and integrate, sustainability.“

The team recognized that carbon emissions were one of their most significant sustainability issues. Specifically, they knew that the value chain emissions in scope 3 would be vital to address – but also challenging, because they would have to work with their suppliers to source data.

CSRD gave Aasted additional motivation to calculate value chain emissions because the legislation requires companies to report on scope 3.

Aasted turned to Normative for support in calculating its full emissions – thereby helping the company meet its sustainability goals while staying compliant.

The process: gaining comprehensive carbon data

Aasted has been tracking scope 1 and 2 emissions since 2018. In 2023, the business began working with Normative to calculate its scope 3.

For Aasted, like many businesses, scope 3 is the most challenging emissions category to account for. Much of the difficulty lies in sourcing data: businesses must parse complex, often international, networks of suppliers and service providers to get the required information. This, coupled with the fact that suppliers may not even have emissions data on hand, leaves many businesses with an incomplete view of their scope 3. A Normative survey of UK and EU sustainability leaders found that ​​47% wanted improved visibility into supply chain emissions.

This is why Normative’s hybrid calculation methodology has been so useful for Aasted. The methodology streamlines scope 3 calculations by enabling companies to use the data they have on hand. When supplier data is available, Normative’s platform uses it; when it isn’t, Normative uses data on the company’s purchases from suppliers to produce science-backed emissions estimates.

With Normative’s carbon accounting platform, Aasted used a combination of supplier-specific, activity, and spend data to comprehensively calculate emissions across scope 1, 2, and 3 for the first time.

The calculations revealed some surprising insights: for example, that scope 3 emissions accounted for more than 99% of the company’s total emissions.

Getting more granular, the team explored the emissions inventory to discover that, within scope 3, the downstream emissions from “Use of sold products” made up 95.3% of scope 3 emissions. Upstream emissions from “Purchased goods and services” accounted for another 4.4%. 

Equipped with this more detailed emissions inventory, Aasted was ready to translate these insights into action.

The results: compliance, customers, and climate

Aasted’s detailed and comprehensive emissions inventory has unlocked benefits in reporting, meeting customer expectations, and setting and working toward reduction targets.

Staying ahead of CSRD

Because of Aasted’s size and EU presence, the company will need to comply with CSRD reporting from 2025 onwards.

The legislation’s ESRS E1 requirements mandate companies to report their full greenhouse gas emissions – including scope 3. 

Thanks to Aasted’s comprehensive emissions calculations, the company is now well-prepared to meet these CSRD reporting requirements.

Setting science-based targets

Aasted’s team isn’t just guessing at how to reduce their impact. They’re using concrete data to set achievable goals. 

Before coming to Normative, Aasted had already begun setting science-based near-term targets for its scope 1 and 2 emissions, with a reduction target set for 2030 based on a 2019 baseline. 

With its deeper scope 3 insights, Aasted has begun work on setting scope 3 targets. Recognizing the significant differences between upstream and downstream emissions in its scope 3, the company plans to set two separate targets – one for upstream and one for downstream. This approach ensures that efforts to reduce upstream emissions aren’t overshadowed by the larger downstream emissions from the use of its products.

Meeting customer expectations

69% of B2B buyers work at organizations that require them to make purchases from sellers that follow sustainable practices, according to Digital Commerce 360. Businesses in B2B manufacturing are no exception.

For example, industrial manufacturer and Normative customer Norican Group was told by one of its customers: “By 2025, if you can’t quantify your carbon emissions and discuss them in detail, I don’t think you will even be invited to tender.”

Aasted, too, is increasingly being asked to provide sustainability data about its products. The company is now able to meet these requests by sharing its carbon data – proving to existing and potential customers that it takes its environmental responsibility seriously. 

Identifying impactful emissions reductions

Another valuable insight Aasted gained was an understanding of where to focus its sustainability efforts.

Normative’s reduction features showed the team that, while eliminating their scope 1 and 2 emissions would be a positive step, reducing their scope 3 emissions by just 10% would have an even larger impact. 

As a result, they’re focusing their R&D efforts on improving the energy efficiency of their products, which will directly contribute to improving the company’s “Use of sold products” downstream scope 3 category. In 2023, this category accounted for 95.3% of Aasted’s scope 3 emissions.

You might say that Aasted is ensuring that its customers can have their cake and eat it too – creating delicious confections while reducing their carbon footprints.

The big picture

Companies trying to enhance their sustainability efforts should look to Aasted’s journey for valuable insights on tackling CSRD, taking data-driven climate action, and meeting customer demands for sustainable products. 

By embracing comprehensive carbon accounting, the team at Aasted has created a recipe for success that includes:

• Preparing for CSRD compliance with a detailed emissions inventory
  
• Setting science-based climate targets
  
• Identifying high-impact emissions reduction areas in scope 3, which accounts for 99% of its carbon footprint
  
• Meeting customer demand for sustainability data

Aasted’s Sustainability Manager Jesper Jerlang shared advice for other companies in a Normative webinar: start with the data you have, improve as you go, and focus on the biggest contributions first. 

This approach allows companies to begin their sustainability journey immediately while continuously refining their efforts.

To learn how Normative can support your business with compliance, target-setting, and reduction, talk to one of Normative’s experts about your reporting needs and climate goals.