New Enterprise Sustainability Performance Software

PE INTERNATIONAL launches SoFi 5 software for ever-improving Enterprise Sustainability Performance (ESP) across company operations and supply chains.

Sustainable business software provider PE INTERNATIONAL makes with the launch of SoFi 5, the lives of executives tasked with sustainability management much easier. With its new and advanced intuitive functionality, SoFi 5 helps improves sustainability in every element of an enterprise’s operations and supply chain; be they energy consumption, water use, carbon emissions or any other kind of social, environmental and economic impacts.

This latest version of SoFi software is capable of intuitively determining a company’s potential performance gaps and responding appropriately with peer-tested improvement recommendations, fully appraised for cost estimates and expected results.

Manage environmental, social and economic impacts

In a nutshell, SoFi 5 ESP software helps enterprises understand and manage their total environmental, social and economic impacts in five key phases:

1) It builds an information landscape by aggregating all the sustainability data in an organization.

2) It measures current sustainability performance against extensive sector-specific benchmark datasets.

3) It finds performance gaps and identifies, evaluates and cost-benefit-analyses real-world improvement opportunities.

4) It helps build and execute ongoing improvement plans.

5) It helps communicates the results. Armed with this valuable output any sustainability-tasked executive can then communicate the enterprise’s success to customers, contractors, suppliers and stakeholders.

Sector leaders worldwide benifit from this technology

Major companies already benefitting from this technology include Siemens which helped its tier 1 suppliers to reduce energy cost by up to 17%; DekaBank which saved 300,000 Euros in energy and paper costs during the first 6 months alone; Deutsche Post DHL which increased carbon efficiency for its own operations and its subcontractors by 12% over 3 years; as well as similar success stories from Kraft Foods, Adidas and Munich Re amongst many other sector leaders worldwide.

Discover Enterprise Sustainability Performance for your business – watch the Video

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

Life Cycle Assessment moves Green IT into the future

A successful Life Cycle Assessment pilot study moves Wincor Nixdorf’s Green IT program forward.

The study builds the foundation for the pioneering concept of the green ATM, with lower energy consumption and reduced emissions, and contributes to the company’s eco-design guideline optimization. Wincor Nixdorf can now declare a valid environmental impact of their products.

Read the full case study

Green building guide released: Understanding the embodied impacts of construction products

The purpose of this new guide, written by Jane Anderson from PE INTERNATIONAL & Jane Thornback from the UK's Construction Products Association, is to improve understanding across the construction industry of the embodied impacts of construction products.

The quest for a more sustainable and more recently a low carbon built environment, has meant that the demand for information on the impact of construction products has increased dramatically.

Much attention is being given to new ways of designing and constructing buildings and whilst the focus has been on energy efficiency and capturing renewable energy, there is a growing awareness that the embodied impacts of construction products and especially embodied carbon will become increasingly important.

What the Guide explains
Within the construction product sector, the measurement of environmental impact is not a new activity. The guide explains how the environmental impacts of construction products are measured; what processes and schemes are already established; what information is generated; how this is used and assessed at the building level and what effect European Regulations and emerging European Standards will have.

Construction products
Construction products are made of a variety of materials, which are manufactured into a myriad of products that combined together create buildings or infrastructure that make up the very fabric of our society. A construction product is a component of a building and not the building itself.

The impact of a construction product must therefore always be considered in the context of the role it performs in a building. For example, insulation makes a building more energy efficient and that function may outweigh many times the environmental impact of its manufacture and disposal.

Life Cycle Assessment
All products, not just construction products, have an impact on the environment and this impact can occur at any time during the manufacture, usage or at end of life. All these stages are collectively called a life-cycle.

Construction products have impacts from extraction of raw materials, processing and manufacture, maintenance and refurbishment, to eventual end of life and disposal. The measurement of this impact is called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). There are two types of LCA for construction products: generic assessments that collate data from several manufacturers of the same type of product to create an industry average; and proprietary assessments that use information from a specific manufacturer and the LCA is specific to their product. This guide outlines the procedures that must be undertaken to implement a life cycle assessment in accordance with international standards.

