Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:723–730 DOI 10.1007/s11367-015-0875-x
UNEP/SETAC CORNER
Implementation of life cycle management practices in a cluster of companies in Bogota, Colombia Oscar Alberto Vargas Moreno 1 & Thomas E. Swarr 2 & Anne-Claire Asselin 3 & Llorenç Milà i Canals 3 & Tracey Colley 4 & Sonia Valdivia 5
Received: 20 February 2015 / Accepted: 11 March 2015 / Published online: 31 March 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
Abstract Purpose The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has been promoting the development and dissemination of a life cycle management capability maturity model (LCM CMM) to fully operationalize and eventually mainstream LCA into all facets of business, including product development, marketing, and strategic decision-making business processes. The capability framework defines a logical sequence of skill building based on the experiences of sustainability leaders that can speed learning for companies with less mature programs. Business improvement projects are designed to incrementally expand the span of concern from company objectives, to value chain viability, and ultimately to societal needs, while broadening the base of information and engaging a wider set of stakeholder views. Methods The UNEP/SETAC sponsored pilot tests of the LCM CMM in Cameroon, Uganda, South Africa, India, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The results from the pilot conducted by Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente (SDA) and a network of
Responsible editor: Mary Ann Curran * Thomas E. Swarr
[email protected] 1
Secretaría Distrial de Ambiente (SDA), Bogotá, Colombia
2
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 380 Edwards, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
3
Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, United Nations Environment Programme, 75009 Paris, France
4
Colley Consulting Pty Ltd./Sustaining Australia, Stockton, Australia
5
World Resources Forum, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
22 companies in Bogotá, Colombia, are presented to illustrate how the capability approach can be applied and highlight lessons learned to promote further dissemination of life cycle practices. Results and discussion The companies were able to apply the concepts to develop accurate, representative assessments of organizational maturity and to identify reasonable improvement projects that delivered some financial value in the short term, addressed a management system gap identified in the maturity assessment, and could be completed within the schedule deadline of the contract (∼6 to 9 months). The projects included an LCA of cleaning products, collaboration among three companies to find a better solution for managing a waste stream of coffee Bsilver skins,^ a streamlined assessment of acrylic products, an LCA of disposable polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) cups, and a qualitative screening of operations of a transit company. The paper discusses how the results of the studies were used to identify specific improvement projects tailored to the specific needs and priorities of each company. Conclusions The pilot projects showed that the capability maturity approach had intuitive appeal and the companies were able to apply the concepts to their organizations with limited technical support and identify an appropriate improvement project with LC relevance. This suggests there should be less emphasis on LCA as a tool to identify projects and more as a method to gain insights for effective implementation of business-relevant projects. One key question is how to sustain the energy and ongoing improvements fostered by this pilot program.
Keywords Business strategy . Capability maturity model . Life cycle assessment . Life cycle management . Organizational development
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1 Introduction There are growing demands for companies to measure the performance of their suppliers and report progress in reducing environmental impacts associated with the entire supply chain of their products. A proliferation of eco-labels, certification schemes, and reporting standards, such as Walmart’s Sustainability Consortium, the Sustainable Apparel Higg Index, the Global Reporting Initiative, and so on, have been developed to hold corporations accountable. The concept of Btraceability^—the capacity to track products and their ingredients or components back to their original source—based on the same advances in information and communication technology (ICT) that enables coordination of globally dispersed suppliers, is being promoted to meet the public’s heightened expectations of accountability. