Locus Introduces Visual Calculation Engine for ESG Reporting

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 1 March 2022 — Locus Technologies, the leading EHS Compliance, and ESG software provider, today announced the industry-first visual calculation engine for ESG reporting. Locus’s visual calculation engine helps companies easily set up and view their entire ESG data collection and reporting program, enabling full transparency throughout the entire process.  Through an interactive branching interface, ESG professionals can quickly identify areas where to focus efforts to improve their ESG performance. Companies that set goals in line with the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) can use Locus’s ESG software to track progress to reach those goals in a transparent and credible manner. 

Having a visual calculation engine reduces the burden, time, and potential inaccuracies associated with ESG reporting. The environmental portion of ESG reports includes complex calculations, factors, and numerous data inputs. The visual calculation engine goes beyond GHG (Greenhouse Gas) and addresses any calculations that are part of ESG reporting such as waste generation, resources, and water consumption. Through the visual hierarchical tree, companies can easily get to the sources of any raw data, factors, and formulas used to generate reported ESG metrics. 

With an increased focus on ESG reporting and transparency, ensuring accurate reporting is more important than ever. Locus’s award-winning ESG data tracking, analysis, reporting, and visualization software aims at helping organizations plan, implement, and accelerate net-zero strategies. Choosing the right calculation engine plays a crucial part in remaining compliant with rapidly evolving requirements and regulations. In the US, the SEC’s proposed rules expected this year will likely require public companies to report emissions from their operations, energy usage, and resources they consume. The SEC requirements are being driven by the fact that many investors are considering ESG disclosures in their investment decisions. With those requirements, there is an expectation that these reports will be subject to some form of auditing to ensure accuracy.  Locus’ accredited GHG verifier designed the visual calculation engine to support this impending requirement. It provides a single consolidated view of all input data, referenced factors, and calculations that went into the ESG report. Through the calculation engine, raw data can be traced back to the user input, integrated external database, utility API, supplier attestation, or any other data source. 

Locus’s visual calculation engine supports simultaneous calculations using multiple methods so that users can input data once and report to federal, state, and voluntary reporting programs according to each proper protocol. Once raw data is in the Locus ESG app, reporting can be performed to several different reporting standards such as U.S. EPA Mandatory Reporting Rule, European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) or GRI, SASB, CDP, DJSI, GRESB, and DNSH.  

“Locus’ visual calculation engine builds upon over a decade of experience performing verification of ESG data for many companies. Coupled with Locus SaaS Platform it provides all necessary tools to simplify data management, reporting, and visualization of necessary carbon and other calculations in real-time. It provides full transparency for calculations, which become part of an organization’s ESG reporting. As financial-grade audits are applied to ESG reporting, this becomes a critical feature for organizations needing a reliable ESG reporting tool.,” said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus. 

Getting Started With ESG Is Less Daunting Than You Think

One of the most frequent questions we get asked when it comes to ESG is, “Where do I begin?”. For many companies, the process of getting started with a new ESG program is the most difficult step. With nearly 1,700 frequently evolving ESG reporting protocols available, it can be daunting just to determine where to begin. This uncertainty associated with ESG reporting can unfortunately paralyze any progress for several organizations. The good news is that ESG doesn’t have to be an ‘all or nothing’ effort. In fact, getting started is a simple and straightforward process.

Get started with ESG

Regardless of what ESG reporting program you choose (or eventually choose), there are many common elements that can form the basis of your organization’s ESG program. Although social and governance KPIs have been undergoing rapid evolution recently, environmental KPIs have been comparatively stable. Environmental KPIs tend to be quantitative with established calculation methodologies, whereas the definitions and determinations as to what is important regarding societal and governance factors and how to measure them are still being evaluated globally. Considering this, many companies elect to start their ESG reporting program using monitoring and collecting environmental data.

Additionally, almost all reporting programs include the concept of a baseline, or a time period against which future ESG metrics are compared. Developing the baseline requires a good understanding of your organization’s current ESG performance, which of course requires a good set of data. Universal data that is required for any ESG reporting program includes data on greenhouse gas, water quality and consumption, waste, and energy consumption. The bedrock of an ESG program starts with the collection, management, and reporting of these data. This information can also help to inform further decisions for your ESG program, including which framework is most appropriate for your organization.