Environmental impacts
LCA measures environmental impact across a range of issues such as impact: on air quality; on water usage and water quality; on toxicity to human life and to ecosystem functioning; on impact on global warming; as well as resource use. In the 1970s the main concern in Europe was acid rain, today it is climate change. The importance of these issues can change over time as society’s concerns and priorities change. The guide provides a detailed description of the commonly assessed environmental indicators.

Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)
The construction industry has adopted a particular approach to communicating LCA data known as an Environmental Product Declaration or EPD. This has been developed to provide environmental information from LCA studies in a common format, based on common rules known as Product Category Rules (PCR). EPD have been used for construction products since the first environmental assessments schemes were developed in the 1990s and an ISO standard for EPD sets out the standards they should meet.

EPD can only be compared when the rules of the PCR used are the same and all the relevant life cycle stages have been included. Additionally, products cannot be compared unless their functionality and use are considered at the building level within a system. The guide provides examples of what EPD look like.

EPD Schemes across Europe
Many European countries have developed national LCA schemes producing EPD, these include France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and the UK. The best known scheme in the UK is that developed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) which since the mid-1990s has gathered information from UK manufacturing industry and amassed it into an environmental profiles database.

This database is a major component of the BRE’s Green Guide to Building Specification which is used in the government’s Code for Sustainable Homes and in the BRE’s environmental rating system for buildings called BREEAM.

The European Single Market and construction products
With the advent of the European single market for construction products, the European Commission became concerned that national EPD schemes and building level assessment schemes would represent a barrier to trade across Europe. The EU therefore sought a mandate from the EU Member States to develop European standards for the assessment of the sustainability performance of construction works and of construction products. This mandate is called CEN/TC 350.

From 2010 European standards began to emerge from this process and Standard BS EN15804 was published in February 2012 providing core rules for construction product EPD.

European Regulations and Standards
The Construction Products Directive of 1989 was one of the first Directives from the EU Commission to create a common framework for the regulations on buildings and construction products. It has been replaced by the Construction Products Regulation and is legally binding throughout the EU.

The CPR includes requirements for the sustainable use of natural resources, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions over the life cycle and the use of EPD for assessing and reporting the impacts of construction products. If an EU Member State wishes to regulate in these areas of sustainability it must use European standards where they exist when regulating and must withdraw national standards. This means that in the case of the CPR a Member State must use the CEN/TC 350 suite of standards.

Assessing the impact of materials and products at the building level
An EPD provides robust and consistent information that can be used in building level assessments and the guide elaborates on the variety of ways that this can be done. In addition a number of building level tools are emerging aimed at improving decisions at the design stage by combining embodied environmental impact data and whole life cost data (i.e. economic) and link them to BIM (Building Information Modelling) data.

The future
Across Europe, the various environmental rating schemes are seeking to harmonise the ways in which they assess products and buildings.

Increasingly models are emerging to link embodied impacts with operational data thus enabling a better understanding of the trade-off between operational and embodied impacts and in time benchmarks for different types of buildings will emerge. All of which contributes greatly to the goal of a low carbon, more resource efficient, sustainable built environment.

Download the new guide from the resource section of our website

Italian industry turns to sustainable development in response to economic crisis

Captains of Industry seek to capitalize on opportunity to boost brands and profits through  a strategy of sustainable development.

For over a decade now Italian economic growth has stumbled and to a large extent even more so than other European countries. In light of these challenges Italian businesses are increasingly recognizing the opportunities offered by adopting and deploying the right sustainability strategy to help boost growth and customer preference for their products and services.


In response to this growing demand, PE INTERNATIONAL, a global provider of sustainability performance solutions and its Italian strategic partner for the last 10 years,  FEBE-ECOLOGIC have galvanized their resources and expertise to form PE INTERNATIONAL Italy S.r.l. which was established at the end of last year and is already attracting new customers.


