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Building the Sustainability Pathway!
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| EarthShift Newsletter | March 2012 |
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 Greetings!
This spring brings plenty of opportunities for you to advance your LCA skills and prepare for the ACLCA exam. Our popular Recycling Modeling class starts March 14th and our in-depth Environmental Mechanisms & Impact Assessment Methods starts April 17th. Join our new Practical LCA in PackageSmart three-hour web class starting March 19 and receive a three-month temporary license to PackageSmart. Take a look below for our complete list of courses coming up.
Read the results of a Sustainability ROI (S-ROI) evaluation of switching a diesel-run bus fleet over to bio-diesel in our latest blog post, and then register for a working tutorial workshop explaining this exciting methodology at the Sustainable Packaging Symposium April 3rd in Houston.
In other EarthShift news:
- TRACI 2 and an update to the US LCI database are now available for all up-to-date SimaPro users in the latest version 7.3.3.
- Join Bo Weidema on September 20th & 21st in our two-day hands-on Consequential LCA course being offered in Seattle, in conjunction with the LCA XII conference. This is a once a year opportunity. Last year, the course filled up quickly, so don't miss your opportunity. Sign up now!
- Welcome the newest member of the EarthShift team: Shelly Martin!
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 Practical LCA in PackageSmart
Many packaging designers are looking for a method to accurately and efficiently evaluate their sustainable design decisions in order to meet growing market demands. If you have done any research in this area, then you know that Life Cycle Assessment is a hot topic in the packaging industry. Are you interested in learning more about how you can apply this methodology to your design process using a packaging-specific tool?
This course was designed to introduce students to PackageSmart and provide a practical experience applying the LCA methodology as defined in ISO 14040/14044.
Sign up for the March 19 course and also receive a free three-month trial of PackageSmart! |
 Carbon Conference- Evaluating a switch from diesel to bio-diesel
On Friday, February 10, a group of 20 engineers gathered in Orlando for a workshop on Sustainability ROI (S-ROI). The goal of the daylong session was to analyze the potential risks and benefits of retrofitting a petroleum diesel bus fleet to run on soy-based biodiesel.
The workshop, which concluded the inaugural Carbon Management Technology Conference, was billed as "Sustainability Metrics for Carbon Management Technologies: Use of Life Cycle and Full Cost Accounting."
If the conversion to biofuels was to be undertaken, it would obviously need to be profitable for the bus operator, but what about for the state government, or for local residents?
Read more at http://earthshiftblog.wordpress.com/.
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 Environmental Mechanisms & Impact Assessment Methods- online course
This course was developed for LCA practitioners without a background in environmental science to prepare them for questions on the LCA Practitioners Certification exam, relating to the mechanisms behind an impact category's damage. This four-session class delves into the details of how various impact assessment methods are modeling the fate, transport & exposure pathways (causality chain, mechanisms) of emissions, allowing you to understand each impact category. The course will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the major internationally accepted impact assessment methods, thus allowing you to choose the best method for your LCA study. The course is split up in to four three-hour online sessions between April 17 and June 19. For more details, see our full course description. |
Welcome Shelly to the EarthShift team!
EarthShift is happy to announce a new addition to our team, Shelly Martin. As our new Sustainability Analyst, Shelly will be taking on LCA and Carbon Management consulting projects in addition to teaching some of our online courses. Shelly studied Environmental Studies and Government at St. Lawrence University where she conducted her senior research on climate change policies. For the last three years, she worked as an analyst for Spring Hill Solutions, a carbon management, clean energy, and business sustainability consulting firm. In addition to her work as a consultant, Shelly is a ski racing coach in Park City, UT. We at EarthShift embrace her sustainability policy expertise, fun-loving spirit and think she'll make a great addition to the team! |
TRACI 2 Method Available for download
A new version of the TRACI 2 method, which focuses specifically on North America, has been released.
Changes to the method include:
1) Toxicity impact categories taken directly from the USEtox method:
- Human toxicity cancer
- Human toxicity non-cancer
- Ecotoxicity
2) Characterization factors were added for aggregated substances and compounds (see documentation inside the method for details)
Please refer to the 7.3.3 update email sent by PRe for download instructions. If you have a valid service contract and did not receive the update email, contact support@pre-sustainability.com. If you need to renew your service contract, please contact us at info@earthshift.com. |
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New PackageSmart Software
Watch this video to find out about a tool specifically built for packaging designers to be able to easily evaluate the impacts of multiple packaging options.
A Free One Month Demo
Click here to Start Now! |
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SimaPro LCA software
SimaPro is a tool to collect, analyze and monitor the environmental performance of products and services.
Drill down and get to the source with SimaPro
- Transparent Unit Process Data
- Process, Input/Output and Hybrid LCA's
- Complete Networks
- Hotspot Analysis
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LCA Training Certificate Program
Our multi-step LCA training certificate program is designed to couple LCA modeling skills with LCA interpretation and report writing skills, preparing you to become an LCA professional. |
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Custom Tool Development
Get your own environmental impact calculator with:
- Easy to use & Simplified Interface
- Comprehensive Data & Calculation ability
- ISO Compliant Reporting Features
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Upcoming Conferences
Sustainable Packaging Symposium
April 3-5
Houston, TX
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| | Upcoming Training Courses... | | *indicates on-site class (all others are online) |
Introduction to LCA - March 6
To introduce students to the concept of life cycle thinking, and the ISO standard methodology for conducting a LCA.
Modeling Recycling in LCA - March 14 & 15 To give students an understanding of the procedures/methods being used to best allocate for different recycling scenarios.End of Life Advanced - March 14
Take this in-depth course to learn the how to represent the end of life of products in your LCA. This course will give you hands on experience in SimaPro by building a Life Cycle of an ink jet cartridge and using this example to model end of life scenarios.
To give students hands-on experience developing and using parameters in the SimaPro LCA software. Practical LCA in PackageSmart - March 19 To introduce students to PackageSmart and provide practical experience applying the LCA methodology as defined in ISO 14040/14044.
Hands on workshop on using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology to evaluate packaging designs Applied LCA in SimaPro - March 28 & 29 This is a two part, six hour online providing hands-on experience learning the SimaPro software and reviewing the basics of life cycle assessment (covered in our Introduction to LCA course).End of Life Beginning - April 10 Take this course to learn the how to quickly and easily build life cycles and accurately represent the end of life of products in your LCA.Creating Impact Assessment Methods - April 11 To give students hands-on experience building a custom impact assessment method in SimaPro. Preparing your Report for Critical Review - April 12 To prepare students to critique their corporate LCA reports. To demonstrate to participants how to promote their findings with persuasive LCA reports that follow ISO 14040/14044 requirements for transparent, fair, complete and accurate reporting.
Environmental Mechanisms & Impact Assessment Methods - April 17, May 8 & 29 & June 19 To explain the methodology for how environmental impacts are evaluated in a life cycle assessment (LCA) and to provide the basic knowledge required for interpreting LCA results.
*Introduction to LCA in SimaPro - April 24 & 25, Seattle, WA
To introduce students to SimaPro and teach the methodological details as standardized in the ISO 14040/14044 LCA methodology.
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| Contact Us!! |
| EarthShift
802 434-3326
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