Interpreting Results of Product Carbon Footprinting Analysis

WSQ Graduate Diploma in Process Technology
(Sustainable Manufacturing)
Unit 1:
Session 8:
3rd
August, 2010
Dean Stanton
Course Instructor | BrandGreen
Carbon Footprint Measurement and Reduction Strategies for
Products and Manufacturing Operations
Interpretation of Carbon Emissions and Practical Applications

BrandGreen.
Founded in 2004.
Offices in Cambridge,
London & San Francisco.
Launched Singapore office in
2010.

WhoWeWorkWith
.
Top 100 companies, including
M&S, Tesco, HSBC, British
Gas, O2 and VW
Government
Investors
NGOs / Not for Profit

HowWeDoIt.
We help our clients see how
doing the right thing can make
powerful business sense…
“Building the
business case”

HowWeDoIt.
…working closely with client
teams to build an actionable
strategy…
“Developing a real
world action plan”

HowWeDoIt.
…and helping to make
the changes that lead to
breakthrough transformation.
“Making sustainability
business as usual”

Unit 1: Develop Carbon Footprint
Measurement and Reduction Strategies for
Products and Manufacturing Operations
This unit covers the knowledge and issues relating to
carbon footprint measurement across operations and
the value chain. The course involves demonstration
of practical quantifying methodologies and standards,
and discussions on how carbon footprint assessment
can increase manufacturing efficiency. Key carbon
reduction strategies such as life cycle thinking,
resources management and 3Rs will be taught
together with practical examples and applications.
Participants will be able to take away practical
knowledge and apply that in their work environments
for quantification of carbon footprints and continuous
improvement towards sustainable manufacturing.
RECAP

Session 8:
Interpretation of Carbon Emissions and Practical Applications
In this session, course participants will learn:
How to interpret the results of carbon footprint analysis
(Lecture Format)
How leading companies have applied these insights to make significant
reductions in impacts and costs
(Case Studies)
Practical applications to deliver positive bottom line financial improvements
and to reduce the impacts from operations
(Tutorial Exercises)

Session 8:
Contents and Structure
1.Interpreting the results of carbon footprint analysis
2.Case studies
a. Walker’s Crisps
b. Innocent Drinks
3.Challenge exercise
Resources
•Case study pack
•Background reading materials
Lecture 1 hour
Lecture 1 hour
.
.
Group work 1 hour

Session 8
Pre-amble: Review of learnings
from previous sessions

What’s been covered to date (not exhaustive):
Corporate and product carbon footprints
 ISO 14064 and other GHG protocols
Principles and methodologies
 ISO 14040
 PAS 2050
System boundaries and product category rules
Carbon footprint calculation
 Hands on use of carbon footprint software tool
Reporting practices ISO 14064, 14044
Now we have all this great data, what can we do with it ?

CAVEAT:
Many of your assumptions will be proved wrong!
Probably the first lesson we learned in the UK back in 2006 was that key
assumptions we had about the biggest sources of product related carbon
emissions were often completely wrong.
This is only to be expected. Up until to this point nobody had actually
measured these things properly.
Learning: when it comes to carbon, received opinion is often wrong.
Having incontrovertible data to hand is a powerful weapon in challenging the
status quo, improving efficiency, enhancing productivity and growing profits
for your business.

Session 8
Section 2. Case Studies
How leading companies have
applied the insights from carbon
footprinting to make significant
reductions in impacts and costs

Case Studies
Outline
1. Introduction
 Carbon = costs = profits
 Carbon = product innovation = revenues + profits
 Focus on carbon = additional business benefits
2. Real world success stories
 Case study 1: Walker’s Crisps (PepsiCo)
 Case study 2: Innocent Drinks
3. Recap on key learnings

Session 8
1. Introduction

Introduction
Carbon = costs = profits
Guiding principle:
Wherever you reduce the carbon intensity of your
products or services …
… you reduce costs …
… and wherever you reduce costs, you have a positive
impact on the financial bottom line for your business.

Introduction
Carbon = product innovation = revenues + profits
Moreover:
Through a deeper understanding of your “production”
processes and where the carbon “hotspots” are, you can
unlock opportunities not just for process innovation, but for
creating entirely new – and lower carbon – products and
services.
Hence through the insights leading to product innovation
we can move on from merely reducing cost to creating new
sources of revenue for your business – resulting in top line
revenue growth as well as enhanced profitability.