The newly established operation will offer a blend of software for corporate and product sustainability software as well as consulting services aimed at large and mid-market enterprises across all industries.


“There is a strong demand for integrated consulting services and technology solutions that allow clients to identify cost savings and take advantage of new revenue and growth opportunities,” said Emanuela Scimia, Managing Director at  PE INTERNATIONAL Italy S.r.l.. As one organization we have the experts, enterprise sustainability solutions and capabilities to enable valuable business transformations for our customers.”


PE’s solution portfolio includes GaBi software solutions for product sustainability (life cycle assessment and product footprints) and SoFi software solutions for managing corporate sustainability.

Brand new GaBi 5 Demo version!

The new GaBi 5 Demo version is a 30-day limited full version of the GaBi 5 software, enabling you to learn about all the features and functions of GaBi 5 with a guided example for the LCA of a paper clip.

The GaBi 5 Demo version comes with a small database for a guided example.

Try out the world's leading LCA software yourself and download the brand new GaBi 5 Demo version!

EeBGuide Project - New website launched

The EeB Guide Project is a project financed by the European Commission under the seventh framework program. This project will develop documents and instruments providing operational guidance for Life Cycle Assessment studies of the Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) Initiative.

The project, which started on November 2011, is intended to last one year. Six partners are involved in the project: the Fraunhofer-Institut für Bauphysik (FhG-IBP), PE INTERNATIONAL, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB), Escola Superior de Comerc International (ESCI), British Research Establishment (BRE) and Christer Sjöström Consultancy.

Development of a guidance document for energy efficient buildings

The overall goal of this project is to develop a specific guidance document for application to Energy Efficient Buildings and related training material with courses for practitioners in industry and research. This is to be based on and in line with the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, co-developed by the European Commission’s JRC-IES. To ensure a high acceptance of the stakeholders, the ILCD requirements will be crossed with the new CEN/TC 350 standards like FprEN 15804 (Environmental Performance on product level) or FprEN 15978 (Environmental Performance at the building level).

The goal: high-quality Life Cycle Assessment studies

The concept for this guidance document will be based on two core elements: an extensive list of elements that need to be taken into account when dealing with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) within the Energy-efficient Buildings Initiative and the solution approaches how to address different issues and an extensive guidance including examples and operational instructions on how to conduct adequate, high-quality LCA studies.

New website launched

PE has set up the website that will serve as the platform to enable efficient expert and public consultation procedures.

More information: www.eebguide.eu 

Masdar City Chooses SoFi to Monitor Carbon in Buildings

Masdar City has selected PE INTERNATIONAL’s SoFi system to monitor carbon embodied in buildings for its ambitious project to construct one of the world’s most sustainable cities, the two companies announced today.

Masdar City, one of the integrated units of Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted renewable energy company Masdar, has captured enormous worldwide interest by demonstrating how sustainable cities can be developed. SoFi is PE INTERNATIONAL’s high performance tool which provides a central platform for benchmarking and forecasting sustainability performance and developing sustainability strategies. The system plays a key role in helping Masdar’s supply chain team and contractors to track and monitor the carbon embodiment of building materials, thereby calculating the amount of carbon associated with construction activities.

Having now implemented SoFi, Masdar has the capability for target setting and monitoring the evolving project. The city can also use SoFi for benchmarking against targets and comparing how much CO2 would be involved in producing a building in the city compared to a standard building in, for example, London, Paris or New York.

Sustainable Steel Council in New Zealand

Although sustainability attributes of steel are well-researched overseas, and a great deal of international data has been amassed (worldsteel, whose members produce approximately 85% of the world’s steel, has been undertaking Life Cycle Inventory work since 1996), there is a general lack of awareness of these benefits in New Zealand.

In response to this issue, the Sustainable Steel Council (SSC) was formally launched in 2011. SCC’s membership consists of the major steel producers; manufacturing industry associations; coatings industry; supply chain distributors; contractors and builders; and research and development organisations. SSC commissioned PE INTERNATIONAL, to develop a 5-year plan and has been forging links through meetings with, among others, the Australian Steel Institute (ASI), worldsteel, British Constructional Steelwork Association (BCSA).


