Green Star Standard News

By Popular Request – An Alpha Poem

Editor — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:27:09 +0000

Here’s the result of an exercise that I participated in a few days ago, during a Mastermind session that I take part in weekly. If you want to know what a Mastermind group is, check out Napoleon Hill’s classic book, Think and Grow Rich.

The question we were given was to create an alpha poem in 10 minutes. An Alpha poem uses all the letters of the alphabet, with at least one letter per word (or per phrase). Start by writing the letters of the alphabet down the side of your page, and then fill in the words.

The question that we were asked to answer was:

“What is going on with you right now”?

We were given the flexibility to change the question to something that made sense to us at that time, so I changed it to read:

“What would I like to be going on with the world right now”?

An amazing
Bastion of
Conservation. Practicing
Discipline for the
Environment
For
Generations to come.
Having
Integrity
Justice and
Kindness, with
Limitless
Majestic
Notions
Of
Passion. A
Quiet
Revolution
Saving
The
Underlying
Vision of the
World.
X-prizes are too small.
Your life depends on keeping this
Zoo alive.

There you have it…

From my heart to yours.

I am a detail-oriented person, (a High”C” personality using the DISC profiling system), yet this time, I finished the exercise 3 minutes early…!

Your comments are appreciated.

Green Star Standard Glossary Activated

Editor — Sun, 02 May 2010 22:53:28 +0000

Green Star Standard released its first site Glossary yesterday.

Visit http://www.GreenStarStandard.com/glossary.html

The Business Case For Life Cycle Assessment

Editor — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:22:29 +0000

Life Cycle Assessment is becoming a more popular tool as increasingly more companies are investigating ways to minimize their effects on the environment. In many situations the benefits to be gained from LCA outweigh the challenges.

by Aysu Katun, Green Economy Post

As environmental awareness increases, industries and businesses are assessing how their activities affect the environment. The environmental performance of products and processes has become a key issue, which is why some companies are investigating ways to minimize their effects on the environment. One such tool is Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).

LCA can be thought of as a scientific way to measure the overall environmental impact of a material or product over its entire life cycle. It involves making detailed measurements during the manufacture of the product, from the mining of the raw materials used in its production and distribution, through to its use, possible re-use or recycling, and its eventual disposal.

Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) states that the ability to track and document shifts in environmental impacts can help decision makers and managers fully characterize the environmental trade-offs associated with product or process alternatives. By performing an LCA, analysts can:

Develop a systematic evaluation of the environmental consequences associated with a given product.
Analyze the environmental trade-offs associated with one or more specific products/processes to help gain stakeholder acceptance for a planned action.
Quantify environmental releases to air, water, and land in relation to each life cycle stage and/or major contributing process.
Assist in identifying significant shifts in environmental impacts between life cycle stages and environmental media.
Assess the human and ecological effects of material consumption and environmental releases to the local community, region, and world.
Compare the health and ecological impacts between two or more rival products/processes or identify the impacts of a specific product or process.

As an approach, LCA supports and improves decision-making.

APPLICATIONS

Lifecycle assessments can have numerous applications. Deloitte Development’s paper “Lifecycle Assessment: Where is it on Your Sustainability Agenda?” states that LCAs can be used to support initiatives such as targeting supply chain improvements that drive the greatest environmental impact. According to the paper, by undertaking an LCA study, Tropicana discovered that its carbon footprint was not driven by the transportation of heavy juice containers but by the agricultural inputs needed to grow oranges. This knowledge helped Tropicana focus on sustainable agriculture practices like reduced fertilizer use to achieve substantial reductions in the company’s carbon footprint.

Product & packaging development is another application area that the paper defines in which LCA can be used to model the relative environmental profiles of a range of material choices or packaging options. LCA enables companies to reduce environmental impact at its source in the design phase. For example, Nike has redesigned certain shoes with mechanically locking soles to reduce use of glue or solvents.

