PRé
Sustainability Mythbusters: Products With 'Zero Emissions'
7 years ago - It's easy to use 'common sense' and make assumptions in sustainability, but does that get you the results you want? As a science-based method, LCA is an excellent tool to bust the myths that surround sustainability. In this series, we look at some common sustainability ideas to see if they are myth or truth. In today’s episode: the drive towards zero emissions.
The Role of the Representative Product in Product Environmental Footprinting
7 years ago - The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach is a game-changing initiative in LCA, with effects and ramifications that we are only just beginning to understand. Today in PRé’s PEF series: What is a European representative product? And how do these products play a crucial role in the development of specific rules for product environmental footprinting of the various product groups?
Industry-Led Roundtable for Product Social Metrics Expanding Into Multi-Stakeholder Group
7 years ago - The Roundtable for Product Social Metrics — a coalition of multinational consumer product companies aimed at developing a comprehensive, consistent methodology for businesses to measure the social impacts of products, launched in 2013 — announced Monday that it is now moving forward as a multi-stakeholder organization, opening its doors to interested companies, industry associations, NGOs, researchers and consultants to join the collaboration.
Sustainability Mythbusters: Is Reducing Product Energy Use Always the Best Solution?
7 years ago - It's easy to use 'common sense' and make assumptions in sustainability, but does that get you the results you want? As a science-based method, LCA is an excellent tool to bust the myths that surround sustainability. In this series, we look at some common sustainability ideas to see if they are myth or truth. In today’s episode: product energy use.
Sustainability Mythbusters: Are Bio-Based Products Always Preferable to Oil-Based?
7 years ago - The common viewIn times where concerns over depletion of non-renewable resources and climate change are drastically increasing, it seems easy to accept that bio-based products are without a doubt better than fuel-based products.
SimaPro Share & Collect Software Facilitates Fast, Fact-Based Sustainability Decisions
7 years ago - Today, PRé Sustainability, a sustainability software and consultancy firm with 25 years’ experience as leading voice in life cycle management, life cycle assessment and sustainability metrics development, launches SimaPro Share & Collect, a web-based platform developed to facilitate fact-based sustainable decision-making in an efficient, time-saving manner.
Introducing PEF: A Game-Changer in LCA
7 years ago - The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach is a game-changing standard in LCA, with effects and ramifications that we are only just beginning to understand. That’s why PRé is devoting an article series to PEF, discussing it one aspect at a time.Today: How did PEF come about? And what are some of the lessons we have learned so far?
The Implications of an Emerging Corporate Conscience for Business Metrics: Part 15
7 years ago - In 14 earlier parts of this series, Claire Sommer and I developed 26 pitfalls in the sustainable business metrics field, based on the experiences of many mostly non-business fields (Find them here.)
Dear SB Vanguard: Is Competition in Business Inherently Destructive?
7 years ago - This is the latest in a series of posts in which we will poll our global community of business leaders and practitioners — the “SB Vanguard” — on a variety of issues pertinent to the evolving sustainable business landscape.
How Do You Get Other Departments to Listen? Let Your Colleagues Run With Your Ideas
7 years ago - In the sustainability field, in contrast to other fields, it is the biggest possible compliment to no longer be needed in a discussion because your colleague in purchasing is already covering your topics. But how do you get your colleagues to not just listen to your ideas, but to consider them worth working towards?Ideally, your colleagues would not only acknowledge sustainability topics, but run with them. That tells you that something is changing. The companies making the biggest changes are those where everybody feels responsible — from the cleaning lady to the purchasing department. But how can you work towards this?
From Theory to Practice: Phase 3 of the Roundtable for Product Social Metrics
7 years ago - Back in 2013, PRé and seven frontrunner companies developed a vision to create a standardised and trusted methodology to assess the social impacts of products. Creating such a methodology together would avoid the drawbacks of each company developing its own methodology. Two years later, the Roundtable for Product Social Metrics has reached its third phase.The aim of the product social footprinting methodology was not only to measure and reduce social risks in the supply chain but also to identify improvement opportunities, reduce the social footprint of products and drive innovation.
