In cooperation with one of our consulting partners, Loop Initiatives, CarbonCounted has developed a Carbon Calculator for the LCBO.

Check it out here
(click on “Try the Carbon Calculator”)

CarbonCounted can help you deploy similar calculators to share information about your products and services. Solutions can be developed that are directly integrated with your your CarbonCounted Membership account data, or they can be simple stand-alone solutions.

Please Contact Us for additional details.

Andrew spoke about product carbon footprint efforts in Canada with Anna Maria Tremonti this morning on The Current, CBC Radio One.

Here’s an article written by Neil Kudrinko that describes his experience using CarbonCounted.

We enjoyed speaking at the Show me the Green 2011 presentation this past weekend, Saturday, March 12th.

Andrew Conway spoke about using a using some of an emission mitigation budget to look at the supply chain.

Check out the program here.

CarbonCounted is pleased to announce the release of CarbonConnect 2.7.  Among some of the enhancements include:

• The ability to capture cost per unit for each emission Source
• Additional descriptors for Sites such as “District” and “Region” used in reporting
• The introduction of new archive types such as Actual, Baseline and Targets to facilitate more robust reporting
• Enhanced privileges  that enable access to groups of Sites
• Several new reporting filters and options to make it easier to create custom reporting

To learn more, please browse our website including:

Information for Consulting Partners

Member Registration

Read about one of our members, Neil Kudrinko, and his efforts to reduce costs and emissions at his store.

Check out Kudrinko’s Grocery Store on Facebook.

CarbonCounted is continually updating and refining our leading enterprise carbon management system.

We are pleased to announce that we will be updating our CDP and GRI templates to ensure that they are compliant with the latest reporting format required by both organizations. This will make annual submissions to these sustainability reporting initiatives much less time consuming and more accurate.

Click the thumbnails to see a sample of these reports:

We welcome any feedback or suggestions to this or any other features with our system.

During the past week members of CarbonCounted have been enjoying the latest update to CarbonConnect.  This update has new functionality that is helpful for our consulting partners, but it also updates the system with helpful items for everyone.  Here are some of the things members will notice:

• The Dynamic Report system has been upgraded to integrate with Crystal Reports 2008.  This upgrade improves reporting speed and allows us to create more sophisticated report templates.  Did you know that CarbonCounted will help you design and implement custom report templates for use in the system?  If you have a something in mind, please Contact Us.
• We’ve improved the Manage Sources page so that the details of each emission source are accessible separately by clicking on a “+” sign.  This has dramatically improved the loading speed for the screen for members with a large number of sources.  It also allows us to display additional details about the emission source in an elegant manner.  The details now include the Reference, Scope and Standard for the source.
• In the CarbonConnect Search Engine you can now search and add emission sources based on Category (including Scope types like, “Refrigeration” and “Fugitive Emissions”), Reference and Standard.
• In the CarbonConnect Search Engine you can also click on “Search IPCC” to review and research some of the emission source values that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has listed in their database.
• Finally, in addition to some of the functionality we’ve provided to our consulting partners, we’ve also done several background upgrades and optimization to allow for the development of key items we’ve identified for the next 3 released including a completely new look to the application.

As always, if you have any ideas or feedback please Contact Us.

Thanks!

-The CarbonCounted Development Team

CarbonCounted is excited to announce a partnership with Green Enterprise Ontario (GEO). GEO is a leading business association that works with its members to develop sustainable business practices, market their initiatives and grow their business.

CarbonCounted will provide GEO members with the free use of CarbonConnect Lite. Now GEO members will be able to measure, manage and understand their organization’s greenhouse gas emissions via a secure, easy to use web based application.

For GEO Member’s willing to further examine their Product Carbon Footprint, they can easily transition to a full version and take advantage of CarbonConnect’s unique footprinting features.

CarbonCounted has partnered with the Sustainability Solutions Group (SSG) to collaborate on SSG’s Carbon Account program.

Carbon Account is a carbon audit and reduction program tailored to the unique needs of non profit organizations.

Our CarbonConnect platform will provide SSG with the ability to provide fast, accurate and cost effective carbon measurement.

Please follow this link for more details of Carbon Account.