“The Sustainable Steel Council NZ is committed to improving sustainability of its members’ materials and products. PE INTERNATIONAL supported us with their expert advice, workshops and the development of our strategy and roadmap to drive sustainability in our sector in New Zealand.” Dr Stephen Hicks, Chair of the Sustainable Steel Council and Manager Structural Systems, HERA

Kraft says YES to improved sustainability

Kraft Foods has launched an initiative to eliminate 100 million pounds of packaging material from its products worldwide by 2015.

This commitment was the driver behind delivering the Yes Pack, Kraft's new sustainable flexible pouch for salad dressings to the foodservice industry.

The Yes Pack is a stand-up pouch with dual handles, and a rigid screw cap closure that replaces the traditional rigid plastic container for salad dressings. The company states the product is more compact than rigid jugs, and flattens when empty, which can provide easier disposal and lower waste-removal costs.

Kraft partnered with PE to conduct a Life Cycle Assessment (Ökobilanz), which quantified the environmental benefits of the Yes Pack.
"After extensive data collection from our suppliers, technical modeling, and a rigorous third-party critical review of the study, we confirmed without a doubt that our new packaging design was not only better for our customers - in terms of yield and ease - but also in terms of environmental sustainability," Kraft stated.


As of now, the Yes Pack is designed only for Kraft's foodservice salad dressing portfolio.

More information: www.kraftyespack.com or contact s.murphy@pe-international.com

Responsible Steel in Australia

The Steel Stewardship Forum has been established to bring together all participants in the Australian Steel Supply Chain with the common goal of achieving sustainability improvements across the entire chain.

An early initiative of the Forum is the development of a certification scheme for Australia.


PE INTERNATIONAL is currently working with the Forum to develop the Business Case for this initiative. The project seeks to develop a clear and measurable sustainability certification process across the entirety of the steel supply chain, from mining to scrap recovery, and to measure progress in sustainability improvement against a set of agreed benchmarks.


The Steel Stewardship Forum’s goal is to develop a credible and independently verifiable steel certification scheme, to be known as Responsible Steel, which  seeks to minimise impact and improve performance throughout the steel value chain, and is recognised by the industry and external stakeholders.



More information: www.steelstewardship.com or contact b.nebel@pe-international.com

Hybrid buses - Research for environmentally friendly and energy-efficient mobility

© SSB

As part of the “Model Region Electromobility” initiative, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development, PE INTERNATIONAL has spearheaded research work for the platform "Innovative Drive Bus" which deals with the marketability of hybrid buses and their contribution to environmentally friendly and energy-efficient mobility.

Aside from the detailed operational data acquisition and analysis of 59 hybrid buses operating in seven model regions using SoFi software, life cycle analyses and acceptance surveys among drivers, passengers and pedestrians were performed.

The platform "Innovative Drive Bus" reflects the cooperation of 40 partners, including 21 transport companies, 6 bus manufacturers, 4 component manufacturers, 4 research institutes and 5 consultancies.

This final report provides insights on practicality, operational readiness, fuel consumption, climate change effects and the acceptance of hybrid buses.

Download the full report with the results from 2011 here (German language)

Water Wisdom - Make every drop count in your organisation

PE INTERNATIONAL and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) support you in understanding the value of corporate water management and stewardship, enabling your company to benefit from the opportunities of water sustainability and transparency in reporting.

Watch the recorded webinar and download the presentation!

• Chris Hedemann (CDP Water Disclosure) talked about what action companies in the Global 500  have taken on water this year and what risks and opportunities they are facing (the 2011 CDP Water Disclosure Report will be published Nov 16). You will also gain an understanding of how corporate responses to risk, given the immediacy of water issues, vary across different sectors.  