Locus Sustainability Metrics

As part of this effort, you should make sure you are collecting and calculating your ESG metrics with software that supports the required complexity of environmental data. Often the companies who suggest a turnkey solution to ESG reporting are not only lacking in social and governance data, but are woefully underprepared and unequipped to handle environmental data as well. With over 25 years of experience in creating software for environmental reporting, Locus Technologies is equipped to help organizations collect and report ESG data in a way that others aren’t.

 

The world’s most sustainable companies

One notable difference among attendees of the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland last month was the presence of Chief Sustainability Officers in much larger number than ever before.

This makes sense given the themes of many of the discussions. None more than a panel that focused on integrating sustainability risk into enterprise risk management.

This is an important evolution for the sustainability community—one that we welcome at Locus and are working with our clients to achieve using our fully-integrated, multi-tenant software platform.

Just in time for the World Economic Forum, an annual assessment of the world’s most sustainable companies emerges, highlighting large firms from around the world whose sustainability in various categories puts them in a league of their own.

The report, now in its fourteenth year of publication, is compiled by Corporate Knights, a Canada-based financial information company and magazine with a focus on how business and societal and ecological benefits can go hand in hand.

In compiling its report, Corporate Knights looked to publicly-disclosed data—financial filings, sustainability reports, etc.—from some 6,000 financially healthy companies across the globe, in all industries, with minimum annual revenue of $1 billion. Key factors Corporate Knight included in its analysis included energy use, carbon, waste, and clean air production.  Top 900 companies were contacted for data verification before the results were boiled down to a final 100.

Topping the list this year was Dassault Systemes, a French firm that designs engineering software to assist organizations in waste reduction.

Behind Dassault is Neste, a Finnish company that deals in renewable diesel and other petroleum products. Within the next five years, according to Corporate Knights, more than half of its revenue will come from renewable fuel and bio-material.

Overall, the U.S.-based companies held 18 spots in the ranking.

Historic binding agreement reached to cut greenhouse gasses from HFC

There are roughly 1.6 billion new air conditioning units expected to come on stream by 2050, reflecting increased demand from Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

On 15 October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda nearly 200 nations have agreed a legally binding agreement to cut back on greenhouse gasses used in refrigerators and air conditioners, a significant move against climate change.
The International deal would require countries to phase out greenhouse gasses called hydrofluorocarbons beginning in 2019.

Under the agreement, developed nations, including much of Europe, the United States, China, and India commit to reducing their use of the gasses incrementally, starting with a 10 percent cut by 2019 with the goal of an 80% reduction globally by 2047. But many wealthier nations and companies have already begun to reduce their use of HFCs.

A parallel deal was struck last year in Paris to slow the growth of carbon emissions, the most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. That deal entered into force earlier this month. But unlike the Paris agreement, the Kigali deal is legally binding, has very specific timetables and has an agreement by developed economies to help emerging countries adapt their technology.

The HFC agreement comes in the form of an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty undertaken nearly 30 years ago to protect the Earth’s ozone layer.

According to the Wall Steet Journal article, Chemours Co., a publicly traded chemicals company spun off from DuPont Co. last year (and Locus Technologies customer), said that it was introducing a new line of gasses to help replace HFCs for some industrial-scale refrigeration and air-cooling systems.

The deal is the latest installment in the US administration’s efforts to curb the global greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet with harmful consequences. Earlier this month, countries also agreed to limit carbon emissions from global aviation for the first time ( http://locustec.com/blog/epa-plans-regulate-carbon-emissions-aircraft/ ).

HFCs account for about 1% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 1.5% of all U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But they are considered one of the fastest-growing greenhouses gasses in the world. The agency predicts HFC emissions could increase up to 15% a year globally if they aren’t limited.

As a greenhouse gas, HFCs are more potent than carbon dioxide. Their heat-trapping capacity can be hundreds or thousands of times that of carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Plus, some HFCs can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, according to a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a result, even small amounts can have profound, long-lasting effects on the environment.

HFCs belong to a family of compounds known as fluorinated gasses. Such substances don’t exist in nature; they are entirely man-made, according to the EPA. After the Montreal Protocol, HFCs were developed to replace another class of fluorinated compounds, known as chlorofluorocarbons, because these were depleting the ozone layer.