Introduction
Focus on carbon = additional business benefits
 Corporate reputation: brand enhancement internally
and externally
 Customer demand: customer preferences for carbon
footprint clarity
 Employee engagement: they know that it is the right
thing for you to do, and will be energised
 Risk management: minimise impact of future regulations
and supply chain disruption
 Relationship benefit: improve efficiency of the product
supply chain, hence supplier relationship engagement
 Social benefit: shows serious commitment to reducing
climate change impacts and leads change by example

Session 8
2. Real World Success Stories

Real world success stories
Walker’s Crisps
 PepsiCo is the parent company of Walker’s
 The Walker’s business includes the largest crisp
manufacturing plant in the world
 Potatoes are 100% UK sourced, so much of the
supply chain is contained within the UK
 The first company in 2006 to work with the
Carbon Trust to measure a product carbon
footprint
 The first company to be measured under
PAS 2050
 The first product in the world to carry a
product carbon label: Walker’s Cheese and
Onion Crisps

Walker’s Crisps: Highlights
 Only using British potatoes, to cut
down food miles
 Improving production efficiency to
reduce gas by 11%, electricity by 22%
and water consumption by over 700
million litres in one factory alone
 Making a 4.5% reduction in emissions
associated with producing crisp
packets
 Recycling over 90% of waste
 Reducing the weight of packaging
 Running delivery lorries on biodiesel
and using fuel efficient driving
Saving 4,800
tonnes of CO2
Reducing
carbon
footprint by
7%
Saving close
to S$1m
annually

Walker’s Crisps: The value of data
 PepsiCo and Walker’s first started working
with the Carbon Trust as long ago as 2002,
addressing their corporate level carbon
footprints.
 Taking the insights from measurement and
applying that to their operations has resulted
in a reduction in energy use of over 30%
since 2000 (baseline).
 Building on this initial analysis, it became
clear that a significant portion of overall
emissions was product related, which in turn
had much to do with the company’s supply
chain.
 Starting in 2006, detailed product-level
carbon footprint analysis was performed
(see table).
Identifying emissions reduction
“hot spots”
(45g bag of Walker’s Crisps)

Walker’s Crisps: Insights from interpretation
 Interpreting the results of the carbon footprint
analysis, almost 75% of the carbon footprint of
a 45g pack of crisps on the supermarket shelf
came from two sources:
 Manufacturing (~25%)
 Raw materials (~50%)
 Surprisingly, the total impact of transportation
was relatively low at around 10%.
 But what this did tell us was that although
Walker’s had significant scope to address their
own direct impacts in the manufacturing
process, some of the biggest gains might well
come from engaging with suppliers (i.e. tackling
Walker’s indirect emissions).

Walker’s Crisps: Practical steps in manufacturing
 Taking a harder look at the individual components of the manufacturing
related carbon footprint analysis, a number of key reduction opportunity areas
were identified:
 There was a considerable time lag between the production process start up and
shut down cycles, resulting in wasted energy use. Work was performed to reduce
the impact of these cycle times by 35% over 6 months.
 15% of manufacturing related energy use was in lighting systems, some of which
were running 24 hours a day. The company introduced enhanced automation and
new lighting technologies to cut this component by 40% over less than a year.
 Since 2009, all manufacturing operations have achieved ISO 14001 status.
 The company is on target to replace an additional 7% of grid electricity
consumption with energy from renewables by 2011 (resulting in a total of 15%
of electricity from renewables).
 At the same time, the company is now on target to reduce further the energy
intensity of crisp production by ~35% by 2011, primarily through upgrading to
newer technologies.

Walker’s Crisps: Practical steps in raw materials
 Indirect emissions of 48% were related directly to Walker’s
upstream raw material suppliers and a further 12.4% from
packaging.
 The primary raw material components in crisp manufacture
are potatoes, sunflowers (oil) and various seasoning
ingredients.
 Walker’s has instituted a series of annual supply chain
“summits”, now part of an iterative engagement process:
 Communicate the value of footprint analysis;
 Train on data collection and interpretation;
 Collaborative and brainstorm group interventions to identify
opportunities for individual and joint action;
 Feedback to the process.
 One outcome from the summits has been the development
of the concept of chain of custody, whereby each supplier
assumes ownership of
 Calculating their part of the carbon footprint;
 Identifying opportunities to reduce emissions during their
‘custody’ of the product.
Current Initiatives with
Suppliers
Investment in research to help
farmers reduce emissions through:
Better agricultural and storage
practices, including how to reduce
soil erosion from potato farming;
Identifying varieties of potato that
can grow using less water.

