Locus Technologies performs a record number of GHG verifications in California

Locus takes the lead in GHG verification services for California Air Resources Board AB32 Program

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 8 February 2017 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in multi-tenant SaaS environmental compliance and information management software, performed 74 verifications for the reporting year 2015 for the California Air Resources Board AB32 Program — more than any other accredited verification body. With six full-time accredited verifiers, Locus has been providing verification services since 2010 for reporting entities across California. Even more notably, after completing hundreds of these verifications and complying with several routine audits by ARB, Locus has never had a single verification statement overturned. This means that facility operators using Locus’ verification services have high confidence that their participation in the cap and trade program will not be affected by potential delays related to questions on their verification statement.

The GHG verification services cover facilities in California that are regulated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) under the Mandatory Reporting Rule (AB32). Locus is accredited as a verification body through CARB and has Lead Verifiers certified in all reporting sectors, including process emissions, oil and gas, and transactions. Over the past eight years, Locus staff have completed verifications for several industries and have become experts on reporting for most covered product types which translate into emission allowances under the cap and trade program.

GHG emission reports are coming under increased scrutiny from regulators, stakeholders, and financial auditors. Choosing the right verifier plays a critical part in remaining compliant with these rapidly evolving requirements and regulations. Locus verifiers have noticed that many companies struggle with complex GHG calculations. Some ‘black box’ calculation tools in the market have not been sufficiently stress-tested and are generating errors that cause enterprises to fail their GHG verifications. Locus’ calculation engine addresses these deficiencies and capitalizes on the architecture of the highly scalable Locus platform. All calculations performed by Locus SaaS are viewable and traceable through the tool to the original data inputs.

“We are very pleased to lead the California verification program and that so many Fortune 500 firms selected Locus for verification services. Locus continues to expand its carbon practice at a rapid pace. Coupled with our software services and domain expertise in all three key AB32 reporting sectors, Locus is becoming a partner of choice for all companies wishing to be credible in their carbon reporting needs,” said J. Wesley Hawthorne, President of Locus. “Our growth in this market has been largely fueled by referrals from existing customers, and it speaks volumes about the quality of our service that so many of our customers speak highly of Locus to their colleagues.”

Locus Technologies introduces indoor air management application

The Locus indoor air management application is fully integrated with the dynamic Locus Platform and will automate indoor air management for small and large enterprises.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 6 June 2016 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and sustainability management software, introduces an all-new vapor intrusion and indoor air management application to its newest platform to redefine how companies organize, manage, and report their indoor air and vapor intrusion data. The Locus platform— a true, multi-tenant SaaS— offers a highly configurable, user-friendly interface to meet individual organizations’ environmental management needs.

Indoor air quality is becoming an important environmental and chemical exposure challenge for many companies whose properties may be impacted by contaminated groundwater or soil that release vapors or fumes.  Once the indoor air quality problem is identified, it follows a lengthy investigation that can involve several phases of sampling (including soil-gas, subslab, pathway, and ambient indoor air samples) using either active or passive sampling techniques. Samples are typically composited over time periods that can range from hours to weeks. A substantial amount of additional metadata is collected surrounding each sampling event, including information on the building construction, layout, occupancy, chemical use, and heating and ventilation systems.

All these activities generate large quantities of data, which until now were managed primarily by spreadsheet scattered on laptops or desktops. Locus’ new application brings an organized approach and workflow process to schedule, sample, and manage analytical results stemming from investigation and ongoing monitoring programs. Tools are also included to track the status and effectiveness of mitigation efforts related to indoor air quality. The data are easily summarized for review through reporting and built-in mapping tools, which can identify adjacent properties at potential risk for indoor air quality issues. Plus, if a customer is already a subscriber to Locus EIM, Incidents, or other Locus Platform applications, they can correlate data among various applications and facilitate finding the cause of degradation of the indoor air quality.

