What about Waternostics?

We have an ongoing debate at the office - when are we going to start capturing and analyzing other indicators in Carbonostics (or a sister tool) like biodiversity, toxicity, and most top-of-mind water. And not just in the office - we get calls from journalists, emails from prospects, and requests for conference presentations asking the same thing.

The short answer is that it's just too early to say. We could, very easily, just add an empty box for users to enter the water consumption in litres for each material in a recipe and just total it up for the report. But really, that's not the point of what we deliver with Carbonostics, and it defeats the purpose of being smarter than an Excel spreadsheet.

Carbonostics is smarter for two key reasons - (1) it contains a large reference database (the largest, as far as we can tell) of the carbon emissions over 1500 different ingredients, materials and processes that go into a food product's lifecycle; and (2) it has built-in intelligence so you don't have to be a fully-trained LCA specialist (or even come close to that) to analyze the lifecycle of your product.

But water works so differently. The carbon emissions from a cow who primarily eats commercial feed in the south of France is fairly similar to a cow who primarily eats commercial feed in Texas. However, the grains that go into that feed have vastly different water consumption depending on where they were grown - was it at the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill, was it a wet year or a dry year, was irrigation used, what was the source of the irrigation, etc etc etc.

So, while it's tempting to just put an empty box on the screen to capture their water consumption if they happen to know it, we're going to hold off until the international debate results in some measurable and repeatable consensus that we can build on to create practical and affordable solutions for all food companies.

Thank you for your patience.

2011: the year PLCA goes mainstream

I hate predictions and am the first to admit that there's not much point in them. Either you end up with egg on your face because you predicted something that didn't even come close to being true. Or you hit on something (either by luck or by judgement) that does come true and you can rest on your laurels - at least for a short time.

However, it does seem to me that momentum in the product lifecycle measurement arena is picking up speed. Many companies have already tackled their energy footprint, their company wide carbon measurement, and some have even gone as far as installing carbon accounting software (which is springing up in every sector).

So it's not a very off-the-wall idea to think that these activities will continue in 2011 and the next logical step is product level lifecycle measurement. There are a variety of reasons for a company to go all the way to product level: 1) they have to report to their client or their government, (2) they want to communicate to the consumer (although frankly we should just call this what it really is - a PR effort), (3) they have or want to participate in academic research either for kudos or for a fuller understanding of their impacts, (4) they recognize that the cost benefits they've realized at the macro level will continue at the micro level - and it all adds up.

So, I'll meet you back here in January 2012 and we'll see if this predication had any legs. In the meantime, have a happy and healthy New Year and let's hope (for the planet's sake) that sustainability - as a business practice - continues to gain even more traction in the year ahead. Onward and upward!