Real world success stories Walker’s Crisps
Combined raw material / manufacturing impacts
 Perhaps the most astonishing insight to come from interpreting the carbon footprint analysis
results happened right at the interface between raw materials and manufacturing processes.
 One of the key manufacturing carbon hotspots identified (representing ~15% of total
manufacturing related carbon emissions) was the extraction of water from the raw potatoes
at the start of the process.
 Further investigation and detailed discussions with both factory floor and purchasing staff
revealed that it was received practice on the part of the potato farmers to spray the potatoes
with water before transporting the potatoes to the factory.
 Ostensibly, this was to preserve the freshness of the raw materials. In practice, this could
increase the weight of a consignment by up to 22%, and of course the farmers were paid
based on the weight of their product.
 The Walker’s factory team reached out to engage with the potato farmers to cease spraying
the product with water, in returned for increased financial compensation per tonne of raw
material.
 This allowed Walker’s to eliminate one entire production step, and an associated 15% of
manufacturing emissions, as well as changing how the industry operated.

Walker’s Crisps: Recap
 Only using British potatoes, to cut
down food miles
 Improving production efficiency to
reduce gas by 11%, electricity by 22%
and water consumption by over 700
million litres in one factory alone
 Making a 4.5% reduction in emissions
associated with producing crisp
packets
 Recycling over 90% of waste
 Reducing the weight of packaging
 Running delivery lorries on biodiesel
and using fuel efficient driving
Saving 4,800
tonnes of CO2
Reducing
carbon
footprint by
7%
Saving close
to S$1m
annually

innocent drinks
 Founded in 1998, innocent is a successful
producer of natural drinks and fruit smoothies.
 The company, founded on the principle of using
only ‘100% natural, healthy renewable
ingredients’ has the fastest-growing product in
the UK Grocery 100 list.
 A privately-held business with 250 employees.
 One of the first wave of three pilot
companies to work with the Carbon Trust
starting on product carbon footprinting in
2006
 First product to be certified: Mango and
Passionfruit Smoothie
 Sustainability part of innocent’s brand DNA,
so footprinting natural next step

innocent drinks: more about
Operate in 11 countries Rapid growth
profile

innocent drinks: smoothie lifecycle

innocent drinks: the value of data
Initial review of the analysis
results focused attention on two
key problem areas…

innocent drinks: the value of data
Product carbon footprint of different
packaging formats
A consistent theme
across different
packaging types and
sizes, with the exception
of the smallest format
bottle, where packaging
was a major factor

innocent drinks: insights from interpretation
One immediate quick win was the reduction of the impacts of packaging
– switching to 100% recycled plastic reduced the overall footprint by
15%, and becoming the world’s first food company to use 100%
recycled bottles (now entire range is 100%).

innocent drinks: surprises from interpretation
 One surprise coming from the assessment was the relatively small
contribution of transport and distribution to product-level greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions, particularly for the 250ml bottle size.
 Given the conventional wisdom that ‘food miles’ generate high carbon
emissions, innocent could have made expensive investments or sourcing
decisions that would not necessarily have reduced carbon emissions as
much as focusing efforts on manufacturing, packaging and growing
processes.
 Packaging emissions were higher than expected – especially for the
smallest drinks size. Clearly, it made sense to invest in this area for carbon
reduction.
 Similarly, given the impact that farmers have on the overall smoothie
footprint, it also made sense for innocent to focus on engaging with fruit
suppliers to reduce their emissions.

innocent drinks: practical steps in packaging
 In September 2007 innocent became the first food company in
the world to use 100% recycled plastic for its bottles.
 From January 2008, the entire drinks range is now packaged
using 100% recycled plastic.
 The results of this initiative have been dramatic
(all at no added cost):
 14% reduction in materials due to light weighting the bottle.
 55% carbon reduction from the bottle manufacturing process.
 Enabled the company to demonstrate that it is a leading
edge investor in sustainable innovations (packaging).

innocent drinks: practical steps in supply chain
 innocent has been working closely with
suppliers to improve energy efficiency and
reduce waste.
 By creating a dialogue with one supplier in
particular, innocent helped identify a range
of opportunities:
 Reducing waste to landfill
The supplier set up a group of employees
from different parts of the business to look
at how they could increase the amount of
waste materials being recycled throughout
the factory. In the first month, waste to
landfill was reduced by 15%, and within six
months the reduction reached 54%. This
was not the result of any new technology,
just clearly labelled bins combined with
educating and encouraging staff to
separate the waste (see next slides).
innocent now has key performance indicators in
place with all manufacturing and logistics suppliers
to measure energy and water usage, waste
production and recycling