CarbonCounted Co-Founder, Andrew Conway, will be speaking at the Managing Carbon, Energy, Water and Waste Conference. The event will feature best practices and case studies on translating sustainability initiatives into measurable business value from a broad range of organizations.

CarbonCounted partners and clients will receive a 10% discount when registering.

September 27 – 28, 2010
Hyatt Regency on King, Toronto

For more information and registration see the MCEWW Conference Brochure

Reading Quebec budget tackles climate change http://bit.ly/9NGIBF

Welcome to our newest consulting partner, Forte Ventures.

Reading: Countdown to Copenhagen 2009, where CarbonCounted is listed as CEMS as well as our supply chain function.

Reading a post on the ANEC website where CarbonCounted is sighted as the Canadian product carbon footprint labelling scheme.

Please check out a recent Case Study by one of our consulting partners, CarbonForesight.

The MaRS Centre, outlines use of CarbonCounted for operational footprint, including individual footprints for an impressive list of tenants!

In this video, posted in this article on Environmental Leader, Michael Levine, of Epstein, Becker & Green, discusses the importance of measuring the sustainability of a supply chains.

The discussion was part of a Carnegie Council event, “Sustainable Branding: A U.S.-Japan Corporate Dialogue,” which took place on Sept.17, 2009.

It’s exciting to hear the concept of measuring and managing the sustainability of supply chains being so clearly described as beneficial to both branding and the bottom line.

CarbonCounted’s method and system is designed from the bottom up to allow a business to measure and manage the sustainability of their suppliers.  Our system measures the supply chain in terms of Scope 3 emissions.  Suppliers provide their emissions per product, and their customers enter the quantity they have purchased.  We believe it is a simple, elegant solution to managing the carbon emissions in a supply chain.

Please contact us if you are interested in how CarbonCounted can help your business capture Scope 3 emissions from your supply chain.

There’s an article in Industry Week as identified by the WRI that does a great job of describing some of the challenges and opportunities in measuring and managing the Scope 3 emissions from the logistics component of a business’s supply chain.

The method and system used by CarbonCounted can address many of these challenges and provides what we believe are significant benefits:

1. Logistics businesses can do their GHG inventory and then publish their transportation emissions, such as tonne*avg km, once and in one spot.  There’s no need to respond uniquely and directly to all incoming inquiries from customers when it comes to your product carbon footprint(s).
2. The same logistics business can also work with their selected consulting firm (or independently) to submit their data to the CDP or other registries.
3. The same logistics business can also link to their supply chain so that the full chain through to their customers is linked and “live”.
4. Businesses can “shop” in the system for lower Scope 3 emission logistics businesses.  This drives emission reductions through competition, and not taxes/regulations.
5. When the logistics businesses makes changes to their operations to reduce their emissions, the reduction is automatically passed on to their customers.  Likewise, if their suppliers find reductions, it will link and pass through in the same manner.
6. The logistics business can work together with other businesses in their industry to compare averages and identify best practices.

Please contact us if you are interested in how CarbonCounted can help your business capture Scope 3 emissions from your supply chain, or if you would like to become part of our program and provide emission data to your customers.

The Chicago Herald posted this article on October 3, 2009.

How would CarbonCounted help with some of the concerns in the carbon offset market?

1) We are encouraging offset providers to use CarbonCounted as a neutral platform to calculate and third-party verify the business and personal carbon emissions to be offset.  We have some providers signed up.   We believe this brings legitimacy to the offset provider.

2) Offset projects can be third-party verified within the our system.

2) When offsets are available in our system, we are able to keep track of those who use them as Sources.  The offset provider inputs the total amount of carbon from a project available.  Then, we have the ability to track when an offset has been consumed by businesses using them to offset their verified emissions.

3) As a third party, not-for-profit platform that does not do consulting or sell offsets, CarbonCounted does not have any conflicts of interest with the offset market.

Please contact us if you are interested in how CarbonCounted can address concerns in the carbon offset market.

