Companies improve sustainability with a product life cycle approach

Leading firms move beyond the enterprise view to take a product life cycle approach to improve their sustainability.

The challenges that this presents is driving sustainability experts to work closely with non-sustainability colleagues – because the decisions that determine product sustainability are made by R&D, product design, procurement, marketing and sales teams. The recently published report by analyst firm Verdantix explains how PE INTERNATIONAL’s product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software, GaBi, can support different business functions to incorporate sustainability considerations into relevant processes; decision-making at the product design and procurement stages, and to facilitate engaging sustainability communications by marketing and sales teams.

Click here to download the report

Tesco publishes over 1100 product carbon footprints

Tesco has set themselves demanding targets both to reduce carbon emissions of the products they sell by 30% by 2020, and to find ways to help customers reduce their carbon footprints by 50% by 2020. To help achieve this they have completed carbon footprint analysis of over 1,100 of their own-brand products.

Understanding the carbon footprints of these products helps Tesco to understand where greenhouse gas emissions arise, enabling them to reduce their impact on the environment. They have also used this information to carbon label over 500 products since 2008, and to provide helpful advice to their customers on how they can reduce their household carbon footprint. 

Find out more about carbon footprints of different products PDF 1MB

New Product Carbon Footprint standard: ISO 14067

The new standard ISO 14067 for carbon footprints of products will provide much more specific guidance than the underlying ISO 14044:2006, Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Requirements and guidelines.

ISO 14067 calls for specific product category rules, including not only the specifications of ISO 14025:2006, Environmental labels and declarations – Type III environmental declarations – Principles and procedures, but also other sector-specific standards or internationally agreed guidance documents related to materials and product categories.

ISO 14067 expected for July 2013

The new standard builds largely on the existing ISO standards for life cycle assessments (ISO 14040/44) and environmental labels and declarations (ISO 14025) and is planned to become available as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) by February 2013, with publication expected for July 2013


To improve user-friendliness and consistency, working group WG 2, GHG management in the value or supply chain, of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 207, Environment management, subcommittee SC 7, Greenhouse gas management and related activities, decided to merge Part 1, Quantification, and Part 2, Communication. The working group allowed for a second round of balloting to ensure that the standard would earn broad support in all countries.

Addressing direct and indirect land-use changes

WG 2 decided to align the requirements for addressing direct and indirect land-use changes with the specifications of the revised PAS 2050. These requirements are informed by research in Europe and the American state of California, which elaborate details related to sustainability criteria for biofuels.

New Video – Unlock the Value of Product Sustainability in Manufacturing

Missed our latest webinar? Watch the video to gain valuable insight into the latest trends surrounding product life cycle thinking in the industrial manufacturing sector and learn from real-life leadership examples for radically increasing the business value of sustainability programs:

• Develop innovative products and generate more revenue

• Realize cost savings while becoming greener

• Improve the quality of your products and processes 

Find out how industry leaders are…

…Driving top-line revenue growth by becoming the preferred supplier to corporate customers

…Reducing costs by understanding environmental impacts and eliminating waste

…Managing risk by identifying environmental “hotspots” and mitigating the impact of sub-optimal materials or processes

…Enhancing brand value through improved transparency and communicating with customers about progress in environmental performance

…Creating innovative products that offer both better utility and lower environmental impact

     Watch the video

Update Product Environmental Footprint : French developments

Household consumption of goods and services represents a major challenge in reducing our impact on the environment, in terms of combating the greenhouse effect and moving towards a more energy and resource efficient economy. The development and display of an environmental footprint will result in the gradual availability to consumers of the information on the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of their purchases. The dual purpose is to include an environmental component in consumer purchasing choices and to provide the entire production and distribution chain with new indicators to promote and intensify their efforts to better eco-design products.

As provided by the Grenelle II law, France is currently conducting a national experimentation on consumer product environmental information that has started on 1 July 2011 to last one year. The trial covers the quantification of environmental impacts and the communication of environmental footprints to the consumer. 230 companies applied 168 of them have been selected. All sectors are represented, with about one third from the food and beverage area. Several foreign companies – from Chile, Colombia, Sweden etc. – are part of the selection as well as French branches of multinationals.

In the meantime, since 2008, the ADEME-AFNOR stakeholder platform has been developing a general environmental footprinting methodology (BPX 30-323) and product category rules (PCRs) – twelve PCRs to date. ADEME is also constructing a public generic product life cycle database, as well as calculators. These tools aim to facilitate a general implementation.

The national experiment on consumer product environmental footprinting and communication continues until July this year. 

You can find additional information about the assessment of the national experiment on the right hand side.
http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Product-Environmental-Footprint.html

Don’t miss this Wednesday’s Webinar – Product Sustainability in Industrial Manufacturing

Join our exclusive, free webinar to gain valuable insight into the latest trends surrounding product life cycle thinking in the industrial manufacturing sector and learn from real-life leadership examples for radically increasing the business value of sustainability programs:

• Develop innovative products and generate more revenue

• Realize cost savings while becoming greener

• Improve the quality of your products and processes

All attendees will receive an exclusive copy of the brand new case study of Interface and how they derived value from sustainable manufacturing.

