Environmental data infrastructure for the automotive sector
Automotive firms operate in a particularly dynamic landscape, shaped by evolving product lines, carbon-intensive global supply chains, and pressure to account for downstream emissions. Minimum gives you clarity and control.
Facts about automotive firms and your environmental data:
Your footprint is always evolving across internal structures, ownership models and partners
You have thousands of suppliers at different stages of their sustainability journey
Your emissions span the product life cycle from material extraction to end-of-life
You depend on fast, granular emissions data to drive operational decision making
You report emissions data through multiple lenses
Your business moves fast - your emissions data needs to keep up
You need a solution that will move at your pace
Track your data at any level of your organization - and adapt as you grow
Whether you're shifting production lines, onboarding new suppliers, or preparing product-level disclosures, Minimum helps you build a footprint that reflects the true shape of your organisation and supply chain. Explore Minimum’s step-by-step features that will help you achieve accurate and timely data wherever you are in the automotive value chain.
Inventory mapping
Data ingestion
Calculations & Auditability
Reporting & insights
Integration
Inventory mapping
You have a global, dynamic footprint that shifts constantly with products and partners
- Production and organisational complexity: depending on where you sit, emissions could span stamping plants, engine facilities, assembly lines, logistics hubs, R&D centres, testing vehicles and dealerships - often under different subsidiaries or joint ventures.
- Frequent changes in product lines and production locations: launching a new model or shifting production between plants introduces emissions boundary changes, often mid-cycle.
- Supplier and JV relationships complicate ownership boundaries: co-developed platforms and contract manufacturing blur responsibility for upstream and in-plant emissions.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Map carbon data by facility, vehicle programme, and entity: reflect your organisational and operational reality - down to the model line.
- Track organisational and production changes over time: maintain emissions continuity across site ramp-ups, model transitions, manufacturing and procurement changes, and factory repurposing.
- Capture every process and partner arrangement: from wholly owned sites to outsourced production or supplier-hosted lines, with appropriate carbon emissions ownership
Data ingestion
Your activity data is scattered across factories, suppliers, and disconnected systems
- ERP, MES, and factory systems rarely talk to each other: your energy, material, and logistics data come from multiple platforms, often without carbon-relevant structure.
- Manual data entry and spreadsheets persist: especially in your upstream supplier networks or small manufacturing locations, complicating the transition to software
- Upstream and downstream data arrives in varying formats and cadences: some of your value chain share detailed data monthly; others deliver annual summaries - or not at all.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Ingest from ERP, MES, supplier portals, and manual uploads: handle structured, semi-structured, and unstructured inputs across your systems and partners.
- Cleanse and transform incoming data automatically: standardise formats, tag units, and identify gaps before anything is calculated.
- Create a unified, carbon-ready dataset: integrate your logistics, manufacturing, process, and utility data across vehicle lines and production sites.
Calculations
Your emissions are tied to complex manufacturing processes and long product lifecycles
- Scope 1 includes diverse industrial activities: paint lines, heat treatment, engine testing, and internal logistics may require process-specific emissions logic.
- Scope 2 varies across countries and plants: you may use on-site renewables or district heating or depend on carbon-intensive grids depending on your location.
- Scope 3 is dominant and difficult: Material sourcing, part manufacturing, vehicle use-phase, upstream and downstream logistics/transportation, and end-of-life all play major roles in your footprint with long lifespans and complex value chains.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Tailor Scope 1 logic to industrial processes: flexible methodologies apply emissions factors and methods for each activity, from paint booths to logistics fleets.
- Support Scope 2 calculations under different procurement models: apply market- and location-based methods using regional grid factors and energy certificates. Account for heating and cooling.
- Build detailed Scope 3 models for parts, materials, and vehicle lifecycles: Align with GHG Protocol, PAS 2050, or custom methodologies per programme.
