New Conference COMPETING IN THE
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This Conference will help you See a demo and sample results of Earthster, new Open Source software to perform LCA analysis at your company. A life cycle assessment (LCA) is a comprehensive scientific examination of the environmental and social impacts of a product life cycle from extraction of raw materials, to disposal and beyond (cradle-to-grave). |
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| Who Should Attend Manufacturing, Plant, Quality, Engineering, and Operations Managers: Get practical tools and strategies that will help you gather and evaluate the data you need to make your products more marketable in today's environment. Purchasing Mangers: Know what to look for in the goods you are purchasing from your suppliers and vendors and how this impacts your company's ability to compete in the Green Marketplace. Marketing Managers: Understand what the major companies like Walmart, P&G, General Mills, and others are looking for in their products and how your marketing will need to meet the new standards for sustainability. HR Managers: Come away with a clearer understanding of the skills and knowledge your workforce needs. What Green or Sustainable Labeling means to Your Business Success Consumers increasingly are driving industry to be more sustainable and to develop products that are truly “Green.” More and more companies have been using eco-labeling to enhance their products’ marketability. Major companies like Walmart, P & G, Colgate-Palmolive, Disney, General Mills, Tyson, and more have gotten behind this push in a big way, and are founders of the Sustainability Consortium, whose goal is “to develop scientific methodologies, tools, and strategies to drive a new generation of products and supply networks that address environmental, social and economic imperatives.” This will mean that there will be more and more pressure on companies to be more transparent about what’s in their products and to look all the way down the supply chain to make sure every component meets these imperatives. Walk away with critical knowledge and practical tools that will improve your company’s ability to compete effectively in the Green Marketplace. Get Practical Tools to Guide You Into the Future Even if your company isn’t ready to move wholeheartedly into the sustainability arena, you need to know what’s on the forefront and begin to plan ahead for the growing competition you will face. This conference will give you practical tools and strategies that can guide you and help you stay ahead of your competitors now and through your future development. See a Demo of New Software, Earthster This new LCA tool will help your company to gather and link to the critical environmental and social data it needs to assess its performances, not only from your own facility, but for your whole supply chain. You will learn how to conduct a basic life cycle assessment and visualize initial results. |
CONFERENCE AGENDA 8:30-9:00 a.m.—Check-in and Continential Breakfast 9:00-9:15 a.m.—Welcome 9:15-10:30 a.m—Session 1: Consumers are increasingly more determined to purchase products that are sustainable and good for the environment, so your business performance and your products are now also gauged by the sustainability measures you and your suppliers take. In this context, it is important to understand how to characterize your business operations and communicate about your company’s sustainability measures, whether to a manufacturer for whom you are providing parts or to the marketplace consumer. This session will introduce life cycle thinking, provide a framework for understanding sustainability considerations for a business, and give examples of how it can provide value. Presenter: Kevin Gardner, Ph.D., P.E, is the Director of the Environmental Research Group, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, and Co-Director of the Recycled Materials Resource Center at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches Sustainable Engineering and directs a Ph.D. program in this topic area. He has expertise in industrial ecology, use and markets for recyclable materials, risk assessment, Life Cycle Assessment, and decision analysis, and has conducted more than $8 million in research projects for federal agencies, industrial associations, and private companies. 10:30-10:45 a.m.—Break 10:45 a.m.-Noon—Session 2 The future of business will require that companies gather a broad spectrum of information about their products—both environmental data (for example, how much energy is used in producing a brick or tomato) as well as socially relevant information (such as what educational opportunities are offered to employees or how the business interacts with its community). This session will give business leaders the understanding you need about product life cycles in order to position your businesses competitively. It will focus on analyzing the environmental impact of your products and business. It is applicable for manufacturers who source materials from an array of businesses—whether local or international—as well as for companies that supply products to manufacturers. Presenter: Greg Norris, Ph.D., founded and directs Sylvatica, an international