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been recognized as the standard for quantifying environmental performance from cradle to grave (Guinée et al. 2011; Hellweg and Milá i Canals 2014). Yet, approximately half of companies acknowledge they have limited visibility beyond the first tier of global supply chains that can have five or more tiers (O’Rourke 2014). Suppliers can easily be overwhelmed by many requests for data and may challenge the value of collecting and reporting detailed data. There is concern that small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in developing economies, lack the basic capacity to provide high-quality data for the various supply chain metrics, let alone conduct comprehensive LCAs. SME companies in developing economies also face additional barriers due to a high proportion of foreign suppliers with logistical, cultural, and influence factors that impede data access for LCA. Even if the suppliers had the capability, business managers often complain that LCAs impose unacceptable costs and provide limited business value. This view has been fostered by a lack of progress in integrating the sustainability metrics into routine business decisionmaking processes (O’Rourke 2014). The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative was launched in 2002 to address these and other concerns and has adopted a mission Bto enable the global use of credible life cycle knowledge for more sustainable societies.^ One of three key work program areas in the current phase III (2012–2016) is focused on capability development and implementation, to fully operationalize and eventually mainstream LCA into product development, marketing, and strategic decision-making business processes. One activity under this work program has been to develop and disseminate a life cycle management capability maturity model (LCM CMM). The objectives being promoted to achieve sustainable supply chains are typically based on the best practices of the global leaders. These best practices have resulted from years, and sometimes decades, of incremental learning. The leaders had to first wrestle with basic compliance, then move up
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through pollution prevention, design for environment, and LCA to effectively address sustainable development objectives. Companies starting today on the sustainability journey must go through this same logical sequence of step-by-step learning to build the capacity for more rigorous and comprehensive methodologies demanded by sustainability initiatives. One of the core challenges of sustainable value chains is that all companies (to remain economically competitive) must obey the global logic of free markets. However, sustainability is inherently location-based. The appropriate environmental solution will be dependent on local geography and the resilience of local eco-systems, as well as the values and development priorities of the local community. Whether the company will be able to benefit financially is also dependent on these contexts, as well as its position in the supply chain, industry sector, and competitive strategy. It will be extremely difficult to reconcile these conflicting objectives using only a topdown deployment of international sustainability objectives. The capability framework is grounded in the experiences of the sustainability leaders—what worked and what did not work—to define a logical sequence of skill building that can speed learning for companies with limited capacity for LCA. The framework is structured around decision-making processes, information and metrics, and span of concern to enable simple and practical self-assessments of organizational maturity. Business improvement projects are designed to incrementally expand the span of concern from individual goals to company objectives, then to value chain viability, and ultimately to societal needs. The intent is to also have projects build on a broadening base of information used to support decisions by including non-financial data on resource inputs and environmental impacts and by incorporating diverse stakeholder views. The LCM CMM is summarized in Table 1. The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative announced a call for proposals from companies to pilot test application of the LCM CMM approach, by implementing a project which integrated life cycle thinking into their business management and operations. Eight projects were conducted in Cameroon, Uganda, South Africa, India, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The results from the pilot conducted by Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente (SDA) and a network of 22 companies in Bogota, Colombia, are presented to illustrate how the capability approach can be applied and highlight lessons learned to promote further dissemination of life cycle practices.
2 Methods SDA is the environmental authority for Bogotá City. Its more traditional responsibilities are to design, develop, and deploy environmental programs to ensure compliance and promote a sustainable future for the city, but the agency also facilitates a network companies that have implemented environmental
Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:723–730 Table 1
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Overview of LCM CMM
Maturity level
Span of concern
Metrics
Appropriate projects
Qualified
Project or facility
Binary yes-no compliance; wastes
Efficient
Enterprise
Process inputs/outputs; eco-efficiency
Effective Adaptive
Value chain Society
LCA, cradle to grave Sustainability, resiliency indices
Basic work procedures/ skills, unit process improvements, waste minimization Interconnected processes, pollution prevention, process redesign, collaboration with key supplier or customer Eco-design, enterprise-wide initiative, value chain collaborations Public-private partnerships, community development outreach, public policy reform
management systems (EMS) and achieved a high level of performance. For this project, 22 companies started the process. Approximately 90 % of the companies are Colombian and two thirds are small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SME). Most are the companies are engaged in manufacturing, and the food sector is the most represented (approximately one third of the companies). A complete list of the participating companies is given in Table 2. All had completed a program with SDA to establish processes to ensure compliance, to learn cleaner production methods, and to implement a local EMS called District Environmental Excellence Program (PREAD). Most have been certified to ISO 14001, as well as ISO 9001. A Bcoach^ from SDA guided the pilot activities, and a Bmentor^ contracted by UNEP provided remote technical assistance via email and Skype conference calls. The coach had no prior experience with the LCM CMM, but used training materials developed in earlier phases of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative (Swarr et al. 2011). The training resources were translated into Spanish, and an initial training workshop was held with the participating companies to introduce the LCM CMM approach. The participating companies were then asked to complete the maturity self-assessments with guidance from the SDA coach. A questionnaire developed in the earlier phases was used to evaluating 12 business processes grouped into three categories.1 Leadership processes set the direction for the organization and determine if there is sufficient motivation and organizational support to achieve the defined goals. Life cycle management (LCM) processes provide the operational discipline to build, deliver, support, and retire product offerings in a safe, clean, equitable, and profitable manner. Enabling infrastructure processes ensure the necessary equipment, information, and people are in place over the long term. Seventeen companies from the SDA cluster completed the assessment. A second workshop was conducted with 12 of companies in attendance and facilitated by the pilot coach to review and consolidate the results of the maturity assessments. A third workshop was conducted with 16 companies in attendance and using a 1 A copy of the questionnaire and accompanying workbook can be downloaded from: http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/media/2360/20130211-4__ cmm_workbook_ilcm2012_s__valdivia.pdf. Accessed 9 March 2015
video conference to connect with the UNEP mentor to respond to questions about the maturity assessment and to provide some guidance for using the results to develop potential improvement projects. In addition, there were two formal presentations. Professor Paulo Romero of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia provided an overview of eco-design, and Professor Gonzalo Gómez of SDA gave a brief overview of environmental accounting. Two additional workshops were conducted by SDA with 10 companies to develop better understanding of the differences between cleaner production, environmental management systems, and life cycle management and how to integrate these various systems. Companies also shared experiences and challenges in developing and implementing improvement projects based on the LCM model. A sixth workshop was conducted (via video conference with the UNEP mentor) to review the improvement project concepts developed by the member companies and discuss potential barriers and challenges to implementation of the identified improvement projects. A final close-out meeting was conducted with the UNEP mentor attending in person. Companies gave presentations on their projects, and then onsite visits were conducted to provide additional feedback. The onsite visits enabled a much richer discussion than was feasible in the electronic virtual meetings.
3 Results The companies were able to complete a LCM maturity selfassessment, which were accurate and representative despite the lack of prior experience. This can be attributed to the previous work with SDA that, although not explicitly using the LCM CMM approach, was well aligned with the maturity model concepts. Companies incrementally developed skills of increasing complexity and effectiveness, starting with basic compliance and then moving to cleaner production and environmental management systems. The results of the maturity assessment for the cluster of companies are summarized in Fig. 1. The companies generally characterized their LCM maturity at the qualified or efficient level, with roughly half of the business processes at the qualified level and another third rated at the efficient level. The companies had established
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Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:723–730
Table 2 Initially participating companies
Company
Sector
Web site
Azul K S. A. Alimentos Nutrión S. A. Andria Logística S. A. S. Helms Bank Bogotá Plaza Hotel
Soaps and detergents Pet food Industrial waste management Financial Hospitality services
www.azulk.com.co www.nutrion.com.co www.andrialogistica.com www.grupohelm.com www.bogotaplazahotel.com
Challenger S. A. S. Colcafé S. A. S. Compañía Nacional de Chocolates S. A. Cristacryl de Colombia S. A. Gaseosas Colombianas S. A. Homecenter Koyomad S. A. Legis S. A. Mexichem S. A. B. Minipak S. A. Multidimensionales S. A. Pepsico Procables S. A. Protela SI 99 Somos K S. A.