Reporting & insights
You need to connect operational, financial, and product emissions views
- Plant-level operations need detailed efficiency metrics: energy intensity, production throughput, and waste must tie back to emissions.
- Corporate and investor stakeholders need roll-ups by brand and region: consolidated emissions by platform, brand, and territory support external disclosures.
- Customers and regulators increasingly demand product-level carbon footprints: Especially for EVs and low-emission vehicle programmes, such as The Road to Zero Strategy in the UK and Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) mandate.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Configure KPIs at site, product line, or brand level: track emissions per vehicle produced, per lifetime distance travelled (per vehicle), per unit of revenue, or per tonne output.
- Visualise data by platform, model, and programme: support cross-functional teams with tailored dashboards.
- Enable product-level carbon reporting: generate emissions profiles per SKU or vehicle variant, down to use-phase and end-of-life assumptions.
Integration
Your carbon data needs to connect across product, plant, and enterprise systems
- Disconnected digital ecosystems: your PLM, ERP, logistics, and sustainability systems rarely share clean interfaces.
- Real-time and batch data are both needed: you need both hourly energy data from factories as well as annual volumes from suppliers.
- Multiple functions depend on access: your engineering, procurement, ESG, and finance teams all need structured emissions data.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Integrate with upstream and downstream systems via APIs or flat files: whether it’s product lifecycle systems or supplier management tools.
- Automate ingestion at different cadences: pull real-time from factory meters, quarterly from suppliers, or ad hoc from reports.
- Distribute structured emissions data across the business: enable BI dashboards, investor reports, and sustainability disclosures to use the same source of truth.
Collaboratively transform fragmented data into clean, automated insights that are audit-ready
Footprint calculations are only as good as the data behind them - and in automotive, that data can be messy. Minimum's platform automates the heavy lifting, providing you seamless collaboration and control over the process so that you can trust every number and explain every figure.
Explore Minimum’s cross-cutting features below that will underpin your carbon journey.
Auditability
Your carbon inventory must be fully defensible across scopes and systems
- Audit trails are often fragmented or missing: your emissions logic is hidden in spreadsheets or lost when systems change.
- Scope 3 data varies in quality and documentation: especially when based on supplier-provided figures or spend-based estimates.
- Verification takes time and coordination: preparing for assurance requires coordination across many teams and suppliers.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Maintain end-to-end traceability across the entire footprint: from supplier invoices to vehicle use-phase assumptions.
- Document calculation logic, emissions factors, and source data: provide a clear line from input to output.
- Unify audit support in one platform: reduce audit prep time and increase confidence in disclosures.
Project Management & Control
Coordinating carbon reporting across the value chain is slow, manual, and risky
- Hundreds of contributors across plants, brands, and partners: you find it hard to tracking progress and assign ownership.
- Timelines vary across cycles: product, financial, and ESG calendars don’t always align.
- Bottlenecks aren’t visible until it’s too late: one missing data point can delay multiple downstream calculations.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Track submission progress across factories, business units, and suppliers: know exactly who’s submitted what, and what’s still outstanding.
- Assign roles and workflows to contributors and reviewers: keep accountability clear and progress moving.
- Flag bottlenecks and risks early: monitor progress in real-time and intervene when needed.
Collaboration & Engagement
Carbon data depends on input from internal teams and an extensive global supplier network
- Many suppliers lack emissions maturity: especially your Tier 2 and Tier 3 vendors, who may struggle with methodology or data availability.
- Internal contributors vary in fluency: from sustainability leads to plant operators and procurement — all are critical, but not equally equipped.
- Submission and follow-up is inefficient and unstructured: emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls dominate your process.
Minimum’s purpose-built solutions
- Enable simple data submission for internal and external users: whether you’re onboarding a procurement lead or a Tier 2 supplier.
- Collaborate within the platform, not via email: assign tasks, leave comments, and review submissions without switching tools.
- Scale Scope 3 supplier engagement with structured workflows: make upstream data collection repeatable, trackable, and efficient.
