Sustainable Products and Organizations

EcoShift provides full-service consulting focused on helping companies and organizations create value through sustainability. In our process, metrics set the foundation for innovation, flexibility, and ultimately incorporating sustainability into business models. We use our technical expertise in life cycle assessment to guide and shape and integration of sustainability strategy into business practice.

Life cycle assessment or analysis (LCA) is a performance metric for characterizing the resource use and material throughput for a particular commodity along all stages of the product life cycle form raw material extraction, through the manufacturing process, to the end-of-life of a product.

LCA process starts by defining the goals and scope of the system under investigation and defining the systems boundaries. Next, an inventory of material and energy flows is collected along the entire commodity chain. Finally, the inventory is assessed against specific environmental impact categories and indicators. The final product gives a clear picture of a product’s life cycle impact.

Why do LCA?

With a complete life cycle analysis, efforts can be made to reduce environmental effects in the areas of greatest impact. LCA can be used for improving cradle to cradle product stewardship, pollution prevention planning, green engineering and design, compliance with environmental standards, or to better understand the impacts of material reuse and recycling. LCA can also be used to market your product against other similar products based on accepted sustainability criteria.

Life cycle assessments are completed for a variety of reasons. First, many of the same activities that reduce life cycle impacts also cut energy and other costs. Assessing and reducing your sustainability impact has a similar effect as an efficiency audit. The results will identify the most cost-effective way for you to operate. Second, the public increasingly demands information about sustainability features of the products they buy. LCA can be used to demonstrate product stewardship and corporate responsibility, identify areas to effectively mitigate impacts, and differentiate products through eco-labeling. Finally, many climate change and energy policies are including LCA requirements for sectors like renewable energy and biofuels. For example, California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standardand the DOE Loan Guarantee program both require reporting on life cycle metrics.

EcoShift LCA Services

Our Life Cycle Analysis Services can help your organization identify potential for improvement of energy and greenhouse gas emission efficiency in all stages of operations. EcoShift can assist in all stages of LCA consulting, including mapping and greening of your supply chain, quantifying and characterizing life cycle impacts, comparing to similar products, and assessing carbon payback periods and returns on investment. We tailor our LCA services to explore the various impact categories that can improve your company’s life cycle performance. We adhere to the LCA procedures codified by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in ISO 14040. Since our LCA consultants are actively engaged in the academic community, we stay abreast of changing standards and practices in this rapidly evolving field.

Additionally, we have a specialized service offering that focuses specifically on life cycle analysis of alternative fuel pathways. California has approved a plan to reduce the life cycle carbon intensity of transportation fuel by 10% by 2020. If your company is developing revolutionary new alternative fuels, you will be required to demonstrate that these fuels reduce overall GHG emissions.

Agriculture has significant effects on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, both directly through cultivation practices, and indirectly through the energy used to produce agricultural inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizer. Different techniques, such as low-till cultivation, multi-cropping, and low-input or organic practices help reduce the climate change impact of agriculture, and have additional ecological and financial benefits. Additionally, animal production is associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions. Different strategies exist that minimize these emissions, and the implementation of these strategies in some instances can serve as a basis for carbon offsets. Food production emissions are not only associated with farming practices, but also with the shipping, cooling, and packaging industries that form a crucial link between the farmer and the final consumer. Energy consumed at each of these stages represents a large proportion of the costs associated with getting produce from the field to the table. We are happy to help cooling and shipping facilities examine energy reductions that are possible with new technologies in cooling and building science.

One of the most productive, and potentially lucrative, ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is through improving the efficiency of energy and transportation infrastructure. If we use lighting as an example, a standard incandescent light bulb is only 4% efficient. This means that you only get to use 4% of the energy that you pay for, which largely comes from burning fossil fuels. By comparison, compact fluorescent lighting is 10-15 times more efficient, while producing the same amount of light. There are multiple opportunities for increasing energy and transportation efficiency which can dramatically reduce costs, help meet mandated carbon reduction goals, and reduce the climate change impact, all at the same time. A report from McKinsey and Company details the potential energy savings that accompany energy efficiency improvements Additionally, simply the process of examining current energy use patterns generally yields insights into operational inefficiencies, and highlights potential savings from changing not only the energy-consuming devices for more efficient ones, but also from adjusting operational procedures in order to capture the most energy savings from such upgrades. EcoShift offers several services that help our customers increase their efficiency, including EnergyShift, our comprehensive energy efficiency assessment, and BehaviorShift, our employee engagement strategy that focuses on the low-cost operational changes that have the potential to significantly improve operational energy efficiency.