… and switched to renewable energy
Identified energy savings of 25%
= cost savings of £125k per annum

innocent drinks: practical steps in manufacturing

innocent drinks: key learnings
 Carbon reduction initiatives accumulate into significant savings when multiplied
across the supply chain – the combined impact of moving to recycled plastic
packaging and working with suppliers to increase energy efficiency and reduce
waste caused a meaningful reduction in product-level emissions of over 15%.
 Conventional wisdom can be wrong – the key contributors to carbon emissions
across the supply chain are not always those expected, e.g. transport and
distribution are only part of the equation and not as significant as the term ‘food
miles’ implies.
 On the other hand, large emissions sources can be a surprise as well, opening up
new opportunities for collaboration – innocent’s agriculture emissions were higher
than expected, leading to previously unanticipated carbon saving initiatives to
help suppliers reduce fertiliser and pesticide use.
 The knowledge gained in a product carbon footprinting exercise is not only useful
at the time of the analysis but can provide a decision making structure for
purchasing and other significant decisions going forward.

Session 8
Section 1. Interpreting the results of
carbon footprint analysis

Interpreting the results of carbon footprint analysis
Outline
1. Key areas of reduction
2. Examples in detail

Key areas of reduction: overview
Raw Materials
Agriculture
Raw Materials
Extractive
Manufacturing
Energy Efficiency
Manufacturing
Switch to renewable energy
Packaging
Recycled content
Weight reduction
Other
Transport & Distribution
More efficient fleets and driving
Switch to alternative fuels
Smart logistics

Key areas of reduction: raw materials (agriculture)
Raw Materials – Agriculture
(12% global CO2)
Changing agricultural practices
 Reduce tCO2e content of pesticides and fertilizers*
*often as much as 35% of the raw material
 Go organic??
 Replace diesel plant (e.g. for irrigation) with renewable energy
(e.g. solar power, wind, small scale hydro)
 Measures to reduce soil erosion

Key areas of reduction: raw materials (extractive)
Raw Materials – Extractive Industries
Changing extraction practices: levers and drivers
 Stripping ratios
 Extraction depths
 Production volumes / intensity
 Drill, blast and dig process optimisation
 New technologies to mine, mill and smelt
 Minimising waste stock piles
 Total hydrocarbon resource management

Key areas of reduction: packaging
Packaging
Options to reduce impacts (not exhaustive)
 Add or increase recycled content
 Evaluate use of bio-materials (bio- and non bio-degradable)
 Reduce weight and thickness
 Innovative pack design to fit optimal container and pallet volumes
 Re-usable packaging (e.g. The Body Shop)
 End-customer recycling facilities (both b2b and b2c)
 Impact of zero-waste policies?

Key areas of reduction: manufacturing (EE)
Manufacturing – Energy Efficiency
Options to enhance energy efficiency (not exhaustive)
 Upgrade to newer technologies / plant
 Increased system automation and controls
 Evaluate all process / production steps and eliminate where possible
 Reduce start-up and shut down cycle times
 Evaluate all HVAC optimisation opportunities
 Sequencing production processes and in-site locations
 Other?

Key areas of reduction: manufacturing (RE)
Manufacturing – Renewable Energy
Options to implement RE solutions (not exhaustive)
 Replace wasteful and costly fossil fuel / grid generation with:
 Solar Photovoltaic
 Mid-scale (500KW+) wind
 Small to mid-scale hydro
 Waste to energy
 E.g. Anaerobic digestion
 Biofuels for generation
 Other?

Big win opportunities
Biofuel Generation
from Algae
The current biofuel production process is
highly unsustainable (land use, energy
requirements) => negative impact on
agriculture
Biofuel generated from algae could solve
these issues:
- Saving in energy
- Saving in land use
- Higher yield

Renewable Energies
on a Large Scale
A combined use of renewable energy sources
could meet our current energy needs:
- Solar energy (photovoltaic and thermal)
- Hydroelectric energy
- Wind energy
- Geothermal energy
- Ocean thermal energy
- Ocean wave energy
- Tidal and current energy
These technologies are available today.