Announcing The Product Social Footprinting Programme
7 years ago - During my past five years at PRé, I’ve observed how companies approach different issues. I’m very interested in social impact assessment, and I experienced that companies have wildly different approaches for assessing the social impacts of their products and services, and for managing product social sustainability.
Lost in Translation: How to Find a Common Language Between Departments
7 years ago - Despite the progress being made in organizations around the world in the pursuit of sustainability, many still suffer from internal breakdowns in communication on the subject, even when all teams are, ultimately, working toward the same goal. We asked a variety of practitioners their thoughts on solving two of the perhaps most common “language barriers” within companies today — that between Marketing and Sustainability teams, and between LCA practitioners and, well, the rest of the company. And the common theme around solutions seems to involve little more than changing your perspective.
Industry Leaders Weigh In on Methodology for Measuring Products' Social Impacts
8 years ago - In September, a Roundtable of companies comprised of Ahold, AkzoNobel, BASF, BMW Group, Goodyear, L’Oréal, Marks & Spencer, Philips, RB, Steelcase, DSM and PRé Sustainability published a handbook on how to conduct a Product Social Impact Assessment.
Measuring Sustainability, Part II: Constructing a Sustainability Index
8 years ago - In Part I of this series, we explored the basics of why a company would use a sustainability index to help guide decision-making. Here, we go into further depth on the steps to create such an index.Step 1: Determining what’s importantThe first step in defining a sustainability index is to determine what factors need to be considered for inclusion in the system. What is important to your company, your customers and your stakeholders?
Sustainability Metrics Assessments Helping Mission-Driven Startups Measure Their Impacts
8 years ago - PRé has always believed in and worked for a sustainable future and we believe insight into the environmental and social impacts of products is a crucial step towards this future. Our approach is one of collaboration, working with partners across the world and training companies to use sustainability metrics independently. So when looking for a way to give back, it made sense to us to use our years of experience with Life Cycle Assessment to help the next generation of mission-driven businesses.
Creating Shared Value Requires Shared Valuation
8 years ago - The key question for every business model is whether it is viable and sustainable over time. We measure that through a conventional cost-benefit analysis, and we do that even in what are considered sustainable business models. Is that the way to go, and does it reflect all values that are created? Is it at all possible to develop a sustainable business when not all implicit values are valued? The answer, of course, is no, but … how can we do it differently?Assess your business model on more than just money
Measuring Sustainability, Part I: The Basics of a Sustainability Index
8 years ago - When we work with a company that is just starting its sustainability journey, we try to focus on one central framing question: What does sustainability mean to your organisation? Sustainability has evolved way beyond merely measuring carbon emissions, which means it requires management of many factors. There are a multitude of impacts to consider: impacts on water use and water supply; impacts on human health; and even social impacts on workers and communities.What Does Sustainability Mean to You?
Social Sustainability: Integrating Measurements of the Intangible
8 years ago - In part one of this two-part series, I wrote about the complexity of sustainability data and the challenges associated with organizing, analyzing and integrating it into our day-to-day business systems. At this time, however, the majority of the data used to address our sustainability programs and goals is environmental data. The sustainability field has a pretty good handle on the use and impacts of utilities, materials, transport, etc. What we may not be as familiar with are the data that help support our social sustainability objectives, and the methodologies that allow us to do product social footprinting.
#NewMetrics '14 Panel Dives Into #SocialFootprint Approach for Ensuring Product Sustainability
8 years ago - Thursday, the second afternoon at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’14 conference, featured a follow-up deep dive session into the topic of one of the morning’s well-received plenary presentations — how to quantify a product’s “social footprint” as a next step in assessing sustainability.While the sustainability field has developed many ways to assess products’ environmental footprints, until now few tools have helped accurately measure the social impacts that products have on workers, local communities, suppliers, consumers and more throughout their life cycle.