Environmental Management & Policy

Sustainable economies depend on effective environmental regulations, policies, and management strategies. These in turn require a detailed understanding of the sources of environmental impacts and key leverage points for improvement. EarthShift Global supports corporate and governmental environmental impact reduction by providing life cycle insights and data that drive sound policy development.

Industry Associations have unique opportunities to bring about sustainable change. From Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection to a better understanding of life cycle impacts, these associations can identify sustainable opportunities for their members and their members’ customers. EarthShift Global ensures the privacy of participating members and offers much more to the Industry Associations it works with:

• An in-depth understanding of current practice in LCA and S-ROI
• Streamlined procedures which minimize data collection requirements
• Compatibility with international datasets
• Flexibility: the association maintains ownership of its data so it is free to work with other consultants and use the data for other purposes
• Inclusive: Generic models can be built in EarthSmart, PackageSmart or 3Pillars and shared with each member to better understand their own risks and impacts and how they can be improved.

For example, EarthShift Global works with the International Copper Association (ICA) to understand the benefits and drawbacks of using copper net-pens for aquaculture. This project is a benefit to the copper producers as well as the aquaculture industry. You can read the full article here. 

Industry Associations we've worked with include:

Governments have much to gain from more sustainable activities and are actively pursuing assessments such as LCA and S-ROI. EarthShift Global has trained many governmental LCA practitioners including those from cities, provinces, national labs, and research centers. We’ve worked with the National Agriculture Research Center of Japan to understand the sustainability of many biofuels projects. This work assisted the government with directing funds toward those projects that have the highest probability of environmental, social and economic returns.

We've worked on a project funded by the US Department of State looking at four different grants to Latin American groups. These groups have successful projects in the areas of workforce empowerment, SMEs and trade, and environmental sustainability and will use the funds to scale up their activities. EarthShift Global has provided a prospective S-ROI of the four projects and will provide a retrospective of two of the projects at the end of the funding period.

We also led a team of three companies to develop a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modeling tool to support the Canadian Clean Fuel Standard (CFS), a new regulation being developed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 that will reduce Canada’s carbon emissions from all fuels by 30 million tonnes per year in 2030 (the equivalent of 7 million vehicles’ annual emissions).

Global engineering and professional services consultancy WSP and software developer Introspective Systems, Portland, Maine, joined EarthShift Global to create a rigorous, scientifically valid, ISO-conformant modeling tool for calculating the life cycle carbon intensities of the full range of liquid, gaseous, and solid fuels used in Canada.

The LCA model and software provides essential new visibility into the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of each fuel’s production and use, incorporating information about raw materials (feedstock), supply chains, and fuel conversion and combustion technologies. The resulting insights are informing development and implementation of the CFS by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), which awarded the LCA modeling contract.

Our Government clients include:

Non-Governmental Organizations need good metrics, and LCA and Sustainable Return on Investment (S-ROI) provide outstanding resources for developing them. EarthShift Global acts as a reliable expert and provides training to NGOs, enabling them to do work internally. Our optimized web-based tools can be used for assessment internally, or can be customized into footprint calculators, for example, to help to broaden the reach of the organization. S-ROI can be a powerful tool to show donors how far their money will go to improving the lives of others.

We’ve worked with Clean Air-Cool Planet on a campus food calculator, enabling colleges to assess the sustainability of recipes and weekly purchases. We continue to act as an advisor to the US Green Building Council on PCRs and EPDs for the building industry and have worked as an advisor the CarbonFund when they were first setting up their program.

Over the last several years we have worked with the World Environment Center (WEC) to assess the sustainability of four projects using S-ROI and our 3Pillars Software.

Our NGO clients include:

No consultancy can be expert in every area. EarthShift Global partners with other consultancies to provide in-depth expertise when needed:

• Introductory and advanced training for LCA and S-ROI practitioners
• Ongoing guidance through the first or second LCA
• As-needed advice on tricky choices, such as how to model recycling or how to get a particular software program to show results in a certain way
• Help preparing a report for critical review
• Well-managed critical reviews
• Subcontracted LCA and S-ROI studies

We work in the background, respecting the consultant’s relationship with their client.

EarthShift Global has an ongoing relationship with WSP and FPInnovations, providing a path from introductory LCA training through critical review. We work with ERM, partnering to apply the S-ROI concept to power plants, for example AWMA 2015. We also contributed S-ROI expertise within the Pathways to Prosperity Challenge project, led by the World Environment Center and in partnership with Baastel and Context Partners.

"Thanks for all your tremendous support and guidance."

-  Paul Favara, Global Practice Director and Vice President, CH2M

Other Consulting clients include: