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The Challenge
The Challenge
ConAgra, one of North America’s largest food
packaging companies, approached Altanova out of
concern for the environmental risks concealed within
their supply chain.
Climate
change
and
broader
environmental
degradation adds complexity to a company's supply
chain. It amplifies or alters existing risks, including raw
material availability (e.g. water, energy, and
commodities such as wheat and corn), and transport
disruption due to extreme weather events.
ConAgra needed a way to monitor, assess, and
prevent, manage, mitigate, or adapt to, these
sustainability risks, so that senior management could
act proactively, rather than respond reactively to an
individual event.
What We Did
Altanova used a mix of qualitative and quantitative
approaches to help ConAgra in its goal of monitoring the
sustainability risks to its supply chain. Our work included
interviewing key ConAgra executives to assess which supply
chain issues were not being sufficiently addressed positioned
against existing efforts to mitigate supply chain sustainability
risk.
Altanova then compared those findings to exposure risks as
indicated by ratings firms, government agencies,
sustainability leaders, and, where possible, of key
competitors. Based on this analysis, we surveyed ConAgra’s
suppliers using a questionnaire where critical risks were
weighted to understand their exposure and sustainability
standing.
The surveys enabled us to identify the top sustainability risk
factors that ConAgra should continue to monitor and assess.
We then developed a tracking tool to enable ConAgra to
analyze supplier responses to their continued surveys,
evaluate risks and score and rank suppliers.
Impacts
ConAgra was able to track
and assess their suppliers
based not only on the
traditional
supply
chain
metrics of cost and reliability
but also on sustainability
risk. As a result, ConAgra
was better able to select
suppliers who were well
positioned to withstand the
shocks associated with an
evolving
environmental
landscape.
The Challenge
The Challenge
Solar Gard, a subsidiary of Bekaert Specialty Films,
approached Altanova to determine the environmental
effects of their solar control window films.
Solar control window films are used in automobiles,
and in commercial and residential buildings to reduce
solar heat gain while providing energy savings,
increasing year round comfort, protect against UV
damage and fading, and diminish glare.
Increasingly customers were questioning the carbon
impact of Solar Gard’s films. Solar Gard sought to
assess the carbon impact of their films with the goals
of both answering customer questions and of better
positioning their films in a market where
environmental transparency was facing growing
demand.
What We Did
Altanova conducted a comprehensive life cycle analysis,
including upstream, core, and downstream stages, of all 32
types of window films in the Solar Gard line. Our approach
investigated the impacts of raw material acquisition and
transportation, window film production, transportation to
customer, use, to final disposal and recycling scenarios.
The information was compiled using the international
standards for lifecycle analysis and reporting (ISO 14040
and 14025) and represented the largest Environmental
Product Declaration that had then been conducted in the
United States. Our results were verified by a third party life
cycle analysis firm.
Solar Gard was able to complete and file a climate
declaration. As one of the first companies to do so, and
having completed such a large Environmental declaration,
Solar Gard received significant press attention both in the
United States and in Europe for their environmental
commitment. In the process, they expanded the awareness
and understanding of the benefits of their products to a
broader market.
“Carbon negative, earth positive."
Impacts
Solar Gard’s films line the windows of the US
Department of Energy building in Washington, DC
Analysis revealed that Solar
Gard’s films are carbon
neutral after one year of
use. Over their useful life
the films cut energy costs
by as much as 30 percent
and prevent 1,001 times
more
greenhouse
gas
emissions from entering the
atmosphere
than
are
emitted due to manufacture
The Challenge
What We Did
The Challenge
Altanova visited several of Biogen's sites where we gathered
detailed information both through direct observation and
through employee interviews on systems, operational and
maintenance data. We also conducted a series of brainstorming
session called “Energy Charettes”, with each site’s facility and
engineering staff, to get a better sense of how the company
was organized, how the sites were managed, and the capacity
for introducing Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy projects
that were a strong fit.
Biogen Idec, a large biotechnology company
headquartered in Weston, Massachusetts, sought
Altanova's assistance in developing an extensive
strategic roadmap to identify a list of energy
efficiency and renewable energy projects that would
enable Biogen Idec to meet its energy and
environmental sustainability goals.
Based on our observations and the Energy Charettes, Altanova
developed an ambitious but realistic “long list” of employee
supported sustainability opportunities. We then conducted
economic and technical feasibility analyses to create a “short
list” of the most promising opportunities, representing a
pathway for Biogen to achieve its sustainability goals.
Companies often make strong sustainability goals
but are stymied by a lack of knowledge of how to
best achieve those goals. For example, should a
given company reduce their carbon footprint through
energy efficiency, investments in solar, carbon
offsets or some combination thereof? The answer is
highly dependent on a company’s size, location,
structure, and industry. In essence, Biogen enlisted
Altanova to help guide it from "here" to "there."
Impacts
Altanova was able to craft a
plan that would enable
Biogen to move to 100%
renewable energy by 2015,
and to reduce their waste
and engage in waste
diversion efforts to have
zero-waste-to-landfill within
the same time horizon.
In addition, Biogen routinely
finds itself atop lists for the
world’s most sustainable
companies,
including
Forbes ranking of The 10
Most
Sustainable
Companies of 2013.
WE ENGINEER SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS
WE BRIDGE THE SUSTAINABILITY GAP
Altanova’s teams of engineers, architects, and
sustainability professionals are dedicated to
doing one thing – greening your bottom line.
Altanova
devises
and
implements
sustainability projects that increase profits,
reduce risks, mitigate environmental
impacts and simply make your business
function better.
Our full service sustainability consulting firm,
identifies and helps you to implement strategic
environmental sustainability opportunities.
A 2013 MIT sustainability study found that 37percent of businesses generated increased
profits from capitalizing on sustainability.
We help you make sense of and cents from sustainability.