Making Climate Data Actionable in Energy Investment Projects

Sammanfattning

Göteborg Energi has established ambitious targets to reduce the climate footprint ofits procurement by 90% by 2030. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an establishedmethodology for quantifying environmental impact, its practical integrationinto investment decisions is often constrained by organizational and data qualitybarriers rather than technical limitations. This thesis investigates how GöteborgEnergi’s working approach for climate data can be developed to support both earlyinvestment decisions, LCA-based follow-up and declarations in larger investmentprojects.Using a mixed-methods approach structured around the DMAIC framework, a retrospectivepilot LCA was conducted on the biomass-fired combined heat and powerplant Rya BKV, delimited to the main supplier Valmet’s scope of delivery. This werecombined with semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, process observations, andsupplier dialogue.The analysis reveals three categories of barriers. Process-related barriers includelate and unclear requirements specification in procurement. Data quality barriersincluding a strong reliance on generic emission factors due to limited availability ofproduct-specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Organizational barriersarise from unclear allocation of responsibilities between project management,procurement, and the environmental function.In response, an improved working method is proposed that separates climate datainto two distinct flows: a limited decision-support flow for use in tender evaluationand a comprehensive follow-up flow post-award, utilizing a standardized supplierdata template. The method is reinforced by a shared terminology structurefor climate data types, explicit allocation of responsibilities, and a four-level fallbackprocess for missing emission factors. The result is a scalable and structuredapproach that bridges the gap between early climate screening and rigorous LCAbasedfollow-up, without assuming complete product-specific data availability at allproject stages.