E.

MCCLARENCE 2010-XX-XX

When Going Green Becomes Part of the Business Plan

 
Most manufacturing companies
are faced with putting green
issues higher up their corporate
agenda. Cutting carbon
emissions, reducing waste,
going green, corporate social
responsibility are just some of
the terms that are becoming
more familiar in the vocabulary
of business life.

While governments around the

world have put their initial focus
on the major energy intensive
industries and large companies,
there is little doubt that the
green agenda is here to stay
and manufacturing industries
such as abrasives will be
affected.

On the near horizon are three   of corporations across their

new global standards designed
to help measure the
greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions of their products and
supply chains. Two of them are
new GHG Protocol standards –
the Product Lifecycle
Accounting and Reporting
Standard and the Scope 3
(Corporate Value Chain)
Accounting and Reporting
Standard – are being evaluated
and are close to becoming
internationally recognized
standards.
These standards have been
developed by the World
Resources Institute (WRI) and
the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development
(WBCSD), provide methods to
account for emissions
associated with individual
products across their life cycles
and of corporations across their
value chains. In addition, ISO
(International Organization for
Standardization), WRI and the
and
value chains. In addition, ISO
(International Organization for
Standardization), WRI and the
WBCSD have signed a
Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) under which they have
agreed to jointly promote the
ISO 14064 standards and the
WRI and WBCSD GHG
Protocol standards.
The move according to ISO was ease of use while keeping in
in response to concerns among view the capacity of both
businesses and GHG program
designers that the two
standards might not be
consistent and mutually
supportive. In fact, for corporate approach to develop
accounting, requirements and
guidance contained in ISO and
GHG Protocol standards are
consistent and they are
designed so that they can be
used in a complementary
manner.
These standards have been
‘road tested’ by 62 companies
in different industries across 17
countries. “The road testing
experience illustrates how
developing rules around
measurement, reporting, and
verification involves complex
technical and policy decisions
that need real-world feedback
to ensure the right balance is
achieved between rigor and
experienced and new users,”
said Jennifer Morgan, director
of WRI’s Climate and Energy
Program. “The GHG Protocol
international standards provides
us a model on how we might
want to pursue the development
of rules on tracking emissions
at the country-level as well.”
 E. MCCLARENCE
Based on the responses from the
test companies, the standard will
be revised and the latest versions
will be available at the end of
September for public comment for
a 30-day period. The text will be
finalized at the end of 2010 and the
final versions will be published by
March 2011.
Energy Conservation
Also, the future ISO 50001
standard for energy management
was recently approved as a Draft
International Standard (DIS). This
new standard has been developed
to provide framework for industrial
plants, commercial facilities or
entire organizations to manage
energy. Targeting broad
applicability across national
economic sectors, it is estimated
that the standard could influence up
to 60% of the world’s energy use.
ISO 50001 is being developed
by ISO project committee
ISO/PC 242, Energy
management. The secretariat of
ISO/PC 242 is provided by the
partnership of the ISO members
for the USA (ANSI) and Brazil
(ABNT). Forty-two ISO member
countries are participating in its
development, with another 10
as observers.
2010-XX-XX
According to ISO its new standards document is based on the
common elements found in all of ISO’s management system
standards, assuring a high level of compatibility with ISO 9001
(quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental
management). ISO says that the new standard will: -
• A framework for integrating energy efficiency into
management practices
• Making better use of existing energy-consuming assets
• Benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting
energy intensity improvements and their projected
impact on reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions
• Transparency and communication on the management
of energy resources
• Energy management best practices and good energy
management behaviours
• Evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new
energy-efficient technologies
• A framework for promoting energy efficiency throughout
the supply chain
• Energy management improvements in the context of
GHG emission reduction projects.
Now that ISO 50001 has
advanced to the DIS stage, ISO
point out that national member
bodies of ISO have been invited
to vote and comment on the
text of the standard during the
five-month balloting period.
Then, if all goes to plan ISO
50001, like the GHS standards,
will become an Internatlonal
Standard by early 2011.