In the race to meet our obligations under the Paris Agreement and mitigate the worst effects of climate change, management and minimisation of your carbon footprint is as important today as it ever will be. In the manufacturing sector, increasing customer demand, pressure from investors and new government policy are all helping to put climate change at the forefront of the agenda. The Government’s increased commitment to a low carbon economy is highlighted by the introduction of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act and the establishment of an independent Climate Change Commission at the end of 2019.
New Zealand’s gross emissions increased around 23 percent between 1990 and 2017, based on the Ministry for the Environment’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Emissions from the energy sector were a significant contributor to this increase, with the carbon footprint from fossil fuels for manufacturing and construction growing by over 46 percent during this period. Achieving our Paris Agreement commitments will require significant changes to be made.
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) set a baseline for climate change action. They also help manufacturers to understand what matters most from an environmental perspective by identifying hotspots across the full life cycle of their products, from ‘cradle to grave’ or from ‘cradle to cradle’. Environmental impacts that are already locked in through manufacture (i.e. embodied impacts, such as embodied carbon) are clearly separated in an EPD from those that the customer can influence. EPDs are internationally standardised under ISO 14025 and every EPD is independently verified.
EPDs quantify potential environmental impacts using a technique called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA accounts for all flows of materials, energy and waste needed to make the product, to get it to the customer, to use it, and to eventually dispose of it. To help avoid passing the buck, EPDs assess the potential impacts of these flows using a wide range of environmental indicators, from carbon footprint to water consumption, summer smog to freshwater eutrophication (algal blooms). Collectively, this data provides a baseline from which to assess progress.
Once you know where the hotspots in your product’s life cycle are, you can then start to act on them. Sometimes the biggest opportunity for improvement is directly within your control. As an example, Tasman Insulation – manufacturer of Pink Batts – reduced its carbon footprint by 30% from 2010 to 2018 with improvements in plant efficiency, driven by a reduction in consumption of natural gas. These savings were calculated by comparing the results from its EPD prepared by thinkstep-anz to those from an earlier LCA study.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity lies upstream in your supply chain, or downstream with your customer. Asaleo Care – a leader in personal care and hygiene products in Australasia – commissioned thinkstep-anz to produce EPDs for some of its favourite products. One of the key outcomes was that, when disposed of in landfill, the carbon footprint of its Tork hand towels can exceed the carbon footprint of manufacturing them. A creative business partnership followed with local company Low Impact, manufacturer of Hungry Bins. The collaboration enabled Asaleo Care to help its customers divert waste from landfills to composting in on-site worm bins, reducing the carbon footprint of Tork hand towels by 40-60% across their full life cycle.
There are thousands of EPDs available worldwide and New Zealand companies have already started to benefit from them, whether through improving their manufacturing processes, helping to secure large tenders, or helping to attract and retain talented staff. David Trubridge, New Zealand Steel, Fletcher Building, Holcim, Allied Concrete, WPMA and Asaleo Care are examples of organisations across New Zealand that have experienced the benefits of EPDs first-hand.
Find out more about EPDs here.
By Barbara Nebel, CEO of thinkstep-anz
This article was first published in NZ Manufacturer magazine, February 2020.