Ecochain

Ecochain provides carbon emission reduction solutions for the construction and infrastructure, textile, food and beverage, packaging, and services sectors. The platform has calculated more than 350,000 footprints for organizations in these areas. Ecochain provides the following solutions and services:

• LCA & EPD Reporting

• Impact reduction scenarios
• Life cycle databases

• Activity-based footprinting

• Portfolio analysis

• Company footprint & GHG (greenhouse gas protocol) assessment

• Science-based targets

• Specialist support

The Ecochain Environmental Intelligence Platform helps businesses simplify their environmental data in a format compliant to ISO standards and the GHG protocol. It provides climate strategy management and success measurement features.

5 Steps towards Carbon Neutrality

1. Assessment and baseline measurement of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The identification of direct, indirect and supply chain emissions are key metrics for sustainability strategy.

2. The deliverables are defined by the client and impact-reducing strategies are developed alongside Ecochain's support team. The Environmental Intelligence Platform helps to define and compare scenarios for the emissions of companies by identifying possible alterations in their business models. These include changes regarding:

• Energy efficiency

• Renewables
• Electrification
• Transport & logistics
• Supplier energy efficiency
• Alternative materials
• Bio-based materials
• Business travel
• Supply chain re-configuration
• Circular business models: reuse; recycle; refurbish

3. Calculation of adequate reduction targets and the creation of an implementation strategy based on the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI).

4. Execution and monitoring of the developed carbon reduction plan. Improvements can be tracked in the carbon reduction portfolio, which delineates progress and provides feedback in relation to the set Science Based Targets. Ecochain supports clients by collecting data throughout their organizations.

5. Analysis and offsetting of carbon mission to achieve carbon neutrality. The Ecochain platform enables the assessment of carbon emission offsetting costs and benefits. Various offsetting methodologies can be compared, such as VER, Gold Standard, and TreesForAll. Ecochain helps its clients analyze and communicate the results following the implementation.

One use example is exchanging a carbon-heavy raw material in the supply chain for a more eco-friendly alternative. The platform lets clients compare different scenarios side-by-side on a company and product level, meaning that the evaluation can be directed at single products and their parts or the entire product portfolio.

Ecochain's solutions help analyze what drives the environmental impact of a particular product, complex portfolio of products, process, or the entire supply chain. They are ISO-certified and conform to ISO 14040/44. Ecochain's solutions are based on prominent LCI (life cycle inventory) databases, such as ecoinvent and USLCI, and provide dedicated specialist support.

Ecochain's Activity-based Footprinting technology enables the generation of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and life cycle assessment (LCA) summaries.Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are standardized documents that provide information a product’s potential environmental and human health impact.

Ecochain enables visualization of the impact of products, processes, and the value chain. Upon evaluation, the emissions of different products and services are presented in a visually-augmented way.

Impact visualization example

Ecochain has modeled products and organizations across many industries and accumulated more than 30,000 data sets. Databases in the Environmental Intelligence Platform include:

• ecoinvent 3.2 & 3.4

• Nationale Milieu Database 2.2 and 3.0

• Ecochain database

• Danish LCA Food Database

• CO2 Emissie Factoren (CO2 Prestatie Ladder)

• Greenhouse Marketers Database

• USLCI database

Custom datasets based on new products or processes can be built by Ecochain's specialists in cases in which new technologies incompatible with existing databases are being developed.

Ecochain complies with the following norms and standards:

• ISO 14040/44

• ISO 14067

• EN 15804

• PAS 2050

• European PEF

• European OEF

• ISO 14021/25
• ISO 14001 data framework

• ISO 50001 data framework

• GRI data framework environment

• EU Energy Efficiency Directive EED

Activity-based footprinting is a top-down approach that assigns overhead activities, inputs, and outputs to products and services, allowing for the measurement of the environmental footprint for thousands of products simultaneously.

Interactive dashboards provide insights into the emissions of a company's entire portfolio. They can illustrate the environmental impact of products by thorough comparisons based on revenue, sales numbers, impact, and other criteria.

The supplier dashboard compares the environmental impact of an organization's suppliers of products and services and assesses their environmental performance. In many industries, more than 80% of emissions are indirect emissions from the supply chain.

Ecochain claims that its Environmental Specialists work in focused industries and have industry expertise for many different sectors, such as agriculture, food, packaging, and construction. These specialists help clients interpret the results of environmental assessment, develop reduction strategies, and provide alternative paths of reducing environmental impact.