One of the industry challenges will be to track, organize, and report on avalanches of data stemming from the binding HFC compliance requirements. SaaS like Locus Platform is ready for the challenge.

Aviation industry agrees to cap CO2 emissions, other transportation industries to follow

The first deal limiting greenhouse gasses from international aviation has been sealed after years of negotiations. Carbon emissions from international aviation will be capped under a global agreement to limit the impact of commercial flights on the climate. The deal launches a voluntary compliance system from 2021 that would become mandatory in 2027. Airlines spent about $181 billion on fuel last year, and this deal would add between $5 and $24 billion in additional costs, depending on the price of carbon at the time. The aviation carbon cuts were agreed in Montreal by national representatives at the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.

The deal comes in a critical week for climate policy when the Paris agreement to stabilize climate change passed a key threshold for becoming law. International aviation is responsible for putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year than the whole of the Germany or the UK. And until now, there has been no global consensus on how to address aviation emissions.

CO2 will be allowed to grow to 2020, but after that, emissions will need to be offset. The deal will be voluntary to 2026, but most major nations are expected to take part. Airlines that pollute more than the prescribed level after 2020 would have to purchase carbon-offsetting credits.

The offsetting proposal is especially controversial. Airlines are striving to make planes more efficient, but the industry can’t innovate fast enough to contain its dynamic growth.

That led to the proposal for offsetting – but sometimes offsetting by planting trees is not enough and is prone to double-counting.

One way to offset emissions, besides planting trees, is using trees’ and other plants spoils to make sustainable fuels. The effort to use sustainable fuels has already started, and manufacturers and airlines support of alternative fuels is high.

To that end, the US biofuels leader, Amyris, Inc is developing an alternative aviation jet fuel made with a sustainably-sourced hydrocarbon using Amyris’s proprietary synthetic biology platform. It is one of the most promising developments in aviation fuels in decades.

Amyris’ jet fuel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent compared with petroleum fuels, when compared unmixed to petroleum fuels on a one-to-one basis, according to Amyris.

Attempts have been made for nearly two decades to include aviation and shipping in the UN’s climate agreements, but both sectors have managed to avoid firm targets.

US EPA earlier this year issued a final scientific assessment that concluded that carbon emissions from aircraft endanger public health and welfare, a legal prerequisite the agency must take before regulating those emissions in the US. It is widely expected that EPA will introduce its set of rules for regulating domestic aircraft emissions in the US. Domestic aviation represents about 40% of total carbon-dioxide output from commercial flights.

Environmental groups said they hope the action to curb airline emissions will spur a similar cap on maritime CO2 production. Maritime emissions aren’t covered by the Paris climate deal even though the industry is considered a major carbon emitter.

All these emissions trackings must be managed and verified and will require companies to install scalable and intelligent database systems like Locus SaaS-based EIM and Locus Platform that already help many companies comply with various emission laws and regulations around the world.

Stanford Board of Trustees issues a statement on climate change

In a statement, the Board of Trustees underlines Stanford’s commitment to battling climate change, highlights university initiatives to address it and responds to Fossil Free Stanford’s request to divest from the fossil fuel industry.

The trustees have concluded that Stanford’s endowment will not divest, based on a review of criteria in the university’s Statement on Investment Responsibility and input from the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing. The trustees also announce a new climate task force that will solicit new ideas from across the Stanford community for addressing climate change.

Find out more about Stanford University’s new climate change policy.

Del Monte Plans & Cans its Way Toward a Sustainable Future

7 August 2014 — If you’ve ever opened a can of peaches or green beans, there’s a good chance it was marked with the red and yellow Del Monte Quality shield. After all, Del Monte Foods is one of the country’s largest and most well-known producers, distributors, and marketers of branded food products—namely canned fruits and vegetables—for the U.S. retail market.

These cans of produce eventually appear on the shelves of supermarkets across the country and end up in our shopping carts—but what happens before they make it there?

Today’s consumers are more invested than ever in discovering the details of how products come to be. This includes what natural resources are used, how much of each is expended, and what environmental impacts are a result of the production process. Curiosity seems to be especially piqued when it comes to the food and agriculture sector, and Del Monte is an example of a company who has chosen to address these questions, as well as offer a roadmap for future improvements.

