The IMDS Steering Committee recently shared the following updates on Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) in IMDS:

With the next IMDS Release 15.0, another sustainability reporting mega-trend will be implemented into the system.

Beside the well-known reporting of the material content, declarable substances and the recycled content, the IMDS will be enhanced to allow reporting of the PCF of a product (possible on component, semi-component, and material levels). This will foster a standardized and more efficient reporting of the PCF in the entire automotive supply chain, even if using this functionality is voluntary and to be agreed B2B.

The enhancement of the reporting possibilities is driven by the overall need of the complete automotive value chain to assess the impact of their products, improve the data source to more primary carbon emission data for this assessment, and to subsequently enable each actor to reduce its carbon footprint.

The new functionality is a common project of the IMDS Steering Committee and the involved supplier organizations AIAG, CLEPA, and JAPIA.

The reporting itself will follow a separate and flexible reporting scheme, which allows more frequent updates of the PCF values without interfering with the usual IMDS reporting.

To put the PCF calculation on common ground, the Catena-X PCF Rulebook (CX 0029 Product Carbon Footprint Rulebook) was selected to be the basis of the reporting. Further information on this rulebook can be found in the Catena-X Standard-Library.

The calculation of the PCF itself is not becoming part of IMDS. This requires multiple additional data sources within and outside of your organization and, depending on the complexity of your product, most likely a dedicated PCF calculation tool. The IMDS Steering Committee is thus recommending all companies of the automotive supply chain to get used to PCF calculation mechanisms in order to be prepared for upcoming customer requirements.

Defining the new function has been finished by now, it is currently in implementation and will be tested in the next step. In addition, the project team is now working on a related IMDS Recommendation document to go alongside with the new function.

To support the proper implementation within your organization, the user management will also be enhanced to enable dedicated PCF user profiles in the future.

Source: Excerpted from the IMDS Steering Committee Newsletter, June 2024, written by Dr. Ilona Herrman, EntServ Deutschland GmbH, a DXC company

REGISTER FOR THE 2024 IMDS CONFERENCE

This topic and more will be covered at the 2024 Hybrid IMDS, Product Compliance, & Sustainability Conference from October 15-17, 2024, at Laurel Manor in Livonia, Michigan. Register for the conference here, and register separately for the optional Day 3 training here.

LEARN MORE

Read additional updates on the following topics in the IMDS Newsletter here:

• IMDS Release 14.4 planned for July 3, 2024
• ACEA Regulatory list
• GADSL compliance
• First revision of ‘IMDS 025 Recommendation — Recycled and Biobased Content’ now available
• ZVO [10216] will be removed from the list of IMDS Standard Companies
• Users’ Echo — e-mails sent to IMDS