DP World Taps Watershed For Smart Emissions Tracking

DP World collaborated with business climate platform Watershed to revolutionize its European operations' sustainability reporting as the global logistics company responded to rising regulatory pressures and increasingly climate-conscious decision-making. With over 75 countries of operation, the global company chose Watershed to build and expand its system of monitoring emissions, part of an even deeper integration of sustainability into its business model.

As the laws draw closer in Europe—especially with the onset of the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)—firms such as DP World find themselves under increasing pressure to give timely, accurate information about their environmental footprint. In the past, DP World used man-intensive internal processes that were disjointed and not powerful enough to carry out the increasingly sophisticated needs for analytical sustainability information. This made it difficult to deliver end-to-end reports that were acceptable to national regulations as well as local sustainability needs.

Watershed was selected due to its capacity to quickly resist and scale without the costly consultant help. Its platform allows emission monitoring in a centralized manner across locations and countries, providing DP World richer and more actionable intelligence. As Nicholas Mazzei, DP World Europe Vice President of Sustainability, would say, such collaboration is a strategic move: "Watershed approached us as the perfect partner to enable us to accelerate our sustainability ambitions while still maintaining flexibility and cost benefits. Mandatory or not, owning our data enables us to better know our business."

The alliance allows DP World to aggregate emissions information from European operations and obtain CSRD compliance requirements through providing real-time visibility of carbon production by site and country. Besides facilitating better regulatory transparency, it also facilitates customer engagement through better insights and the ability to exchange data. Through automated tracking of emissions and providing deep analytics-driven reports, DP World is now able to provide customer-level emissions data—being the basis for more informed low-carbon freight decision-making.

One of the core aspects of this collaboration is the incorporation of sustainability into general business practices. DP World has its sustainability and finance departments tightly coordinated in a bid to incorporate climate factors into decision-making. DP World Europe Chief Financial Officer John Woollacott was keen to stress aligning climate aspirations and business performance: "We need to align sustainability choices as much as possible with business choices, and the challenge for business is to see how they can get them aligned."

Woollacott also mentioned that today's stakeholders—customers, suppliers, employees, and even potential employees—demand to see a firm's environmental position. "Having a means of keeping score is important," he said, but with the condition that report design should be lean and not bogged down. The interest, he added, lies in focusing on only a few important KPIs that define the spirit of climate footprint without being overwhelmed by information.

Watershed's emissions platform also enhances customer service. For instance, DP World can determine the emissions footprint of specific client shipments and make it easier to negotiate on the environmental and cost advantages of mode change—e.g., from road to barge. Such functionality provides sales and finance teams with the data they need to contrast carbon footprint and operational cost trade-offs, improving value delivery across the board.

Watershed's enterprise-grade system will also contribute significantly to DP World's operational resilience. By providing leadership with visibility into emissions, the platform enables the company to better anticipate potential future climate risks and opportunities with greater agility and confidence.

This is one facet of DP World's broader $500 million strategy to lower CO₂ emissions across its global supply chain. DP World is investing in renewable energy, charging its fleets, and low-carbon technology as it develops aggressive decarbonisation targets.

In a carbon-emitting industry that is at the center of international supply chains, DP World's agreement with Watershed sends a signal that it wants to be leader of the industry in embracing environmentally-friendly logistics. The move is part of a new trend for business actors to not just make climate action a regulatory requirement, but a competitive advantage.

By integrating emissions data into the business measurement fabric, DP World is creating a more transparent, accountable, and responsive organisation. The plan is a shift from reactive compliance to proactive climate strategy—strategy that is good for regulators, customers, shareholders, and the planet.