Key areas of reduction: transportation and logistics
Transportation and distribution
Options to optimise / reduce (not exhaustive)
 Computerised fleet management
 Driver training and incentivisation
 Switch fleets to more sustainable fuel sources
 Recycled cooking oil
 Introduction of hybrids
 Electric vehicles (where possible powered by RE)
 Fleet share (more than one end user)
 Eliminate empty beds

Sustainable
Transportation
Transportation accounts for almost
one third of all greenhouse gas
emissions.
Improving energy efficiency and
emission reducing technologies
within transport is a priority.
- Hybrids
- Fuel cells
- CNG vehicles
- Mass public
transportation

Supplementary slides
A word about waste…

Waste: the facts
 Cities are growing fast
 Landfills are reaching saturation/ incineration
produces emissions
 Waste has a lot of value but is not exploited
 We must shift from a global unsustainable
waste management model to a sustainable
one

Garbage output
Waste Output 2002: 7,677 tonnes/day
Equivalent to 1,100 truck loads!
Equivalent to 2.8 million
tonnes/year
If stacked to an average man’s height (1.7m),
it would occupy 350 football fields

Tuas South Incineration Plant

Waste Disposal at Pulau Semakau

Pulau Semakau Landfill
 Completed 1999
 Cost: $610 million
 Life Span: 30
years
 350 hectares

Big win opportunities Waste to Energy
 By 2050 80% of the world population will
be living in mega cities
 The tremendous amount of waste
generated can be valued
 Entire cities can be powered out of energy
generated from waste
 Capture of gases (CO2 & CH4)
 Use of heat energy generated
from the decomposition process

Waste Engineering
 Non-traditional waste recovery
 Bio-plastics
 Hi-Tech & Hi Value Add

Traditional Recycling
• Value waste
• Use of recycled content within
products
• Reduce mass consumerism
1) Educating the community
2) Implementation of infrastructures
to treat the waste accordingly
“Technology will not solve all our problems,
we must also change our behaviors”

Session 8
Section 3. Challenge Exercise

Challenge exercise
Working in groups, take a look at the following product
lifecycle and:
 Estimate the relative carbon emissions in percentage
terms at each key stage of the lifecycle
 Identify the key areas to focus on
 Make recommendations on the types of changes you
might implement to reduce product carbon footprint

Grid electricity
Lifecycle of a men’s white T shirt (large)

How did they achieved this
90% step-change
reduction?

Solar electricity
…by switching the entire energy supply of the manufacturing plant to
renewable electricity (from solar)

Supply side market map: renewables
Renewables
Solar
Advanced photovoltaics (PV)
Conventional PV
Solar water heating
Solar thermal electric
Marine
Wind
Onshore
Offshore
Small scale
Wave
Tidal
Thermal energy
Near-shore
Offshore
Shoreline
Tidal stream
Lagoons and barrages
Bio
Hydro
Geothermal
Large scale
Thermal
Small-scale
Biomass for heat
Biomass for electricity
Biogas
Bio fuels
Not exhaustive
Other
Priority areas

Supply side market map: clean technology
FF and Nuclear
Fuel cells
Large static
Portable
Small static
Coal
Nuclear
Fission
Fusion
Alternative
Cleaner Coal
Coalmine methane
Carbon Capture
and Storage
CHP
Gas Turbines
Large scale
Small-scale
Local grid-connected
1
2
3
4
Fossil fuels and nuclear (“brown to green”)
High efficiency combined
cycle gas turbine (CCGT)
Other
Not exhaustive
Priority areas

Supply side market map: clean technology
Other
T&D
Electricity T&D
Gas & alternative distribution
Grid connection
Hydrogen
Storage
Electrical
Thermal energy
Hybrid
Production
Storage
Distribution
Advanced
Batteries
Information
Systems
Alternative
Hydrocarbons
For energy users
Smart grid software / hardware
Other
“Other” Not exhaustive
Balance of system
Demand
response
Priority areas

Demand side market map: clean technology
Energy Efficiency
and Clean
Products
Transportation
Improved vehicles
Alternative transportation fuels
Smart logistics Industry
Buildings
Design
Controls
HVAC
Equipment*
Processes*
Control systems*
Clean
Products
Materials
Biomaterials and polymers
Nanotechnologies
Advanced chemicals
Energy efficiency and clean products Not exhaustive
Supply and distribution
Traffic management systems
Lighting systems
Advanced buildings materials
Zero waste lifecycle solutions
*Generic and industry specific
Product design
Lifecycle analysis
Evaluation and labelling
Packaging
Priority areas

Demand side market map: clean technology
Emissions, Waste
and Water
Emissions
Measurement and control
Compliance
Remediation
Water
Waste &
Related
Recycling
Usage reduction
Treatment
Emissions, waste, water and agriculture Not exhaustive
Trading
Offsets
Remediation and treatment
Usage efficiency
Pollution
Conservation
Appliances
Distribution
Storage
Treatment and purification
Salt to freshwater technologies
Remediation
Priority areas
Agriculture
Land management / crop selection
Natural interventions
Emissions

Interpreting Results of Product Carbon Footprinting Analysis

Interpreting Results of Product Carbon Footprinting Analysis

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