Appliances Coffee products Chocolate products Acrylic products Beverage and soda Retail Meat products Books and publications PVC products Flexible packaging Packaging Food industry Electric wires and cables Textile products Transport Transport
www.challenger.com.co www.colcafe.com.co www.chocolates.com.co www.cristacryl.com www.postobon.com www.homecenter.com.co www.koyomad.com www.legis.com.co www.mexichem.com.co www.minipak.com.co www.grupophoenix.com www.pepsico.com.co www.procables.com.co www.protela.com.co www.si99.com.co www.somos.co
management systems with an annual review for environment and quality, but there was limited integration of environmental and social issues in routine business decision-making processes. Although there was strong management interest in LCM, implementation was limited, primarily due to a lack of understanding and experience. In particular, the business case for LCM was not clear. The most mature processes were related to production. There were also areas of strength in design processes related to pollution prevention and waste minimization, with established methods for cost-benefit analysis. Supplier programs were in an early stage of development, with some innovative projects, but these were not yet formalized programs with allocated resources. Progress was noted in the implementation of information technology to optimize the exchange of knowledge and best practices along the value chain, but many recognized an opportunity for improved integration of environmental information. The following improvement projects were identified as a result of the series of workshops: & &
Azul K S.A.—conducted an LCA of cleaning products. Colcafé S.A.S.—collaboration among a waste management company, a coffee company, and an egg producer to augment chicken manure with coffee Bsilver skins^ for more efficient operation of an anaerobic digester.
& & & & & & & & &
Helm Bank—developed screening criteria for green/ sustainable development financing. National Police—developed a block watch approach to environmental education as a strategy to build stronger relationships in the community. Multidimensionales S.A.—evaluated an consumer education programs to enhance packaging recycling rates Cristacryl de Colombia S.A.—evaluated ways to improve recovery and recycling of acrylic sheeting with their customers. Homecenter—developed programs to promote consumers switching to energy-saving light bulbs. Somos K S.A.—developed procedures for maintenance and calibration of fuel pumps to improve fuel efficiency of their busses. Legis S.A.—conducted an LCA of dairy production. Gaseosas Colombianas Sur S.A.—operational review to reduce losses in reverse logistics with suppliers. SI99 S.A.—developed a community project in company service geographical area.
The timing of the overall pilot study imposed some additional constraints in developing and implementing improvement projects. The goal was to identify projects that delivered some financial value in the short term, addressed a management system gap identified in the maturity assessment, and could be completed within the schedule deadline of the
Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:723–730 Fig. 1 LCM CMM of cluster of Bogota companies
727 100% 90% 80%
70% 60% 50%
LEADERSHIP
LCM PROCESSES
ENABLERS
40% 30%
Adapve
20%
Effecve
10%
Efficient
0%
Qualified
contract (∼6 to 9 months). Despite the schedule constraints, five projects were completed within the duration of the pilot program. Azul K first developed a qualitative screening tool that considered design, materials, manufacturing, marketing, waste generation, disposal, and market trends. The qualitative tool was used to evaluate their full product line, and liquid dishwashing detergent was elected for further analysis based on a high qualitative impact ranking and a growing market. Quantitative measurements were made on the existing pilot scale line that was being used to produce the product. Packaging was identified as a hot spot for impacts. Consumer behavior and lack of an adequate recycling infrastructure in Colombia, however, limited options for action. Azul K redesigned the plastic bottle and was able to reduce weight by ∼40 %, with no impact on the look or feel of the bottle to the end consumer. Colcafé organized a project in collaboration with Andria Logística, a waste hauler, and Santa Reyes, an egg producer, to find a better solution for managing a waste stream of coffee silver skins. These are a membrane coating on the bean that is separated during processing. The coffee silver skins represent a significant waste stream in terms of volume and cost of disposal. The material is bulky, requiring ample storage space, and is expensive to transport because of the large volume. The project was to evaluate the substitution of the silver skins for sawdust currently used to solidify the poultry manure at Santa Reyes and to adjust the carbon/nitrogen ratio for anaerobic digestion. The silver skins are essentially carbon and have a very low humidity content after coffee roasting. These properties have added value for the digestion of chicken manure, balancing the high nitrogen content for odor control and compensating for the high liquid content. The logistics of waste transport were also optimized to further reduce costs. Previously, the disposal of the silver skins resulted in an empty truck return trip. With the new process, Andria Logística picked up a waste load at Santa Reyes after delivering the silver skins, eliminating any empty truck trips.
