New Zealand LCA conference – Review

The 2nd New Zealand Life Cycle Assessment Conference “LCA: A Business Compass for Sustainability,” was held in Auckland on 28-29 March 2012. The conference focused on the application of LCA and Life Cycle Management in business to express the increasingly important role of LCA in guiding and shaping business operations, management practices and strategies.

The conference attracted close to 100 participants from NZ, Australia and five other countries across Europe, Asia and Africa.  The final program can be viewed here: www.lcaconference.org.nz  “The number and high quality of papers submitted was overwhelming,” commented Barbara Nebel, Chair of the Scientific Committee.

Industry and user needs with regard to LCA were a key focus in all presentations. Keynote speakers included Prof. Matthias Finkbeiner (Technical University Berlin), Clare Broadbent (worldsteel), Dave Maslen (NZ Merino) and Dr. Alastair Woodard (Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society).

The conference was organised jointly by the Life Cycle Association New Zealand (LCANZ) and the New Zealand Centre for Life Cycle Management.

How will enterprise sustainability solutions evolve?

The leading analyst firm Gartner has recently published a report which provides useful insight into aspects of the rapidly evolving sustainable business software landscape.


The report entitled “PE INTERNATIONAL Emerges as a One‐Stop Enterprise Sustainability Vendor” identifies some key trends in Carbon‐Reporting:

• Supply chain carbon‐reporting trends and client RFPs for sustainability solutions are increasingly looking for organizational and product‐based tools for assessing sustainable performance.

• The number of respondents (U.S. manufacturing companies) required to provide both operational and embedded carbon data has more than doubled from 2008 to 2010.

“The disclosure, reporting and management of sustainability data is evolving rapidly.” writes Gartner analyst Stephen Stokes who is a research vice president in the Supply Chain Leaders group and coordinates sustainability and green technology research. “Emissions data (or embodied energy or environmental data) has potentially significant utility for product innovation and process improvement”.

The report recommends companies ensure the full spectrum of emissions and sustainability is considered when scoping products and services for sustainability. And also consider the extent to which vendors are able to provide sustainability consulting to support software tools. According to Gartner real domain expertise in sustainable production, sustainable design and sustainable business remain rare commodities in the marketplace. 

Read the full Gartner report here

Tesco enhances climate profile

Tesco had announced that it will take on the challenge of operating a low carbon business. This corporate target has been made clear by Sir Terry Leahy – Tesco’s CEO. Tesco’s goal is to reduce the carbon emissions of the company by 50% by 2020. To achieve this ambitious goal carbon footprint reduction must be incorporate in all business processes including the design of the stores. By setting up an agreed set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be used by all interior design managers, the base for comparing different products has been established.