How is the implementation of all the local government Climate Action Plans developed over the past decade going? Too many times the answer is that efforts could be better, but lag due to lack of funding. There is little research available on the details of how local government organizations set or administer sustainable funding mechanisms for climate action and green infrastructure planning and implementation. Yet, we know that budgets for municipal climate action efforts and green infrastructure are often a low priority and underfunded. At the same time, more planning and implementation will be required to comply with a variety of new state policies (e.g., AB2188 Solar Streamlining Act, SB 350 Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act, AB876 Compostable organics reporting, new stormwater and active transportation requirements), meet new state and local goals (e.g., water and climate goals, RPS targets, Monterey Bay Power CCA formation), and compete for major grants at the federal and state level (e.g. AB 32 CA Global Warming Act Auction Funds). Carbon Fund is a catch-all phrase we use to refer to “Sustainability” or “Green” or “Energy” Funds and these funds can take many different formats. In general, a Carbon Fund is a mechanism to generate contributions or fees from individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other parties to fund emissions reductions projects and initiatives. In turn, the funds generally disburse monies to sanctioned projects, which are often pre-defined by the fund’s rules. Carbon Funds can provide financing for GHG reduction projects prior to project implementation, thus reducing project risk by providing the upfront investment needed for many projects. Carbon Funds have been implemented at the international, national, state and regional levels, but only a handful of local governments and regional agencies have developed local Carbon Funds. In some cases, Carbon Funds have used carbon offsets as a mechanism to measure and verify reductions and to develop tradable credits. In California, the cap-and-trade program tied to the state’s reduction goals in Assembly Bill 32 (AB32) allows regulated entities to reach their emissions threshold in part by purchasing verified offsets. Many other municipalities and education institutions have some version of a Green Revolving Loan Fund (GRLF), i.e. El Cerrita, CA, San Jose, CA and an emerging UCSC GRLF. Other municipalities hold voluntary contributions from the community or employees in Sustainability Funds. The Issaquah, WA Community Sustainability Fund generates funds for projects and programs like neighborhood cleanups, community gardens, green businesses and bike and walking programs. The Community Sustainability Fund is funded by a voluntary donation on monthly waste and recycling bills. Funds are held in a dedicated account and cannot be used for other purposes. EcoShift is unique in its experience developing Carbon Funds for government, education and non-profit agencies. We can help you understand your options, and assess your fund generation potential. Please see our recent Carbon Fund Webinar slide deck for a more in-depth review of 4 Carbon Fund case studies and best practices.

Renewable energy utilizes the sources that are replenished from non-exhaustible resources like the wind, sun, geothermal heat, rain, and tides. It is contrasted with conventional energy that relies on limited stocks of resources that have taken millions of years to accumulate. The range of renewable energy technologies includes wind turbines, solar thermal water heating, geothermal, small scale hydro-electric turbines, tidal and wave power, and solar photovoltaics. Renewable energy requires an initial investment, after which it is “fueled” by processes that are naturally available and routine maintenance. There are many choices for renewable energy, and they will depend on your needs and location. Our team is proficient in all facets of renewable energy development from small residential systems to municipal-scale projects. We are skilled in technical and economic feasibility assessments, financing, permitting and design. We have developed partnerships with several organizations that specialize in different renewable energy technologies and financing, and together we will assess those that make the most sense for your organization, optimizing cost, payback and return on investment.

Because carbon dioxide is evenly mixed in the atmosphere, concentrations are approximately the same worldwide, regardless of whether you measure them in Australia or New Jersey. Thus, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be done anywhere in the world, with the same effect. In some instances, it may make more sense to reduce your carbon footprint by investing in forests in Brazil and wind farms in Iowa rather than making expensive on-site reductions. Recognizing that, agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol allow such investments in lieu of on-site carbon reductions. However, not all carbon offsets are created equal, and some are more legitimate, effective, and efficient than others. Properly created and registered offsets can allow you to reduce overall emissions more cost effectively, but great care must be taken to avoid purchasing offsets that do not actually reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The ACUPCC Guidelines for Carbon Offsets Investment is a great place to start to understand how the legitimacy of offsets may be determined. The proposed offset standards have been released by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, and the Western Climate Initiative. EcoShift consultants offer services in both developing and investing in carbon offsets. We can help evaluate the impact of different offsets, as well as examine the legitimacy and validity of proposed offset schemes.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) trap heat from the sun that would otherwise escape into outer space, making the Earth too cold for human life. But increased GHG levels in the atmosphere are causing the Earth’s surface temperature to rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that human activities over the past century have had a significant impact on greenhouse gases levels, and “increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations is very likely to have caused most of the increases in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century.” The global warming potential (GWP) of various greenhouse gases varies greatly. Carbon, by far the most widely emitted greenhouse gas, is the baseline to which other gases are compared, so is given the GWP value of 1. Methane has a GWP of 25, nitrous oxide has a GWP of 298, hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) have GWPs that range from 1,430 to 14,800, and sulfur hexafluoride has a GWP of 32,600. Although these gases are emitted in smaller quantities than carbon, it is still very important to consider emissions from these less prevalent GHGs. In some cases, it makes sense to encourage conversions of high GWP gases to lower GWP gases, such as installing methane digesters and methane powered electricity generators, converting methane to carbon dioxide. We offer a range of GHG reduction consulting services that we tailor to your organization’s needs and regulatory requirements.