Cristacryl uses a unique batch casting process to produce 100 % acrylic sheets of superior quality. The company conducted a streamlined assessment of its products. The raw materials are imported, making data acquisition difficult. There was also limited ability for a small company to impose any changes in the bulk chemical markets. Therefore, the company focused on improved communications with customers to promote recycling and minimize landfill disposal of the acrylic material. A customer survey highlighted opportunities to further optimize their use of acrylic, positioning the company as a high-value supplier of superior quality products. Multidimensionales conducted a LCA of disposable polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) cups. The goals of the project were to increase recovery and recycling of postconsumer waste to avoid landfill disposal and reduce costs of waste treatment. The project encountered several challenging barriers. Markets for use of recycled PS-PP are poorly developed and many consumers perceive recycled materials as lower quality products. There is also a lack of infrastructure for the recovery and recycle of PP-PS. Although there is a high volume of waste, the logistics of collecting the material and cleaning it for inclusion in recycling processes are costly. The company is planning to work with its suppliers of PP-PS resins to better understand the upstream impacts. It has also targeted managers of shopping malls as a high leverage point for improving the logistics of collecting post-consumer waste. Somos K also used a qualitative screening to identify priorities and decided to focus on maintenance operations and in particular fuel consumption. A detailed study, with the assessment of Professor Paulo Romero of National University, was conducted that identified eight key drivers of fuel consumption for the fleet, from the point of view of Ecodesign. The busses have been purchased over time to increasingly stringent emission requirements, moving from Euro 2 to Euro 5 standards. The first project focused on the Euro 3 busses, the first with electronic fuel controls and with the lowest efficiency of the fleet, because of the tighter emission standards. Somos K collaborated with the supplier of the fuel injectors
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to improve maintenance procedures. It was discovered that the in-house procedure did not include all the elements of the supplier’s recommended calibration process. The supplier conducted training sessions for the maintenance staff at the Somos K depot. The project had recalibrated the fuel injectors for approximately half of the busses with Euro3 technology, improving the fleet average fuel efficiency from 6.7 to 6.92 km/g. A second project was focused on excessive idling in the maintenance depot. The entire fleet is parked at the depot when not in use. Thus, the depot has a large footprint, and it is easy for an idling bus to go unnoticed. Again, the company partnered with its supplier to install electronic systems to automatically shut off an idling bus after a set period of time. The company consulted with the maintenance employees to understand which procedures required idling the bus, so that the shut off time could be set in a way that did not interfere with required activities.
