Streamlining carbon accounting and scaling PCFs at Medtronic

Challenge

Across corporate emissions accounting, reporting, and product-level footprinting, Medtronic faced high manual effort in its processes.

At the same time, customers were increasingly requesting PCF data as part of procurement processes.

“We initially used a combination of open-source tools and consultant support to build PCFs,” said John Orlandini, Senior Engineering Manager at Medtronic. “That approach was not well suited for scale, particularly as modeling complexity increased. We needed a more repeatable way to develop PCFs across a large portfolio.”

Upstream data added complexity. Supplier-level emissions are important for cradle-to-grave footprints, but collecting consistent PCF data across a large global supplier base can be challenging.

“Given the diversity of Medtronic’s global supplier base, emissions and product carbon footprint data can vary,” said Alissa Matthies Tamasi, Senior Program Manager, Supplier Decarbonization at Medtronic. “Recognizing differences in methodologies and supplier capabilities, we are focused on pragmatic, scalable approaches that support continuous improvement.”

The Approach

Medtronic uses Watershed to support Scope 1–3 emissions estimates, PCFs, and corporate reporting. Thus, centralizing PCF development reduced reliance on multiple tools and offline spreadsheets.

“By scaling PCFs in Watershed, we’re improving efficiency while reducing costs,” said Orlandini. “Equally important, it reduced the time teams spend building models and improved consistency across analyses.”

Watershed enables Medtronic to incorporate available bill-of-materials information and refine assumptions over time. This allows product footprints to be updated as designs, sourcing, or manufacturing locations change.

“Generic emissions factors don’t always reflect the specifics of medical technology products,” Orlandini said. “This approach allows us to capture available detail and improve accuracy incrementally.”

Supporting Decision Making and Assurance

As PCFs become easier to generate and maintain, Medtronic is beginning to reference product level emissions data alongside traditional metrics such as cost and manufacturability.

“When emissions are visible at the product level, it fundamentally shifts internal decision-making, by turning decarbonization from an abstract corporate ambition into a tangible, cross-functional lever, enabling R&D, engineering, procurement, and strategy teams to make informed, product-specific choices that directly reduce impact,” Orlandini noted.

Rather than conducting large-scale supplier PCF surveys, Medtronic uses modeling to estimate upstream emissions in a consistent way, reducing supplier burden while improving comparability.

From an assurance perspective, increased transparency has supported more efficient validation.

“The improved traceability and documentation have contributed to a smoother third-party assurance process compared with prior years,” said Matthies Tamasi.

Looking Forward

Medtronic continues to focus on building a scalable and consistent approach to emissions measurement that supports customer requirements, regulatory expectations, and long-term sustainability goals.

“Our intent is to make emissions data usable in decision making, not separate from it,” said Matthies Tamasi. “Standardization and scalability are essential to doing that effectively.”

“This is just the beginning of our journey”, according to Milton Mondardo, Senior EHS Manager, Systems and Decarbonization, “as we selected the Watershed platform based on a critical list of requirements, like the capability to set accurate regional emission factors, the assurance readiness (transparency & tracking) in the platform, the enhanced AI tools and the continuous improvement of modules and features.”

To learn more about Watershed Product Footprints, reach out here.