Shawn Blenis, February 2009
Carbon—specifically, carbon dioxide (CO2)—has gone mainstream and it hasn’t exactly
landed in the limelight. Everyone from consumers to retailers to investors is now
intently focused on CO2, or more accurately, the elimination of it. A groundswell of
media attention, activist groups, new legislation, changing market dynamics, and a
link—real or perceived—to global warming have made carbon public enemy number
one. Yet, it remains one of the largest industrial manufacturing by-products emitted into
the atmosphere by volume.
Reducing levels of CO2 output is a complicated process that takes time—the one thing
nearly everyone is short on. But as the adage goes: “knowledge is power.” And in a
manufacturing industry that is scrambling to “green-ify” itself that knowledge comes in
the form of understanding carbon footprints—and putting the results to work.
The best way to generate a carbon footprint is through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
which systematically assesses the environmental burdens associated with a product,
process or activity over the whole of its lifecycle from the extraction and transportation
of raw materials through to manufacture, packaging, transport, distribution and finally,
disposal. A carbon footprint, which is a component and subset of the more detailed and
comprehensive LCA, is a complete analysis of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions
created by a particular product or service. Carbon footprinting measures the global
warming potential (GWP) of products or services. A carbon footprint should be
considered by any manufacturer that is serious about truly understanding and reducing
its environmental impact and improving public perception.
This presentation will address in detail how carbon footprints can be applied to complex
manufacturing systems. Such application presents significant challenges, including:
• Parameters and scope – Define the functional unit and decide what exactly can
be measured and how. This preparatory phase looks at the product systems and
system boundaries as well as what assumptions are being made. It also accounts
for what should be excluded.
• Data collection and quality – Consideration for how data will be collected and
how emissions will be quantified must be considered. Also, how reliable is the
data?
• Impact Assessment – This includes how the data should be benchmarked and
presented so it is meaningful to multiple audiences, internal and external.
• Drawing sound and objective conclusions – Finally, carbon footprints are only
useful if the data is presented in a meaningful and actionable way.
These challenges and appropriate avenues to success will be discussed for the benefit of
environmental compliance officers, plant managers and anyone involved in the
optimization of production processes.
This presentation will highlight in a general sense several actual case studies of carbon
footprints conducted for major consumer and industrial companies including: Procter &
Gamble, Kraft, Novartis and Pepsi and Coca-Cola, among others. The presentation will
cover the results in more detail of several carbon footprint exercises including:
* A comparison of traditional HDPE plastic shopping bags to new biopolymer
bags;
* A study comparing the carbon footprint of bottled water to that of tap water;
* A case study that looked at the relative carbon footprints of various types of
plastic packaging for flocculants.
This presentation will discuss how conducting your carbon footprint will quickly identify
the “80/20” rule for global warming potential, and how it can subsequently be applied
to reduce your environmental impact in an efficient and economical way. In most
carbon footprint scenarios, manufacturers will discover that the greatest component of
emissions generated comes from two sources, the primary being electrical consumption
and the other being transportation of goods.
Finally, the presentation will offer information for participants not only on how to
conduct a carbon footprint exercise for a particular product, but how to interpret and
present the results. This powerful information will allow manufacturers to understand
on a micro and macro level the impact that their operations have on the environment—
thus their business—and what, if any, action should be taken.
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