• Get an insight into real situations and hear from Annette Koehler (PE INTERNATIONAL) about water sustainability, corporate water management and how this relates to your business.  She provides actionable ideas, whether you are taking your first steps or consolidating your current activities, supporting you to address your most pressing water management challenges.

LCA Young Scientist Award 2012 sponsored by PE INTERNATIONAL

The SETAC Europe Young Scientist LCA Award recognizes exceptional achievements by a young scientist in the field of life cycle assessment, e.g., an extraordinary PhD thesis that provides a significant contribution to LCA development and implementation.


In 2012 the award will be sponsored by PE INTERNATIONAL.


More information about applying for this award can be found here: 
www.setac.org

Singapore-based Noble Group punches above weight in first-time carbon disclosure score

PE’s consulting team has something to celebrate. Thanks to its tailored SoFi Software solution for carbon footprint data collection, analysis and reporting, Singapore-based Noble Group has scored the second highest disclosure score submitted to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in its region for 2011.

The outstanding result was out of 400 Asian companies asked to participate – and this on the company’s maiden outing. Noble is a global supply chain manager of agricultural and energy products, metals and minerals, with more than 100 offices across 40 countries in 5 continents.

With a disclosure score of 92 Noble ranked just two points behind industrial giant Samsung Electronics. In order to help Noble Group achieve this exceptional result the PE consulting team started by analysing and integrating all of the company’s existing  emissions data. These provided the raw data required to kick-start the greenhouse gas management process with SoFi Software; allowing a high quality and verifiable report to be completed on time. As a result Noble Group has now a tailored solution for ongoing carbon management.

 “We are delighted that our team was able to help Noble Group and that their emissions management efforts are recognized by the CDP”, said Johannes Partl, principle consultant at PE. “We helped them simplify and codify a process that many companies find particularly daunting and unwieldy and enabled them to incorporate reliable and ongoing carbon management into their business model.”

It is expected that following their breakthrough success, Noble Group will now be seen as a champion of the emissions management movement in Asia.

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

Sustainability is THE new business imperative

Nearly 200 professionals from throughout Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Latin America participated in what has become one of the best events to learn about using life cycle information to improve both your company’s and your products’ sustainability performance. Building on the first Symposium where the focus was on LCA and carbon footprint, this years symposium illustrated how far the companies have advanced in integrating life cycle information into their core business practices. Below we share the key take away messages from a day full of insightful, candid and inspiring presentations.

Sustainability is THE new business imperative

Almost all of the speakers spoke about how sustainability is no longer just the right thing to do, but how it is THE new business imperative. We heard about the role that institutional purchasing, greener buildings, and retailers are playing to create a pull for both sustainable products and for sustainably managed firms. Les Hayman addressed this in his opening presentation which put sustainability in a global context, showed how business is different today as a result of these developments and ultimately how sustainability is and will continue to be a driver of business effectiveness and competitiveness.

Sustainability is a journey

Sustainability is not a destination where you know when you get there and you are done. Instead sustainability requires a continuous examination of where you interact with the environment and society to identify how best to reduce one’s risks and capture ever changing opportunities. Presentations by Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Disney and many more demonstrated how companies are continually evolving and innovating solutions along their journey regardless of where they are. Further, the success stories of leaders were often tied back to their beginnings emphasizing the importance of ‘starting’.

The triple bottom line is essential but not sufficient

We heard throughout the day from companies like Daimler, Tesco, AkzoNobel, to name a few, that to ensure long term alignment and improvement in their sustainability goals, they must have efforts underway in economic, social and environmental fronts. However, they also spoke to the importance of these operating within a governance/management framework (e.g. senior leadership support, strategy, programs (DfE), tools (GaBi, i-reports, PLM, scorecards), and foundation data). The framework ensures continual improvement, commitment, engagement of a broad set of internal actors and alignment of corporate activities all of which are critical to maximize the success of any sustainability effort.

