Eight steps to supply chain sustainability for plastics and chemicals companies
Composter switches to biogas, cuts emissions to zero
Business must lead on sustainability: World business council
Eight steps to supply chain sustainability: PACIA
A new Australian guide for the chemical industry leverages a Sustainability Victoria life cycle mapping tool and the experiences of various chemical companies to provide insights into boosting supply chain sustainability.
The eight steps detailed by the Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association comprise:
- establishing drivers and goals – articulating what will motivate your organisation to initiate supply chain collaboration;
- defining the project – selecting the supply chain, testing the interest of your proposed partners and securing internal executive support;
- engaging partners – signing your supply chain partners on to the project and agreeing on common goals, the process and project resources;
- developing the baseline – collecting relevant baseline data using life cycle thinking to identify the key supply chain impacts;
- identifying opportunities – workshopping existing issues and new ideas, agreeing on opportunities for improvement and innovation and dealing with barriers and risks;
- taking action – implementing the agreed actions;
- measuring and communicating – measuring the results and communicating them to key stakeholders; and
- closing out - integrating the lessons learned into your business strategy.
Composter switches to biogas, cuts emissions to zero
Jandakot-based composter Richgro will generate 100% of its electricity from biogas, and possibly export excess power to the grid, aided by a $1 million federal grant.
Richgro, will use the grant to help fund a $3.3 million project to install megawatt anaerobic digester that will accept organic waste, including food waste diverted from landfill, generating up to two megawatts of zero-emissions electricity.
By-product digestate will be used as a raw material in the production of the company's garden supply products.
Other WA clean energy grant winners announced last Friday by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet include Canon Foods in Canning Vale which will receive $281,504 to convert a processing line to a gas-fired thermal oil system, reducing site-wide emissions intensity by just under 40%.
Naturaliste Vintners Pty Ltd in Carbunup will receive $119,047 to insulate 59 stainless steel wine tanks and replace two refrigeration units with hydrocarbon-based systems – a project expected to reduce the emissions intensity of its refrigeration system by just over 50%.
Balcatta-based label maker Supa Stick Labels and Labelling Systems which will use a $372,500 grant to reduce its "site-wide carbon emissions intensity by 31.3%" by replacing its existing printing presses with new digital presses.
Business must lead on sustainability: World business council
Companies must participate in the development of a standardised framework for reporting financial, environmental and social performance, World Business Council for Sustainability chief Peter Bakker told a US briefing on Friday.
"Everybody in this room knows we need radical change," Bakker said.
"I am absolutely clear that if we are going to save the world … it is businesses that are going to have to do it," he told the seminar, hosted by the Columbus Council on World Affairs.
Business leadership on sustainability depends on the development of a rules-based framework to bring into balance company reporting on financial and non-financial capital, he said.
Bakker noted that most reporting tools are being developed by NGOs, which have not necessarily had experience in producing reports, and urged companies to become more actively engaged.
Other panellists discussed issues including PUMA's eco-accounting work and the training of future business leaders.
WBCSD seminar, hosted by the Columbus Council on World Affairs (3 hours 34 minutes, Peter Bakker's main presentation starts at 12 minutes and runs to 26.50)