 

The Sustainable Dream
Del Monte clearly states that its process of bringing food to our dinner tables is grounded in a deep respect for natural resources. The company works to ensure the delivery of its products is done in the most sustainable way possible, by striving to reduce its operational environmental footprint through the elimination of waste and minimization of materials, energy, and water used.

Toward what was arguably the beginning of the sustainability craze, Del Monte established a baseline year of 2007 with a target year of 2016 to effectively monitor its environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). The company made a commitment to corporate responsibility, and began to track energy, water and waste KPIs, conduct lifecycle assessments, practice LEAN techniques at their 14 facilities, and analyze their supply chain greenhouse gas footprint.

 

Software Lends a Helping Hand
In the beginning, Del Monte ran into a few challenges along the road to making sustainable improvements. At the time, the company’s sustainability program was experiencing problems with data validation, and was still manually creating reports by exporting data to spreadsheets.

In order to simplify reporting and ensure the quality of its data, Del Monte made the decision to use the latest advancements in technology to manage and report the metrics behind its sustainability goals, and implemented Locus’ sustainability software. Del Monte discovered that Locus’ cloud-based system was configurable, thus making it more relevant to the company’s business and providing closer access to its environmental data.

Locus helped Del Monte discover where errors existed in its historical data, which were then fixed and migrated to the software platform. Existing data validation steps and notifications were configured to fit Del Monte’s timelines and processes to ensure the quality of the data. Within the software, each user was given a dashboard that they could customize to their site’s sustainability needs, allowing them to see important data immediately upon login, and easily create standard reports. Users were also able to create graphs and tables across all sites within their business unit, and compare these to corporate trends—therefore achieving their goal of making data more transparent within the company.

Sometimes an essential aspect to achieving your sustainability goals is knowing when to enlist outside assistance. Important business decisions are based off of data collected and unfortunately, human error is usually inevitable. Taking advantage of the latest technology and built-in validation checks means attaining flawless data quality, and thus ensuring strong and accurate business decisions. Also, making data transparent—meaning easily searchable and accessible—is important to show you are meeting all expected regulations and business-specific goals. Doing all sustainability tracking, management, and reporting in one central, cloud-based system is a solid method for improving data transparency. From this system, it is possible to:

  • Track industry-specific and business-specific KPIs including GRI indicators
  • Review and approve data according to business-specific work flow requirements
  • Compare parameters across sites or against other related parameters
  • Generate trend charts on the web and create reports to track impact
  • Set periodic benchmark goals and track performance against these goals

 

From Dream to Reality: Visualizing Progress
Over the past seven years Del Monte has been continuously working to tackle its environmental sustainability goals across the various operational steps that result in bringing its products to consumers: from processing, to packaging, to distribution. With the assistance of Locus’ software, Del Monte has created uniform sustainability reports across all sites. Reporting and graphing capabilities help the company view trends in its data more quickly and reliably; data can be easily compared from month to month in order to view recent headway.

Del Monte currently uses Locus’ software for analysis of natural resource to cost, and to manage its various sustainability metrics in order to reach its objectives, such as conservation goals (water and electricity reduction), waste audits, and waste diversion goals. For example, in 2007, Del Monte was approximately 40 percent in waste diversion. With the use of Locus’ sustainability tracking, reporting, and charting functions, Del Monte was more equipped to better manage their progress and reach an 80 percent solid waste diversion rate.

One day at a time, with the help of Locus’ software tools, Del Monte is steadily charging ahead to achieve the sustainability goals it set seven years ago. So the next time you pick up a can of Del Monte produce from the shelf, take comfort in knowing it was produced with an unwavering appreciation for the environment and its resources.

Grain Processing Corporation Selects Locus Technologies Software for Environmental Management

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 8 July 2014  — As part of its environmental sustainability program, Grain Processing Corporation (GPC) has selected Locus Technologies’ (Locus’) software platform to manage a variety of environmental policies for two of its corn wet-milling facilities. GPC manufactures, distributes, and markets high quality, customer-specified food, pharmaceutical, and industrial grade products.

GPC will use Locus to identify, track, and respond to all environmental media affected by the operations of two of its facilities: one located in Muscatine, Iowa, and the other in Washington, Indiana. Both of these facilities have numerous air emission sources, wastewater treatment facilities, and both Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) and Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) requirements. With the assistance of Locus’ web-based software, GPC can manage all of its processes, such as tracking permit requirements and meeting recordkeeping and reporting deadlines, in one central, user-friendly platform.