We are moving beyond understanding to improvement

Throughout the day speakers such as  Siemens, Zumtobel, Puma, etc. spoke to the informed actions that they and their companies were taking. Consistently this involved translating an understanding of life cycle impacts into specific actions and actionable tools to support improved decision making (e.g. material selection, supplier management, marketing, etc.). 

Standards and regulations continue to play a key role

By providing a means of measurement and a level playing field standards and regulations help companies to move along their sustainability journeys; as well as, to provide direction for future efforts. Presentations by WBCSD and The European Alliance to Save Energy showed the power these can hold, the responsibility – and benefit- sustainability leaders have in driving these forward, and the paths to participation. 

There is a growing awareness of use stage and consumer behavior impacts

Sustainability efforts particularly in the environment and human health protection have traditionally focused on upstream manufacturing processes. However there is growing awareness of the relative scale of consumer use impacts in a variety of sectors. Addressing the impacts of one’s customers will require tools and techniques to engage, educate, and include them in reducing impacts across the value chain. Fortunately, there is a growing body of best practice to draw upon from a variety of leaders – many of whom spoke at the symposium. 

Finally to achieve true change requires alignment of many elements of business management

From studies by change management experts  and confirmed by our experience - we have found that effective change requires a vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action plans. Without all of these we often get confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and false starts (Figure 2). As demonstrated throughout the day these elements are critical in internal efforts and if anything even more so when striving to achieve change across the value chain and its variety of actors.

Symposium 2012, Oct. 23-25

Save the date! We hope to see you there.

LCA software GaBi powers new SolidWorks 2012 - more sustainably from the start

The SolidWorks 2012 product launch includes an improved user interface with more options available to advanced users, and easy access to the latest material additions.

PE INTERNATIONAL first integrated the power of its GaBi life cycle assessment software into the product design software, SolidWorks in 2008. This sustainability add-in feature allows products to be designed more sustainably from the start.

GaBi powers two sustainability tools for different user groups.

• The SolidWorks Sustainability Xpress is included in the purchase of SolidWorks and includes real-time feedback on an environmental impact dashboard that provides the user with detailed LCA information on individual parts.

• SolidWorks Sustainability provides a complete dashboard of LCA information to determine the environmental impacts of part and assemblies.

SolidWorks 2012 - more "what if" secenarios

The SolidWorks 2012 version includes additional support for unique and custom materials, beyond the standard SolidWorks material database, enabling more "what if" scenarios.

Visit www.solidworks.com/sustainability for more information.

 

Your Contact Person

For North America
Susan Fredholm Murphy
Phone:  +1 (617) 247-4477 ext. 106     
E-Mail: s.murphy(at)pe-international.com   
 
For Europe and Asia
Harald Florin
Phone:  +49 711 341817 30       
E-Mail: h.florin(at)pe-international.com 

Choosing an artificial or real christmas tree? LCA study gives the answer

The first ISO-compliant third-party peer reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) comparing the most common artificial Christmas tree sold in the United States to the most common real Christmas tree sold in the United States, found that the choice of either tree has a negligible impact on the environment.

However, the study’s findings show that length of ownership, disposal method and “tree miles” can make a difference on which tree is environmentally preferable.

The study, conducted by PE INTERNATIONAL and peer reviewed by an independent third party panel, took into consideration five key environmental indicators to determine which tree type is environmentally preferable. 

The environmental impact of Christmas trees

The study was sponsored by the American Christmas Tree Association (ACTA) a non-profit organization representing artificial Christmas tree retailers and real Christmas tree retailers, to clear up common misperceptions about the environmental impacts of Christmas trees.

If you purchase an artificial tree, keep it in use for at least nine years

The study also highlights an “Eight Christmas Environmental Payback Period” between the two tree products based on the study’s five environmental indicators. The study found that the environmental impacts of one artificial tree used for more than eight Christmas’ is environmentally friendlier than purchasing eight or more live cut trees over eight years. "ACTA encourages responsible consumerism," said Jami Warner, Executive Director of ACTA. "Consumers should consider the impact on the environment for every item they purchase, not just Christmas trees."

Read the full final report here

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.