News
Quantis assists Sprint in evaluating benefits of packaging changes
Sprint continues to receive recognition for its leadership in environmental practices, including its efforts to design more sustainable packaging. A comprehensive study conducted by Quantis for Sprint finds that Sprint’s packaging re-design efforts have helped to reduce the total life cycle impacts of its device packaging by 55% since 2009. Key to this improvement was the reduction in package volume, which dramatically improved the efficiency of transportation. Jennifer Walter from Sprint comments that “Our work with Quantis was imperative for substantiating our communications around sustainable packaging.”
Sprint press release: http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2586
Case study: http://www.quantis-intl.com/doc/Sprint_PhonePackage_CaseStudy_2013-02-28.pdf
Website: http://www.sprint.com/responsibility/ouroperations/sustainablepkg.html
Product video: http://ddw.com/#capabilities=/section/capabilities/6_sustainability
White paper: http://www.sprint.com/responsibility/ouroperations/downloads/EvolutionOfGreenPkg_WhitePaper.pdf
Canadian sustainable development firms to create a partnership
Quantis Canada announces a partnership with Groupe AGÉCO and Saulnier Conseil which aims to provide organizations with leading-edge turnkey sustainable development consulting services. Working with each of these firms will now give organizations access to a broader expert network and complementary specialized services. This innovative approach brings together experienced executives and environmental, socioeconomic and procurement experts and provides a comprehensive and integrated platform in these strategic corporate responsibility sectors.
Life cycle assessment of certified and non-certified wood
PEFC is the world's largest forest certification system. To assess the environmental benefit of forest management certification, PEFC commissioned Quantis to realize a life cycle assessment (LCA) of certified and non-certified wood.
The goal of this study was to create new processes for non-certified wood. As a first approximation, only the environmental impacts from deforestation were considered (other differences such as pesticide or fertilizer use were not considered so far). A global average approach is taken, meaning that when buying non-certified wood products there is no active encouragement against deforestation as there is no traceability to prove otherwise. The results of this project enable to differentiate between certified and non-certified wood, without and with deforestation respectively, what was currently not possible in important databases such as ecoinvent.
Read the report
Webinar - 3 keys to achieving a high score on your environmental disclosures
Companies are now seeing a high demand for transparency in disclosing their environment footprint, as well as the financial risks associated with this footprint. As a result, most leading companies now track a complete corporate carbon footprint and an increasing number also track a corporate water footprint. Performance on how well these are measured and how well they are disclosed are rated by scored by many reporting initiatives, including the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), CDP’s Water Disclosure, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and others. There are now important business risks and opportunities not only in achieving a good environmental performance, but in being proficient in how this performance is measured and reported.
During this webinar we will share with you our approach to achieving a leading score in these reporting initiatives based on three key aspects: Ensuring transparency, taking advantage of existing initiatives and materials, and seeing opportunities to lead with action rather than talk.
Quantis will host the webinar and be joined by STMicroelectronics, a leading semi-conductor company, to share their disclosure experience. This year STMicroelectronics' CDP reporting reached a score of 92, second highest score in Italy, and a substantial increase from their score of 73 in 2011. ST will provide insight on the key success factors to reach this ambitious goal.
Event registrations:
January 22, 2013 - 4pm CET // 10am EST
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/550544342
Februray 20, 2013 - 4pm CET // 10am EST
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/403755542
LCA FOOD 2012
Our team is back from the beautiful city of Saint-Malo (France) where they took part in the great 2012 edition of the LCA Food conference which was organized by INRA. We gave a workshop about environmental communication and presented several posters that you can watch here.
The World Food LCA Database
Deforestation and (indirect) land use change
Social Life Cycle Assessment of Milk Production in Canada
Guidelines for addressing LCA within the food processing sector industries (part 1)
Guidelines for addressing LCA within the food processing sector industries (part 2)
Ecosystems in Life Cycle Assessment to
help businesses in their decision making
process
In September, Jeju (Korea) hosted the IUCN World Conservation Congress. Beside taking part in numerous interesting discussions, Quantis experts organized a workshop with Nespresso. "Ecosystems in Life Cycle Assessment to help businesses in their decision making process" was one of the many Knowledge Cafés taking place at the IUCN Congress, and it discussed how companies can understand the environmental performance of their products.
Read the report
Read the story on the IUCN website
Launch of the Polytechnique Montréal
and UQAM School of Management
International Life
Cycle Chair
Quantis is a spin-off from the CIRAIG (www.ciraig.org), the largest life cycle research centre in the world. Fourteen international partners from key sectors of the economy, including energy, transportation, metals, chemical products, retail commerce, food and financial services.
Read press release
EDF Entreprises
French energy supplier EDF Entreprises in collaboration with Quantis, and sustainability software publisher Enablon, are launching a new service to assist clients in assessing and reducing their environmental impacts. A selected number of pilot businesses will soon implement this new initiative, which should enable them to further develop their carbon strategies.
Read press release (in french)
National Trust for Historic Preservation
A comprehensive study conducted by Quantis for the National Trust for Historic Preservation finds that reusing existing buildings almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction —even if that new construction is energy-efficient. It can take up to 80 years for a new, energy-efficient building to compensate, through more efficient operations, for the negative climate change impacts created during the construction process.
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Sustainable Water Management Group
the Sustainable Water Management Group published on 1st April 2011 the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management. Contributions come from various key stakeholders being pioneers in sustainability. Economic issues are addressed as well as issues like Quantis water data base project, and the mutual effects of climate change and water treatment.
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Orange
Quantis conducted three online calculators, which allow you to quickly estimate the potential savings of CO2 made following the implementation of certain solutions of Orange Business Services.
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LCA X
Amanda Pike's presentation "LCA as the Centerpiece for Sustainable Design".
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And Jon Dettling's presentation "LCA of Waste Prevention in the Residential Housing Sector in Oregon, USA"
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Nestle Waters
Publication of the LCA conducted by Quantis US in the 2009 Nestlé Waters report.
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Project EcoThink - Vendée Globe 2012
One year after....update on the project that started in August 2009. The Caudrelier brothers are working in partnership with Quantis.
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Orange
Orange developped, in partnership with Quantis, a tool that enables you to assess the CO2 emission savings achieved through the deployment of a telepresence solution.
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Gymnaestrada
Lausanne welcomes the world biggest gymnastic event for all and choose Quantis as the sustainability partner, with the first Quantis i-eco online.
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Vittoz Cap International
Quantis won the price Vittoz Cap International. This price offered opportunities to start-up to expand their commercial activities in the US.
Quantis USA recruits
Quantis seeks to recruit a highly motivated and dynamic Life Cycle Analyst to complete its US team. Learn More
Oregon DEQ
Oregon Department of Envionmental Quality has hired Quantis USA to conduct an environmental screening of a list of 20+ waste prevention practices, followed by more detailed life cycle analysis of practices that appear to have the greatest potential benefit.Learn More
Nestle Waters
Nestle Waters North America Releases First Comprehensive Study, Conducted by Quantis, to Examine Carbon Footprints of Packaged Beverages.Learn More
