Introducing Siemens Financial Services (SFS) Americas

Siemens Financial Services (SFS) is the financing arm of Siemens AG, a leading technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, mobility, and healthcare. SFS Americas is focused on the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Combining industry knowledge with financing know-how, SFS Americas offers debt and equity financing to customers around the globe. SFS Americas’ debt financing business offers corporate lending and project and structured financing solutions for companies, sponsors and developers.

SFS Americas is committed to driving sustainability by investing in decarbonization, resource efficiency, and societal impact, while empowering borrowers through the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Financed Emissions

Financial services firms are increasingly concerned with understanding the impact of their investments and ensuring transparency in sustainability reporting. While the sector's direct emissions, known as Scope 1 and Scope 2, are relatively low, its Scope 3 emissions can be significantly higher. Scope 3 emissions encompass all indirect emissions that occur throughout a company's value chain, including those generated by suppliers and customers.

 For financial services firms, these indirect emissions are specifically categorized as financed emissions, also referred to as financed emissions. These emissions represent the firm's share of emissions produced by the entities they finance. In essence, a lender providing financing to emission-intensive industries will report higher financed emissions compared to those that do not. Understanding and calculating these financed emissions is crucial for assessing the sector's environmental impact and managing exposure to carbon cost risks as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, making it a material concern for the business.

The Challenge

SFS Americas’ debt financing business calculates financed emissions annually and has set reduction goals to decrease their portfolio’s emissions over time. An understanding of their portfolio’s emissions allows SFS Americas to engage with borrowers on a decarbonization strategy.

One of the challenges SFS Americas faces is the manual time required to collect and manage data necessary to accurately calculate, proxy and forecast emissions. Another challenge involves the complexities of data arriving from multiple systems, analyzing unstructured data and managing methodology implementation across a diverse portfolio. This meant that SFS Americas looked for a solution provider that could offer out-of-the-box functionality, combined with the ability to rapidly add new features and customize them.

Overview of Challenges:

• Collecting complex data from diverse sources

• Systematically implementing the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) standards

• Seamlessly integrating with existing tech stack and systems

• Ensuring flexibility in deployment options

• Keeping track of changes manually made by users in an audit trail

The Solution 

Sustaira teamed up with the SFS Americas debt finance team to create a custom, multitenant digital platform that redefined their carbon accounting processes. Sustaira combined best-in-class knowledge of low-code solutions with sustainability best practices to help SFS Americas manage the large data collection and calculation process associated with tracking and reporting financed emissions. 

Our solution automated emissions calculations in line with the GHG Protocol and PCAF standards, reducing the SFS Americas team’s reporting workload by 40% and meeting the team’s requirements for a flexible platform that can be easily tailored and integrated within their systems. Our friendly development team found a solution to address SFS Americas’ requirements.

Overview of Features & Functionalities

• Centralized data management with efficient collect and audit trails

• Flexible calculation methodologies tailored to different asset classes

• Connection with back-end data systems for data collection and single source experience

• User-friendly dashboards displaying portfolio aggregated figures, providing strategic insights into high emission areas