4 Discussion The participating companies were able to complete the maturity self-assessment and produce quality results. However, it was less clear how those results were used to help structure the identified improvement projects to address any gaps identified in the self-assessment. There was a natural tendency to focus more on quantified measures of improved environmental performance. There were many questions on the assessment process that were focused on Bgetting the correct rating^ rather than on identifying useful insights on organizational strengths and weaknesses. This is not surprising given the number of audits and certification schemes that are being imposed on global supply chains. Organizational change research has shown that sustained high performance depends on a balance of top-down initiatives for results driven action and bottom-up organizational development efforts to instill a culture of continual improvement (Beer 2001). However, the softer organizational development objectives are difficult to measure and therefore often receive less management attention. A recent survey of industry executives not only highlighted the importance of building capabilities but also showed that few companies had structured programs with objective, third-party diagnostics to guide their efforts (Benson-Armer et al. 2015). The survey respondents also identified as a key barrier, the lack of credible metrics on the business impact of capabilitybuilding initiatives. Results of these improvement projects also showed numerous challenges in effectively communicating the benefits of LCM in terms meaningful to business managers. A common observation across several projects was that additional guidance was needed on how to tailor the capability approach to specific industry sectors and how to interpret LCA studies in terms of business opportunities. The expense
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and time required for collecting data was identified in several projects as a barrier, and even after completing a LCA study, participants were often not clear on how to best use the information. The participants struggled to convert LCA results to effective action. There was some confusion caused by a lack of distinction between LCA and LCM. Despite training materials that attempted to present LCM as a collection of tools and methods, many companies felt obligated to complete more comprehensive LCA studies, almost as a compliance requirement. However, in the end, it was clear that project selection was (appropriately) driven by business objectives. A good example was the LCA completed by Cristacryl. Environmental impacts were primarily due to the upstream production of chemicals used in the process. Managers questioned the value of collecting data on the chemical production chain because they had little ability to impact those suppliers. Thus, the environmental hot spot was not relevant, or material, from a business perspective. The company focused on customer processes to improve their yields and ensure recovery and recycling of their waste materials. This strengthened the brand image of the company as a high-quality supplier, reducing the need to compete on the basis of price alone, as well as extracting more value for a given amount of impact due to the chemical inputs. In addition, the company was able to recover some high-quality scrap to use in a complementary product line, improving their operations and preventing the high value scrap from becoming an input to a competitor’s product line. Another area of potential miscommunication between LC advocates and business managers was on the scope of action. LCA and LCM challenge the organization to consider the full product life cycle, from cradle to grave. Yet, many companies, particularly SME suppliers at lower tiers, face significant barriers regarding their ability to control or influence impacts across the product life cycle. Thus, companies must identify improvement opportunities within their scope of action and where they can capture some financial benefit. Multidimensionales is using its improved understanding of the life cycle of PP and PS cups to learn how to close the material loop, but their ability to reduce impacts will require convincing stakeholders to change their behaviors regarding product disposal and will depend on the existence of a functional recycling infrastructure. Selecting shopping malls as a high leverage point for early action was inspirational as there were economically feasible amounts and recovery costs, as well as a high visibility location for stakeholder education efforts. Azul K faced similar barriers in addressing the impacts attributable to its packaging—consumer habits and lack of a recycling infrastructure. Reducing packaging weight with a design change that was invisible to the consumer was an effective choice within their scope of action and one that yielded immediate cost benefits to the company in terms of raw material and transport costs.
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Several of the projects highlighted both the value of a regional focus and the challenges and measured benefits of the projects. Many of the projects have spill-over benefits that are valuable, but can be difficult to quantify (Stiglitz and Greenwald 2014). Somos K focused on fuel consumption as a priority within their scope of action as it addressed both environmental and financial benefits. However, the reduced emissions also yielded health benefits to their riders, as well as residents of Bogotá. Their projects succeeded by leveraging the strengths of key suppliers and by engaging employees to effectively integrate the improved practices into standard routines. These relationship-building experiences are likely to improve the odds of sustaining the improvements and build a culture of continual improvement that will be valuable, even if it is difficult to quantify in economic terms. The Colcafé project is another good example of a project that has numerous spillover benefits. The type of collaborative project implemented by Colcafé, Andria Logística, and Santa Reyes has a high transaction cost. The project required extensive communication and coordination among the partner companies. It would be extremely difficult to imitate these kinds of projects with an arm-length contractual approach. Successfully implementing the project required complex business and social skills that will likely bring future benefits to Colcafé. Another success factor was that the company had a