This article Report Shows Future Growth, Current Challenges for Carbon Software Market | ClimateBiz.com raises three important issues businesses are facing now and for the near future:

1. What ECM software do I purchase?

2. Is it worth what I will be paying for it?

3. Will it still be relevant or even exist in a few years?

In a way, CarbonCounted competes with ECM software to become a globally recognized and used public platform standard.  However, we do also look for opportunities to integrate with ‘competitive’ ECM software offerings so that businesses can use our supply chain and verification functionality.   If businesses take only the route of the ‘leading’ software solutions being served out there, they will forego the opportunity to link supply chains and produce product carbon footprints.

We believe that in order to truly drive change, the carbon data linking up supply chains needs to be on a neutral, platform like CarbonCounted.  That is, the application is served-up by a nor-for-profit third party that doesn’t have conflicts of interest in consulting, offsets, marketing, profit etc.

We encourage our experienced partners and clients to write to both ClimateBiz  and Verdantix  about the benefits of CarbonCounted as I have done today. We hope that a community effort can affect who the deserving spotlight falls on next.

We have also posted details on this article in our CarbonCounted Community.

We had another great inquiry today asking if and how our method can do life cycle assessment (LCA).

LCA adds in-use and disposal components of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a product carbon footprint (PCF). The most popular standard for doing LCA is PAS 2050, as developed by the BSI Standards Solutions. This is a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) for a method for measuring the embodied GHG emissions from goods and services at the request of Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the Carbon Trust.

The CarbonCounted method involves “many do small work” and linking up supply chains. As such, LCA using our method is not only possible, but it is easier and far more accurate. Each part of the supply chain is responsible for assessing their GHG emissions. When producing an LCA-based product carbon footprint (PCF), additional emission factors including waste components are included and verified to the standard. Then at the top of the chain, which is the final product, emissions for in-use and final disposal are added.

The benefit of the CarbonCounted method is two fold:

1) The final number involves the suppliers, so that emission reductions are being driven throughout a product’s supply chain. In promotes green purchasing and true reductions. If consumers choose one product over another because the LCA value is better, competition promotes GHG reductions directly though the supply chain.

2) It reduces (and in some cases eliminates) estimation. Each component is verified by a third party auditor.

The CarbonCounted method is standard independent. As such, it can be used to produce product carbon footprints to as many standards as the supply chain demands.

For more information please contact us.

The following presentation demonstrates how consulting organizations can use the CarbonConnect system for GHG inventory projects with their clients.

CarbonCounted is pleased to announce we have completed Phase 1 of our integration of the AMEE database of emission factors into CarbonConnect.  The current release of CarbonConnect, 2.4.4, provides a “Search AMEE” link in the Add Sources area of the system.  This link allows members to browse the AMEE database as a library of emission factors, which, as described on their website,

“AMEE is a leading global supplier of up-to-date emissions factors, powering carbon calculators and storing data for over 200 global organisations including The UK Government (Defra/DECC), The Irish Government, The Welsh Assembly, Google, Morgan Stanley, Nesta and Sun Microsystems.”

We believe that by providing our members with thousands of emission factors will strengthen our mandate to enable product carbon footprinting.

See the press release here, and follow replies to the release here.

Please contact us if you have any questions about this latest addition to our system.

Northmore Gordon is a consulting firm that provides climate change management advisory services, from policy and strategy right through to technical engineering solutions.
We specialise in:

• Sustainable energy technology
• Energy efficiency and energy management
• Greenhouse gas management and emissions trading

Enquiries : tim.burrows@northmoregordon.com

Sempre Avanti shared details on their successful 3 day exhibit at a Bizzone Conference in New Zealand. (more…)

One of our consulting partners, CarbonZero, was recently recognized as a top provider of carbon offsets as reviewed by the David Suzuki Foundation.

See their announcement here, and see the David Suzuki Foundation’s Purchasing Carbon Offsets guide here.

CarbonForesight has published a great case study outlying how they calculated the carbon footprint for Six Senses.  This is an excellent example of how CarbonCounted can be used for large company.  Six Senses has over 20 resorts and 30 spas in operation or under development throughout Asia, Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

Check out the great job that CarbonForesight has done at integrating a login to CarbonConnect through their website.

Sustainable Business Consulting Services – Carbon Foresight.

Please contact us if you would like to implement a similar solution.

Great call with AMEE http://www.amee.com discussing integration. Does this make sense for CarbonCounted?