For over 60 years, Putzmeister has been a leading manufacturer in the construction machinery sector. With their environmental responsibility in mind, the company is focused on creating affordable and sustainable housing and infrastructure.
We spoke with Alexander Diez, Head of Group GRC & Sustainability, and Muralidhar Nagesha, Sustainability Specialist, to learn more about their journey and how Tracera has helped them get audit-ready, bringing transparency, automation, and confidence to their global emissions reporting.
Challenge: Manual data collection was difficult across the global locations
Putzmeister’s emissions tracking used to be done entirely manually. Alexander says this was quite inefficient:
“We collected the emissions data by conducting a one-hour call with each location, during which we entered the figures into an Excel spreadsheet and calculated the total emissions from the consolidated sheets.”
The internal team was small, so getting accurate data from over 30 global locations was a considerable challenge. Plus, there was more than the burden of time. They also had some concerns about the quality of data:
“If everyone manually filled an Excel spreadsheet, there would be no quality checks in place, as we would have to trust that the data provided by our colleagues is accurate,” adds Alexander.
Solution: Saving time and improving data quality with Tracera
The Putzmeister team considered nearly ten different software providers before choosing Tracera for its advanced automated data collection and sustainability expertise it brought to the team.
Alexander notes: “There were a lot of solutions which offered a nice interface to enter figures manually, but we thought this is not how we should work nowadays.” Instead, Tracera offered them “a more digital, more automated way of calculating the emissions.”
Such close collaboration between the company and the service provider was crucial, especially given the regulatory uncertainty at the time. “We were looking for a flexible and agile service provider,” Alexander said. “We were willing to invest ourselves and give a lot of learnings to Tracera from our side.”
Result: Global transparency on emissions and improved sustainability processes
Today, Tracera is behind all Putzmeister’s sustainability operations, changing how the team collects, checks, and uses emissions data. Alexander noted that the way they use Tracera varies throughout different project phases:
“When we were searching for service suppliers to assist with transition concepts for the sites, we relied heavily on the tool. We also reviewed the available meter data and used the tool to double-check its plausibility. Additionally, we shared the various energy consumption figures we had and compared them to the actual consumption at the sites.”
For Muralidhar, the biggest win out of Tracera was having everything in one place for CSRD reporting:
“I think the CSRD tool provides a lot of detail when it comes to adding data. Managing data points can be very complex, but Tracera offers an excellent platform that allows data to be managed effectively by linking supporting documents.
This helped us consolidate all the data in a single platform and assign specific parts to different colleagues responsible for collecting it. It simplifies the review process, making it much easier to complete the final work”
Using Tracera also saved them plenty of manual data collection and auditing time:
Alexander Diez
Head of Group GRC & Sustainability“We save 30 calls—or 30 hours—that we used to spend annually. Uploading the bills is now also very simple, taking just a few minutes each month for colleagues at these sites. This represents a significant saving, especially considering that many locations are in high-salary regions or industrial areas where labor is both scarce and expensive. The more automation we implement, the more cost-efficient our processes become.”
Muralidhar also highlighted that, in addition to saving time on data collection, they can work more efficiently by having each physical bill readily available in the background. This serves as proof for the data entered into the system.
“Maintaining a background bill, ensuring seamless spreadsheet links, and identifying which data and bill come from which entity is a significant task. This process saves us a lot of time.”
Another very important aspect Alexander emphasized is audit assurance:
Alexander Diez
Head of Group GRC & Sustainability“If auditors come for emissions calculations, we can now grant them access to the system, where they can find everything they need. As a next step, when fully digitalizing bills globally, we could configure the software to connect with our ERP system, access the PDFs directly, link the documents in Tracera, and input the values into the software.”
The team also relies on Tracera for its ability to inform strategy creation and provide insights into the performance of each site, including which utilities need revisions or replacements. This centralizes management for better accessibility and eliminates the hassle of handling multiple document storage systems.
What’s next?
Putzmeister is already looking beyond emissions tracking. With the continued push for data-based regulation— from CSRD to product lifecycle assessments and battery regulations—the team sees Tracera as a critical service.
Alexander Diez
Head of Group GRC & Sustainability“There was another aspect when we had the first sustainability audit from one of our customers, Tracera helped us put a data collection framework in place. The software will automatically prepopulate based on the data that we have.”
When asked what advice they would offer other sustainability leaders, Alexander was direct: “Think about the data model you need to fulfil the reporting requirements and your business needs. Put a concept in place to digitalize the data that is not digital yet. Use the legal requirements push to transform the entities to be more sustainable.”
Muralidhar added that sustainability should be a part of every customer’s business:
“The work should not be just until it reaches the market. It should be inculcated in the everyday life of every person. This model should come out and every company should aim at that. So everybody will be enthusiastic to take up such sustainability products.”
