Press Release – New partnership speeds up life cycle analysis at an enterprise scale

Interactive product life cycle analysis (LCA) is now possible on an enterprise scale thanks to a new partnership between BraveGen^TM and CoClear. BraveGen^TM, the award winning enterprise sustainability software, announced it will be collaborating with CoClear, a New York based consultancy, to make product LCA faster, cheaper and scalable for multinational consumer brands.

Currently, LCA is slow and expensive, requiring vast quantities of data. CoClear uses a methodology developed by Columbia University that:

• Dramatically reduces manual data entry by sharing data across products
• Is compliant with PAS2050, WRI and Greenhouse Gas Protocols
• Provides uncertainty values for all greenhouse gas calculations, allowing companies to focus their attention on materials and processes with the greatest impact

In the CoClear web application, company cost data is presented alongside sustainability metrics to help brands better identify the “low hanging fruit” of their operations, highlighting the most environmentally and financially intensive product drivers. CoClear’s interactive reports utilize data visualization to clearly communicate analysis so as to inform business decisions. CoClear has been working with international ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s to analyse their products’ environmental performance. CEO, Jostein Solheim, said:

“CoClear’s innovative approach to understanding and measuring the environmental life cycle of our ice cream is critical for our unique business model and appeals to our core consumers.”

CoClear’s web application will utilise BraveGen^TM’s cloud solution to process their client data, reducing the time and costs associated with data entry and management. Due to the proprietary nature of the product data being assessed, the data security offered by BraveGen^TM is paramount. BraveGen^TM’s security is reviewed regularly and audited by external specialists. This includes penetrative (hacker) testing by third party security companies and automated server port security scanning.

The goal of the partnership is to provide a more cost effective solution for product LCA. In a society where consumer demand is expanding at an alarming rate whilst resource availability is constrained, knowledge of a firm’s product LCA will give the firm competitive advantage to tailor its processes to be in line with sustainable business practices. This in turn will lead towards cost savings and resource availability, thereby ensuring business continuity in the long run. BraveGen^TM CEO, Chris Lindley said:

“We are excited by this new partnership and are looking forward to being involved in making product LCA mainstream. By combining corporate and product carbon footprinting, companies can tackle their environmental sustainability through internal operations and across their supply-chains.”