Heather,
Thanks for the post. We are starting to see a number of tools such as this that allow business managers to better track their environmental footprints. As they say "what you can measure, you can manage." If we are truly going to implement significant change, businesses will need to demonstrate to their stakeholders positive ROI, organizational and community benefits. These are a good first step int that direction.
Fred Raimondo
verdant360.com/blog
Hey everyone, we have a new “relationship management” application category for you! It’s called carbon information management, and it promises to help designers, procurement sorts and supply chain engineers at manufacturing and consumer products companies figure out the impact of different materials choices on the carbon and energy footprint of their supply chain.
The latest offering in this category is from Planet Metrics of San Bruno, Calif., which is releasing a beta version of Rapid Carbon Modeling (RCM). The application, which is delivered as a service, marries business intelligence and visualization capabilities, so you can study how a raw material, packaging decision, logistics choice or manufacturing process might decrease or (gasp) increase your company’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re trying to scale lifecycle assessment to become useful to all people across a company, including the non-scientist,” says Andy Leventhal, founder and CEO of PlanetMetrics.
Here are a few of the specific calculations you can run:
- Baseline footprint information, and the impact of materials changes to existing processes or products
- Ingredients or materials substitution scenarios
- Areas of energy waste
- Creation of ongoing eco-efficiency metrics that can be used as part of a broader corporate sustainability strategy
Here’s an idea of the visualizations you can produce:
There is a set-up cost and some upfront consulting necessary to get off the ground with the PlanetMetrics application. Leventhal says organizations can expect to pay between $150,000 to $250,000 plus a per-user fee for ongoing access. It takes about 30 days to get up and running.
Why is this smart? To me, the process of managing a carbon footprint is just as much about squeezing unnecessary exposure of any type out of a company’s cost structure as it is about being environmentally friendly. It’s about making smarter, informed decisions that take into account the bigger picture.