LCA can also serve as a communication tool between companies and consumers. Patagonia, for example, launched its “footprint chronicles” in 2008 to trace the journey of some of its products as they make their way from raw materials like cotton to the consumer and then to the landfill or back to Patagonia to be recycled into new products. This provided a channel for the company to openly communicate its successes, challenges and ongoing efforts.

In the late 1990’s, P. Frankl and F. Rubik sent out 1600 questionnaires about the use of LCA in business to selected companies in four European countries. Their paper “Life-Cycle Assessment in Business: An Overview on Drivers, Applications, Issues and Future Perspectives” that reported the results of the survey, identified additional LCA application areas such as:

Bottleneck identification
Information and education to consumers and stakeholders
Compare existing products with planned alternatives
Compare existing company products with products of competitors
Procurement specifications, supplier screening, product co-makership
Internal information and training
Anticipate and negotiate legislation
Marketing, advertising policies & joining eco-labelling criteria
Environmental cost allocation
Assess the gap from eco-label criteria
Radical changes in product life cycle

CHALLENGES

LCA is subject to numerous challenges that can hinder its adoption. Many LCAs have reached different and sometimes contradictory conclusions about similar products. Comparisons are rarely easy because of the different assumptions that are used, for example in the case of food packaging, about the size and form of container, the production and distribution system used, and the forms and type of energy assumed. To compare two items, which are identically sized, identically distributed, and recycled at the same rate is relatively simple, but even that requires assumptions to be made. Comparisons of products, which are dissimilar in most respects can only be made by making even more judgments and assumptions.

The validity of data is also a concern with LCAs. Since we are living in a global world and economy, new processes, manufacturing methods, and materials are introduced to various processes and products. Therefore, it is important to have current data when performing a LCA. If data from ten years in the past is used, the LCA will not be accurate, because the quantitative analysis will not reflect the current methods utilized in the process or product. Therefore, drawing conclusions from a report using such data will be ineffective, since the data is unavailable.

Performing an LCA can also be resource and time intensive and many companies lack the in-house expertise required for data measurement, modeling and interpretation of results. Depending upon how thorough an LCA the user wishes to conduct, gathering the data can be problematic, and the availability of data can greatly impact the accuracy of the final results. Furthermore, there is still no standard methodology for LCA that is widely accepted. Small differences in assumptions related to valuation techniques can lead to radically disparate results. Therefore, it is important to weigh the availability of data, the time necessary to conduct the study, and the financial resources required against the projected benefits of the LCA.

BENEFITS

Companies that utilize LCA can achieve a variety of benefits many of which have already been mentioned in this post. Deloitte’s paper outlines several others:

Innovation: By pointing to areas ripe for improvement and modeling the outcomes of competing new ideas, product level LCA data can inform the innovation agenda.

Cost savings: Reducing the negative environmental impact of a product or a process means being more efficient with materials and the energy required during the manufacturing process. Increased efficiency leads to cost savings by reducing the quantities of materials and energy bought in as well as by savings on rejected materials and disposal costs, which again means minimizing the negative environmental impact. By discovering what is driving environmental impacts and their corresponding monetary costs, companies can hone sustainability investments on the areas of highest potential impact. Furthermore, certain investments in R&D and projects related to renewable energy may be eligible for tax credits.

Internal alignment: LCA can provide a common ground for internal goal-setting and communication. People who work at different departments within an organization can rally around the relative objectivity provided by LCA results to achieve consensus on enterprise-wide priorities.

Regulatory preparedness: LCA can help quantify the projected product cost implications of future carbon legislation and flag those areas that warrant immediate action. LCA can also enhance general transparency to deflect scrutiny from regulators and other stakeholders.

Corporate reputation: LCA can demonstrate a company’s deeper commitment to improved environmental impact. Improved sustainability claims can strengthen customer loyalty.

In many situations the benefits to be gained from LCA outweigh the challenges. What companies do with the results of an LCA will ultimately determine whether the effort is worth it. Companies who succeed in integrating LCA with existing decision-making frameworks can achieve smarter sustainability.