clear management vision using LC thinking to reimagine the waste silver skins as a product. The waste silver skins were shipped in large bulky bags, costly to transport (limited by volume rather than weight) and handle at Santa Reyes. The company is now applying its product expertise to evaluating compacting and packaging options to improve handling and logistics. These projects both highlight the significance of social capital that receives benefits from regional collaboration. Somos K has implemented improvements that provide public health benefits. While not providing a direct financial return to the company to help offset implementation costs, these could contribute to reputation and indirect benefits. Colcafé, Andria Logística, and Santa Reyes must equitably share the various costs and benefits of their project. For example, the elimination of an empty truck run due to improved logistics can provide reduced disposal costs to Colcafé or Santa Reyes or improved operating margins for Andria Logística. The existence of the network of companies with a history of collaboration on environmental management can be considered an important enabler for these kinds of projects. The improved communications and relationship-building also applies within the participating companies. For example, the LCA conducted by Azul K involved people across all functions at the company, producing improved cross-functional communication and collaboration. This represents an investment in social capital that can be expected to continue to yield gains. Another critical success factor was the facilitations and support provided by SDA. The previous programs on
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compliance and environmental management systems were of significant benefit in preparing the participating companies for this pilot study. The results of these earlier efforts help establish credibility and build trust, both necessary prerequisites to encourage voluntary projects to advance environmental performance. It is easy for these kinds of change programs to be lost in the immediate pressures of productions schedules and other business priorities. A host organization that takes the lead in organizing meetings, coordinating communications, etc. is vital in nurturing a vibrant network. Even with the ongoing support, there was some drop off in participation throughout the project. Follow-on communications to share the results and lessons learned of those companies that did complete projects by SDA is yet another key benefit to build and strengthen the network.
5 Conclusions and recommendations The pilot projects showed that the capability maturity approach had intuitive appeal, and the companies were able to apply the concepts to their organizations with limited technical support. These results support the idea of a bottom-up strategy for building LCM capability of SME suppliers. There were key gaps. There is a need for further guidance in how to tailor LCM to specific industry sectors and organizational needs. There is also a need for additional guidance on how to interpret the potential business impacts of the results from LCA studies (quantitative or qualitative). Many companies still fail to make a distinction between LCA and LCM. Most of the projects were led by the environmental function, which may have contributed to the emphasis on LCA as the required analytical tool. Strong management vision and cross-functional teams characterized the more successful projects. Perhaps, the greatest benefit of the LCA studies was promoting communication across the intra- and interorganization boundaries. Despite their self-assessment indicating a limited understanding of LCM principles and practices, the companies were able to conduct a reasonable assessment of their operations and to focus their initial efforts on an appropriate improvement project with LC relevance, even when the project selection was driven by business priorities. This suggests there should be less emphasis on LCA as a tool to identify improvement projects and more as a method to gain insights for effective implementation of projects. Because these were pilot studies, the projects tended to run in parallel to normal operating routines, especially with respect to information systems. There is a real need for guidance on how to integrate LCA studies and data systems with the information systems the company uses to manage its business. These company experiences support the fundamental concept of maturity levels. There is a need to first develop robust measurement procedures and data management systems for problem
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analysis, which will initially be focused on unit processes. This prerequisite is closely related to the gap on determining critical data elements of LCA studies and requires an understanding of how to relate LCA to the key performance indicators (KPIs) used to manage the business. The integration of data collection into the company’s processes for operational control is a necessary building block for integrating LCM principles with the business strategy. Finally, perhaps the most significant challenge is how to sustain the energy and ongoing improvements fostered by this pilot program. Such improvement efforts are often viewed as discretionary and can be lost in the pressures of daily production problems. Throughout the pilot, there was an attrition of companies that attended the workshop, dropping from 22 to 11 at the final closeout conference. Those that participated throughout, however, are highly engaged and willing to continue the effort. Some kind of supporting infrastructure to link groups such as this to other groups or to subject matter experts is a critical need to make this initiative sustainable. The role of SDA in this pilot was a critical success factor. Participants asked for additional guidance on how to better promote and manage necessary change within their organizations. There is also the question of how much LC expertise is required and where it should reside within the organization. These are critical management issues that are not typically part of the outreach efforts of LC initiatives.
Int J Life Cycle Assess (2015) 20:723–730 Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for the support of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative and the European Commission for the pilot studies. Ethical statement This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
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