life cycle assessment institute that consults on LCA to the United Nations, governments in the U.S. and abroad, a variety of Fortune 500 companies, industrial associations, smaller companies, and the nonprofit sector. He manages the LCA-Into-LEED process for the U.S. Green Building Council. He is Senior Fellow with GreenBlue, providing LCA guidance to their Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and, through this Coalition, to Walmart and the U.S. EPA. Noon-1:30 p.m—Buffet Lunch and Guest Speaker Hear first-hand from one of the nation’s environmental business leaders on their efforts to apply life cycle tools and techniques to the corporate setting. Stonyfield Farm has been using life cycle tools for almost two decades to guide their business decisions. Hirshberg will share experiences in applying system thinking to a multitude of products and processes from packaging to cow emissions! About the Guest Speaker: Nancy Hirshberg is the Vice President of Natural Resources for the world’s leading organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm. Nancy has worked at the nexus of food, business and the environment for nearly two decades, emerging as one of the field’s thought leaders. Since 1991, she has been at the helm of Stonyfield Farm’s efforts to improve its environmental performance and reduce its ecological footprint. Nancy also spearheaded Stonyfield Farm’s organic program for more than a decade. 1:30-2:30 p.m.—Session 3 This session will examine how to use LCA to analyze the social impacts of your business, for example, impact on the labor force, the community, human rights. Because supply chains can be quite complex and gathering this data can be a daunting challenge for both large and small companies, you will also discuss how to prioritize the data you need. This session will also cover how to examine social impact as it relates to your facility and community, as well as how it relates to your suppliers and the broader general level. The role of risk and opportunity assessment and site-specific assessment will be defined and methods to gather meaningful data will be presented. Finally you’ll explore ways to communicate assessment results to the businesses you work with and/or your consumers. Presenter: Catherine Benoît, M.Sc., Ph.D. Candidate, has expertise in Corporate Social Responsibility and in social impact assessment of products and development projects. She develops and applies methods, tools, and databases for social life cycle assessment (SLCA). She joined Sylvatica (www.sylvatica.com), a Life Cycle Assessment consultant firm, in 2008 and is a visiting scholar at University of New Hampshire. She is leading the development of the Social Hotspots database and the social sustainability capabilities of Earthster (www.earthster.org), two projects initially funded by Walmart and the Sustainability Consortium. She is the lead editor of the Guidelines for SLCA that were published by the UNEP Life Cycle Initiative in May 2009 (http://lcinitiative.unep.fr/). Prior to her current positions, she was the research coordinator for social life cycle assessment (SLCA) within CIRAIG (The Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services (www.ciraig.org), based at the University of Quebec at Montreal business school (www.esg.uqam.ca) for 6 years (2004-2009). She is also a member of different advisory boards for sustainability initiatives such as Éthiquette/Éthipedia, Planet4Earth, and the Specialty Crops Index. 2:30-2:45 p.m.—Break 2:45-4:00 p.m.—Session 4: Whether your business is primarily a supplier or you rely on suppliers for your product development, it’s important that you prioritize your approach to engaging your supply chain. In the same way that your company depends on your suppliers for your products, your success in the sustainable business paradigm depends on your suppliers to give you the information and data you need to conduct a Life Cycle Assessment. This session will provide strategies for your business to gather this information and to report and use the data to your advantage. You’ll get a demonstration of Earthster, a new sustainability open source software developed by New Earth that will help your company gather and link to the critical environmental and social data it needs to assess its performances, not only from your own facility, but for your whole supply chain. You will learn how to conduct a basic Life Cycle Assessment and visualize initial results. Presenter: Greg Norris, Ph.D., founded and directs Sylvatica, an international life cycle assessment institute that consults on LCA to the United Nations, governments in the U.S. and abroad, a variety of Fortune 500 companies, industrial associations, smaller companies, and the nonprofit sector. He manages the LCA-Into-LEED process for the U.S. Green Building Council. He is Senior Fellow with GreenBlue, providing LCA guidance to their Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and, through this Coalition, to Walmart and the U.S. EPA. GENERAL INFORMATION Download the Conference Brochure: Conference Fee & Refunds What the Cost Includes CEUs How to Register Forms of Payment Be an Exhibitor! Overnight Accommodations For More Information |
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