here - United States Fashion Industry Association

Business Case for Sustainability
US ITA – West Coast Seminar - 16th February 2012
AGENDA
 SGS global sustainability resources
 Corporate carbon footprinting – Why should your company be
engaged in the assessment of company wide Scope 3 / product life
cycle impacts:

To determine its impact and size as compared to your company’s
direct operations

To identify specific product sector(s) for improvement
 Conducting Life Cycle Assessment and deploying sustainable design
practices – Case study
 Environmental labeling for consumer products
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SGS HISTORY
 Founded in 1878 as a grain
inspection company
 World’s leading inspection,
verification, testing and
certification company
 Experts at:



Providing competitive advantage
Driving sustainability
Delivering trust
 64,000 employees, including:

Scientists, engineers, doctors,
chemists, auditors and
inspectors
 1,250 offices and laboratories
globally
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SGS’S ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
SERVICES
 We continue to expand in the US with sustainability services,
 Various services to be provided
Corporate Strategic consultancy


Identifying the best sustainability strategy,
Recommending action plans to improve the products and the organization.
Technical consulting






Social Audits
Chemical testing (REACH, ROHS,…)
Energy, Water and Wastes audits
Life Cycle Assessment,
Sustainable Design,
NORTH
Product environmental labeling
AMERICA
FRANCE,
GERMANY
UK
CHINA, HONG
KONG and INDIA
 Global presence
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CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A RETAILER
CASE STUDY
SCOPE 3 - Boundary for environmental footprint including indirect impacts
Production
of goods/
Raw Material
SCOPE 1 and 2 Direct environmental footprint
Offices
Electricity
Refrigerant
emissions
Facilities / Stores
Consumption and
disposal of goods
Consumer
transport
Business
travel
Employee
commutting
Waste
treatment
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CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A RETAILER – CASE
STUDY
excluding
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SUSTAINABLE DESIGN OF CONSUMER
PRODUCTS

Sustainable design is an approach
to find the best balance between
technical, economical and
environmental constraints during
the design phase of a product

Standards: ISO 14062, ISO 14001,
ISO 14006

Two major principles to avoid
mistakes:


Life Cycle approach
Multi-criteria
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LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (LCA)
Air
Global
warming
Ozone layer
depletion…
Resources
Raw material
depletion,…
Ecosystem
Water
Ecotoxicity,
biodiversity,
…
Water
depletion,
Water
eutrophication

Quantification of the
environmental impact of products
and services

Life Cycle and multi-criteria
analysis including the carbon
footprint, water footprint,…

Standards: ISO 1404X



Full LCA to support some political
decision making
Simplified LCA to support
Sustainable design
Generalization of LCA to support
environmental labeling initiatives
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SUSTAINABLE DESIGN TO REDUCE THE
DEPENDENCE ON FOSSIL FUELS
 The supply chain can be
complex and the cost of the
transport directly linked to the
price of fossil fuels
 The price of Oil will increase
 Sustainable design allow to
reduce the dependence on
fossil fuels
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SUSTAINABLE DESIGN TO REDUCE THE
DEPENDENCE ON COST OF RAW MATERIAL
« Raw material prices for plastics have
risen due to increasing oil prices and oil
supply instabilities, high demand for
metals has driven up prices, and the
high energy use in producing containers
makes this packaging material sensitive
to energy prices, »
Punchard told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com – March 2011
 Product price is linked to the
composition. The bill of material
of a product is defined in the
early stage of the design
process
 Sustainable design is a solution
to reduce the dependence on
costs of raw material and to
increase the profitability
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HOW CAN YOU DEFINE THE PRIORITIES?
 Include the scope 3 in the analysis of your corporate impacts
 Simplified assessment of the impacts of each product line to identify the
products with the greatest impacts
 Implement a progressive strategy to design/source more sustainable
products
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CASE STUDY – LCA OF A COTTON TEE SHIRT
Water Depletion (Gallons per tee shirt)
300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Due to intensive irrigation
 Carbon footprint is mainly due to the
transformation process of (blending,
carding, spinning, Knitting,
finishing,...)
Global Warming (lb ~CO2 per tee shirt)
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
 Water consumption is mainly due to
the cultivation of the cotton

Due to the Energy consumption
of the manufacturing processes
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CASE STUDY – CONSEQUENCES ON THE
ENVIRONMENT
 Example of the Aral sea in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
 Intensive production of cotton

The Soviet Union’s “Irrigation plan”
specifically called for using the riverwater that was feeding the lake
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CASE STUDY – WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH THE
RESULTS?
 Define a Sustainable design strategy


Source raw materials from regions where the production does not
require intensive irrigation
Monitor water consumption
 Train your staff to understand the environmental issues, and help
them to implement alternative solutions
 Support the designers/buyers by providing Sustainable design
guidelines
 Involve your suppliers in this strategy

Develop actions to increase the traceability of the information in the
supply chain
 Launch audits to validate the claims of your suppliers
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ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION

Provide relevant environmental
information on products to
customers

Optimise the LCAprocess to
support environmental labeling

Standards: ISO 1402X
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ENVIRONMENTAL LABELING OF CONSUMER
PRODUCTS

Several national initiatives
(France, Belgium, UK, Germany)
to support the development of
environmental labeling initiatives

Development of product category
rules on every consumer products
to standardize LCA practices

A label on every product based on
LCA results to change the
consumption patterns of
consumers

An initiative to stimulate the
development of Sustainable
design
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SGS CARBON FOOTPRINT MARK
Can be applied
on the product,
on packaging or
other medium
Greenhouse gas
emissions of this 1kg
of chicken meat are
3.5kg CO2e. The
calculation is based on
the data collected in
Jan 2010 from cradle
to gate.
SGS Report
No. 123456
For more information:
www.sustainability.sgs.com
Compulsory statement.
Shows how and when the impact was calculated.
This part is the proof that what you are stating has been
validated by an independent expert
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SGS PRODUCT CARBON FOOTPRINT MARKS
EFFECTIVE DRIVERS FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT...
Step 1: TRANSPARENCY
•Set up a carbon reduction strategy
•Define a target
•Start communicating directly on your product
Step 2: REDUCTION ACHIEVEMENT
This mark indicates that your product carbon footprint has been reduced
•Assess your progress
•Mitigate remaining impact
Step 3: MITIGATION
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
This mark proves that you have measured the emissions of your product
This mark attests to the offset of the remaining footprint through
recognised carbon credit programs
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MAIN STEPS TO IMPLEMENT ECODESIGN
1. Involvement of senior management (Integration of ecodesign into the environmental policy of
the company)
2. Ecodesign training - Increase the staff’s environmental awareness (short training sessions)
3. LCA of the existing products to get to a starting point – Assessment of the environmental
impacts of the current products over their life cycle to identify the significant environmental
aspects and the targets (+ Benchmark of the competitors actions…)
4. Integration of clear and realistic objectives into the technical specifications of the product
using the 3rd step and the marketing analysis
5. Implement LCA’s through a project methodology
6. Comparative Life Cycle Assessment – to demonstrate the environmental benefits of the new
product
7. Environmental Communication – Design some form of a Product Environmental Profile,
standardized environmental declaration to communicate to the customers. Possible to create
some communication methods specific to the company
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THANK YOU !
© SGS SA 2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Brian Whitters
[email protected]
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