Tool to enhance your enterprise’s sustainability performance

“Measuring your enterprise’s sustainability performance is often difficult and time consuming. Every year in the spring, an effort is made to locate and compile all of the relevant data from the previous year. This can be an onerous task, especially for enterprises that operate multiple business units at different locations,” says natural scientist Dr. Andy Spörri by way of explaining the challenge many enterprises face. Added to this is the difficulty that many enterprises have when it comes to identifying the smartest ways to reduce their carbon footprints. Indeed, what are the best approaches from both an environmental and an economic point of view?

Using an innovative SPT to calculate the most efficient actions

In the context of an innovation boost camp, an EBP team of environmental scientists, IT experts, graphic designers, and data visualization specialists developed an SPT prototype. The purpose of the tool is to enable enterprises to take a smart approach to achieving their self-imposed sustainability goals.

“A more targeted and customized approach to improving sustainability performance”

“We’re convinced that our SPT will enable enterprises to take a more targeted approach to identifying and implementing the enhancement actions that best match their circumstances,” says Isabel O’Connor by way of summarizing the team’s vision.

Automated recording, visualization and evaluation of key data

The SPT has a modular design and enables its users to analyze current states and to evaluate the efficiency of any implemented or prospective actions. To arrive at a current-state analysis, users record the relevant key data, for instance, the amount of electricity or materials their enterprises have consumed. While the relevant data are entered for each site of a multi-site enterprise, this can take place automatically via an interface, depending on the prerequisites met by the enterprise’s IT systems.

The SPT compiles the data and checks them for plausibility. This essentially permits it to detect outliers and identify erroneous input. The tool’s users are therefore afforded a clear and reliable visualization of their key data, replete with the display of hotspots, i.e. those tasks whose completion has the greatest environmental impact, or those business units that produce significant amounts of carbon emissions.

What actions will improve sustainability performance the most?

The tool also includes an evaluation component to assess any improvement measures. Users simply enter the implemented or planned actions, specify the type and quantity of the corresponding reductions, and note the costs associated with implementation. The SPT calculates both the environmental and cost impact of each action and ranks the actions in terms of their efficiency.

“Having tested the prototype, we’ll now turn to its further development,” says Andy Spörri. “The goal is to develop a marketable product, for instance, in the context of a joint venture with Reffnet.”

Interested in learning more about our sustainability performance tool (SPT)? Contact our project team:

Project team