Date

4pm CET / 10 EST April 4, 2012

Hear from the Experts

Sebastian Gann, Environmental Program Manager at Zumtobel, will provide a case study review of their system for automatically generating customer- facing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and show a concrete example of how they capture clear business value from their sustainability initiatives.

Pete Girard, product sustainability expert at PE INTERNATIONAL, will provide a brief overview of sustainability trends in the industrial manufacturing sector, reviewing current leadership initiatives and the outlook for what leadership positioning is likely to will look like in 5 years’ time.  

Find out how industry leaders are…

…Driving top-line revenue growth by becoming the preferred supplier to corporate customers

…Reducing costs by understanding environmental impacts and eliminating waste

…Managing risk by identifying environmental “hotspots” and mitigating the impact of sub-optimal materials or processes

…Enhancing brand value through improved transparency and communicating with customers about progress in environmental performance

…Creating innovative products that offer both better utility and lower environmental impact

Register Today and recieve our latest case study

From COP17/CMP17 in Durban

The Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) as part of their International Development Cooperation programme invited Barbara Nebel (Managing Director, PE Australasia) to talk about international standards on the carbon footprint of products.

In particular she addressed how the upcoming ISO standard - in conjunction with existing guidelines and standards - will provide the global market with internationally accepted methodologies, criteria and indicators for quantifying and communicating carbon emissions for products and services. The demand from retailers for suppliers to communicate the carbon footprint of their products across their entire life cycle is only expected to increase.

Commenting on her presentation, Fredric Stany, Programme Manager, International Development Cooperation, SIS noted: “Barbara’s practical experience and involvement in the ISO process are very valuable for our International Development Cooperation programme around Carbon Footprinting”.

More information about the symposium can be found here: www.ictsdclimate.org

Environmental Product Declarations in Austria hold potential for communication as standardized environmental information label

In Austria, demand for responsible production and use of building and construction materials among conscious suppliers, producers and end users has made Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) gain popularity as means of independent, holistic, verified environmental performance measurements of a product or service for open marketing claims.

As it has been reaffirmed at the EPD workshop in Vienna, major stakeholders and players encouraged by different factors such as; value chain, market constrains and growing demands by consumers, own processes in house knowledge, scarcity and supply risk of resources, profitability etc; believe EPDs in Austria are gaining favor, and will help differentiate environmental performance of products, but without leading the ranking between good or bad.

 

EPD workshop documentation

Some important examples by Austrian industry representatives were shown at the event that was taking place at Oct. 11, 2011 and can be read and download here.

GHG Protocol Standards for Product and Value Chain GHG assessments

The long awaited two new GHG Protocol Standards for Product and Value Chain GHG assessments were officially released. Visit www.ghgprotocol.org for more information. Here you can also download the new standards for free, as well as a range of accompanying tools and guidance documents.

Our GaBi software assess the Carbon Footprint of your products according to international standards such as ISO 14000 series, PAS 2050 or GHG Protocol.

GaBi 5 & Databases ’11 - the new generation of product sustainability

GaBi 5 & Databases ’11 are the next generation of LCA technology providing LCA experts and LCA debutantes with confidence for making good business decisions and for issuing accurate and reliable external communications. All Life Cycle Assessment practitioners will experience more efficiency in modelling for faster LCA studies and easier communication of actionable Life Cycle Assessment results.

GaBi 5 and the Databases ’11 establish Life Cycle Assessment as an essential tool for the whole organisation to develop more sustainable products and processes while increasing resource efficiency and reducing cost.


Contact us now for a demo and offer.

More information on GaBi 5 and Databases ’11 here.

Product Carbon Footprint Guide

With complex supply chains, extensive outsourcing, and frequent product revisions, the electronics industry has long believed that collecting supply chain emission information is prohibitively expensive. But as industry leaders are proving, creating a carbon footprint for any electronic device can be not just fast and cost-effective, but essential to a competing in tomorrow’s market.

Instead of near-sighted focus on regulation, product carbon footprinting helps create a sustainability strategy which can anticipate, rather than respond to, regulatory pressure. Leading companies like Siemens, AMD and Apple have adopted Life Cycle Assessment as the way to fully calculate and disclose the environmental impacts of their products.

PE INTERNATIONAL has 20 years of experience deploying software and services packages to support companies assess and manage product carbon footprints. With our SoFi Software for Scope 1 and 2 carbon footprint assessments, GaBi  Software and the electronics database for Scope 3 assessment, and an international team of experts on the environmental impacts of electronics, PE INTERNATIONAL provides a one-stop shop for managing sustainability programs in the electronic sector.

Learn how industry leaders are working with PE INTERNATIONAL to understand their supply chain carbon impacts!

Download Product Carbon Footprint Guide for electronic products

"Die Bilanz des Klopapiers" - Artikel bei Süddeutsche.de

Heute ist ein interessanter Artikel in der Süddeutschen Zeitung zum Thema Product Carbon Footprint erschienen. Bei der Erstellung der CO2 Bilanzen war unter anderem auch PE INTERNATIONAL beteiligt.

Hier geht es zum Artikel bei süddeutsche.de