The goal was to establish the first-ever site-specific sustainability targets grounded in Science Based Targets methodology for a large manufacturing company. While the company had set ambitious top-level climate commitments—such as a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions—the challenge was translating these broad, corporate-wide goals into actionable, equitable targets at the site level. Our role was to design a data-driven framework that could measure and assign emissions reduction responsibilities based on intensity metrics, rather than total volume alone, to ensure a more accurate and strategic approach to decarbonization.

We began by conducting a full sustainability data assessment across the company’s US footprint. This included energy, water, waste, and emissions data across dozens of manufacturing and operational sites. Using this baseline, we applied science-based target principles to create site-level intensity metrics (e.g., emissions per unit of production, per square foot, or per person) that reflected the operational context of each facility. This allowed us to normalize performance across vastly different site sizes, enabling fairer comparisons and a better understanding of which locations were truly high-impact.

To translate corporate goals into site-level action, we developed a proportional allocation model. This model distributed the company-wide reduction target across each site based on historical intensity data, operational roles, and opportunity for improvement. Rather than targeting only the largest facilities, this approach highlighted those with the highest emissions intensity—regardless of scale—allowing the company to focus investments and interventions where they would yield the greatest sustainability returns.

Our framework gave leadership a powerful new lens through which to assess, compare, and manage sustainability performance across the business. The result was a meaningful step forward in operationalizing the company’s climate strategy—making sustainability actionable at every level of the organization.