Cognizant has extended its relationship with Orica, a manufacturer of commercial explosives and innovative blasting systems, to deliver an ESG data strategy and a digital platform, through agile methods, that provides real-time reporting and forecasting of scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The project is a key component of Orica’s Net Zero strategy, specifically its AUD37 million (USD27 million) Kooragang Island Decarbonization Project.
As part of the agreement, Cognizant will leverage Orica’s existing technology investments, specifically its Microsoft Azure data lake, and provide Orica with a single ESG data platform. This platform is expected to capture and curate Orica’s GHG emissions data, including structured, unstructured and real-time data, with the goal of enabling Orica to monitor, report and forecast its GHG emissions reductions and track the origination of Australian Carbon Credit Units.
“There is a growing market-driven need for large organizations in the resources industry to understand, report on and reduce their carbon footprint. As a major supplier to mining and construction companies, Orica also has an important role to play in reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions,” said Chris Crozier, Chief Information Officer, Orica. “As such, we needed a trusted partner with a similar focus on ESG goals and sustainability and one with an expertise in data analysis, AI, design and IoT. We look forward to working with Cognizant to help us achieve our own sustainability objectives, while we look for ways to support our customers meeting their own goals.”
“Core to our company’s purpose of engineering modern businesses to improve everyday life is our commitment to embed sustainability into our thinking, decisions, and actions. Growing numbers of customers, investors, regulators, and governmental bodies now expect corporations to make measurable progress toward reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jonathan Smith, Sustainability Lead, ANZ, Cognizant. “To do so, these companies will need to transform their product and technology strategies, supply chains, logistics models, and more. Data is a crucial factor that allows companies to analyze their current emissions and measure against ESG goals over time, and we are incredibly proud of having been appointed as the data, AI and analytics partner for Orica to be able to measure Orica’s ESG efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.”
Orica has installed catalyst abatement technology at its nitric acid production facility at Kooragang Island, forecasting a significant reduction in GHG emissions, specifically nitrous oxide. The Kooragang Island decarbonization inititiave is forecasted to provide cumulative emission reductions of 4.7 million tonnes of CO2e by 2030. The expected cumulative reduction of this project has been calculated to be equivalent to 1% of Australia’s annual carbon footprint, or, on an annual basis, avoiding GHG emissions produced by the equivalent of 35,000-50,000 Australian homes.
Orica has previously engaged Cognizant to move its IT infrastructure to the cloud to enable Orica to achieve higher levels of efficiency, agility and business impact and optimize operating costs.