“When we were searching for a software management system, we needed it to be able to manage all processes for our two facilities, with the expansion option of up to 20 additional locations with differing recordkeeping, schedules, and reporting needs,” said Mick Durham, Director of Environmental Services at GPC. “Locus met these specifications, and will allow us to manage our environmental data so that we can improve our environmental compliance and ensure that our company’s business practices remain sustainable in the long term.”

“Our recent success in deploying our software to several customers in food and agricultural industries proves its versatile nature: Locus’ software goes beyond mission-critical compliance activities and provides a system for broader sustainability and resource management that ultimately leads to operating cost reduction,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “Locus provides a simple, integrated system, similar to ERP that manages all environmental, energy, water, and other sustainability needs under a single portal infrastructure and single sign-on online.”

 

ABOUT GRAIN PROCESSING CORPORATION
Founded in 1943, GPC is a privately owned company with a solid history of innovation and a vision for continued success in the future. Its mission is to manufacture, distribute and market customer-specified food, pharmaceutical and industrial-grade products of uncompromising quality. GPC’s substantial investment in the finest people, facilities, technology and customer support services reflects the seriousness of that commitment to quality. For more information about Grain Processing Corporation, visit www.grainprocessing.com.

Monsanto Selects Locus’ Cloud Software for Sustainability Management

Leading Agricultural Products Technology Company Selects Locus for Sustainability Reporting

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 2 June 2014 — Monsanto Company, a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality, has selected Locus Technologies (Locus) to provide a comprehensive, integrated software platform for sustainability management and environmental stewardship throughout the corporation’s facilities.

Monsanto has adopted the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework, a comprehensive sustainability reporting structure that is widely used around the world to more effectively measure, build upon, and communicate its current sustainability efforts. As a member of the GRI G4 Pioneers program Monsanto is utilizing the Locus enhanced data collection process to enable the transition to the new GRI G4 platform.

Locus’ award-winning EH&S and sustainability software platform is already implemented and provides Monsanto with enterprise tools to organize the GRI indicator collection and reporting solution for its corporate sustainability group. Monsanto site personnel are now able to enter GRI Indicator data by site, and produce reports for their sites. Corporate personnel are able to produce reports of data aggregated across the entire organization for use in preparing and automating their GRI Reporting.

“We are very pleased that Monsanto has selected Locus’ cloud-based software to organize its GRI information,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “The GRI Guidelines are the world’s most widely-used sustainability reporting framework and we are very pleased to support Monsanto in their reporting requirements. Both Monsanto and Locus are GRI Organizational Stakeholders,” added Duplan.

California Kicks Off Cap-and-Trade Program to Auction Carbon Emission Credits

Locus Helps Companies Optimize Greenhouse Gas Reporting under AB 32

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 14 November 2012 — Today, California kicked off the first auction of their cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases under the California Air Resources Board (CARB) new cap-and-trade program. This is the first large-scale carbon market in the United States, and is expected to be the second largest carbon market in the world, after the European Union.

“Many may agree, especially with the buzz around climate change lately, that this cap-and-trade program is an attempt toward reaching an admirable goal of reducing California’s greenhouse gas emissions,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “However, Locus also recognizes the challenges that face businesses dealing with this auction, and stands at the ready to assist them in minimizing the costs of complying with the cap-and-trade regulation.”

Locus has been involved in the development of California’s carbon market from nearly the beginning.  Locus was one of the first accredited verification bodies for greenhouse gas emissions, and has years of expertise in reporting greenhouse gas data. Locus staff have also been certified as carbon offset verifiers under CARB.  From experience, Locus knows that participants in the cap-and-trade program have many options available to them in how they calculate and report their greenhouse gas data, and how they select those options can have significant effects on the financial impact of the cap-and-trade program. Some of Locus’ customers have saved thousands by making simple changes to their greenhouse gas reporting methods, as recommended by Locus’ technical experts or by using Locus’ Cloud-based GHG software.

The outcome of today’s auction will likely determine the future of greenhouse gas policy in the United States. California’s program already includes the concept of potential “linkage” with other carbon markets, which means that carbon credits could be transferred between other cap-and-trade programs. This essentially allows for expansion of this market to other states or jurisdictions outside the U.S.