There are numerous LCA tools and software currently available for use. EPA’s website outlines some of these resources.

Sometimes a person just nails it…

Editor — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:41:18 +0000

Every now and then, someone makes a speech that inspires as much as it
empowers. After I read Paul Hawkens’ Speech I knew I had to share it.

Enjoy…

You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring

The Unforgettable Commencement Address to the Class of 2009, University
of Portland, by Paul Hawken

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a
simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate,
lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to
have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time
when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is
accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one
peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that
statement.

Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the
programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have
misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or
air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the
thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship
earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on
one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no
need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food — but
all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive,
and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you
what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth
couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you
rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that
unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the
deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the
time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not
possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was
impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my
answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is
happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the
data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth
and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a
pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing
to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore
some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet
Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot
with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.”

There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is
reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in
schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge
camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and
organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day:
climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger,
conservation, human rights, and more.

This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than
control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to
disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the
scenes and gets the job done.

Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.

It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the
world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of
teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers,
nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students,
incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets,
doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the
President of the United States of America, and as the writer David
James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a
huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the
Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.
Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it
resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild,
recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you
had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their
bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the
profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the
evening news is usually about the death of strangers.

This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very
specific eighteenth-century roots.

Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global
movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that
time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The
founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Sharp,
Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on
the face of it:

at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved.
Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the
abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative
spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives,
do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the
economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in
history a group of people organized themselves to help people they
would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect
benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is
called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social
entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who
place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic
goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What
do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life
creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no
better motto for a future economy.

We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of
thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers
advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the
only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have
an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real
time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to
bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At
present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and
calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an
economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We
can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the
future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And
whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold
suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way
to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago,
and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally
you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by
Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates
are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to
become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one
quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body
is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish
in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions
of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in
one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment,
a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has
undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the
universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said
science would discover that each living creature was a “little
universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably
minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?
Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on
simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore
it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It
is called life.

This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body?
Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life
is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just
as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that
are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively
humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal
the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came
out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of
course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be
ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the
stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and
the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not
in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as
complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done
great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring
creation.

You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever
bequeathed to any generation. The generations before you failed. They
didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the
fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature
beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The
most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer.
Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is
your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

……….

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental
activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How
the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It
Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters
by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he
delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for
her help making that moment possible.

http://www.paulhawken.com/multimedia/UofP_Commencement_05.03.09.pdf

Life Cycle Assessment 101: Why Does it Matter?

Editor — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:09:19 +0000

LCA IX is the annual meeting and conference of the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA). It brings together hundreds of academics and professionals in environmental life cycle, as well as industry, government, and NGOs. I was there this past week in Boston because I focus on sustainable engineering and design. One aspect of that is developing techniques to integrate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into the product development process. I am somewhat of an outsider in this club, but I do admit I left the conference with renewed vigor to find the intersection between LCA, sustainability and product development.

The goal of the conference was to discuss methods of life cycle assessment to promote sustainability in products, industries, infrastructure and companies. It was an interesting gathering of professionals from Europe, Asia and the Americas. On the whole, it was both an inspiring and daunting four-day experience. It is promising that the field is advancing quickly, but that hint of isolation lingered–as if you are among the few people on the planet that get the potential of this technology. It was like being at a meeting of a secret society. If you’re in, you know the lingo and you understand the importance, but if you’re not, it seems confusing and exclusive…

http://thenewgreeneconomy.com/blog/life-cycle-assessment-101-why-does-it-matter.html

Green Star Standard News Established

Editor — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:06:36 +0000

Welcome to Green Star Standard!

News about sustainability and life cycle assessment (aka: life cycle analysis, life cycle costing, and many other names).

We will provide you with the best information about the “green” industry on a couple of fronts, including

“green” industry standards (and our interpretation of what they mean)
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Welcome aboard!