“Indoor air quality and vapor intrusion are gaining more and more attention from regulators, property owners, and managers of environmental sites. These projects generate a large volume of structured and unstructured data as part of the investigation and mitigation processes.  To successfully compile and review this information, companies need a software that can manage these various data types and allow quick review and decision making. The right software can reduce the stress, time, and potential inaccuracies associated with these projects.” said Wes Hawthorne, Senior Vice President of Locus.

The new TSCA law not REACH (in data requirements)

After a bipartisan accord, the US Congress overhauled the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), with legislation to give the EPA greater powers to regulate about 100 hazardous chemicals. This is the first major statutory update to US environmental law that’s been passed in over 25 years. On a 403-12 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives on 24 May 2016 approved bipartisan legislation to amend the key provisions of the TSCA.

Under existing law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has succeeded in regulating only five toxic chemicals since 1976, prompting public health advocates to decry TSCA as broken. Part of the problem is that the law grants EPA only 90 days to decide whether a new chemical poses “unreasonable risk” before it can enter the market, and agency officials say they rarely get the toxicity data they need to make that call in time.

The compromise legislation will remove those procedural hurdles, require EPA to focus on “high priority” chemicals such as arsenic and asbestos, and give the agency new tools to collect data from companies. It also grandfathers in some existing state chemical safety laws, such as those enacted under California’s Proposition 65, but limits states’ authority to create their own restrictions on chemicals in the future. State pre-emption was a key point of contention between Democrats and Republicans during negotiations.

So how does the new TSCA law compare to the EU REACH program? REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances) is a regulation of the European Union, adopted to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals. REACH also promotes alternative methods for the hazard assessment of substances to reduce the number of tests on animals. Under the REACH Regulation, companies are responsible for providing information on the hazards, risks and safe use of chemical substances that they manufacture or import.

One notable difference between  REACH and TOSCA is how they support downstream users in implementing their chemicals management programs. Regarding knowing chemicals in products, REACH provides clear direction that downstream users must communicate uses up to suppliers and know and publicly disclose (if requested) if their product contains substances of very high concern (SVHC). The TSCA  does essentially nothing to support downstream users in knowing chemicals in products and disclosing them to the public, and its requirements for upstream communication to suppliers on uses are uncertain.

Significantly, REACH requires companies to provide minimum data sets on the inherent hazards of chemicals. This data enables downstream users to evaluate and compare chemicals on their hazard characteristics. TSCA, while expanding the ability of the US EPA to require testing of chemicals, explicitly prohibits the agency from requiring minimum data sets.

While it is important to avoid the unnecessary testing of chemicals, it is also vital to have a data set on chemicals that enable their comparison on a common set of endpoints. The EPA needs the authority to establish a minimum data set on chemicals, although this may differ depending on the specific chemical.

On assessing the hazards of chemicals, the new  US law falls short of REACH and impedes harmonizing European and US requirements for chemical testing. Given that most US chemical companies sell into the European market, and therefore are already meeting those requirements, it is inefficient and wasteful to establish a totally separate testing regime in the US.

To support the use of inherently safer chemicals, REACH provides a clear and more streamlined process for identifying and restricting SVHCs. Over the course of seven years, the Regulation has identified 161 Candidate SVHCs, while over five years, the  US bill only requires the designation of 25 high priority chemicals and with new law extending that number to about 100 chemicals. Harmonization, consistency, and predictability are critical for downstream users, and these elements are all lacking in the new TSCA law.

 

Locus makes ENR TOP 200 Environmental Firms as the only EHS Software company

Locus Recognized as a Top Environmental Firm in Silicon Valley

Read about the top environmental firms in Silicon Valley, ranked by the number of professionals in Silicon Valley. Learn more about their specialities, 2013 FY revenue and the number of employees each firm has locally and firm wide.

Environmental Consultants Beginning to Share with Clients Control of Corporate Environmental Data

Closed ‘consultant-centric’ model giving way to open ‘cloud’ computing

by Neno Duplan, CEO of Locus Technologies

Environmental consultants are cleaning up…literally.

As they go about the lengthy, tedious, expensive and very often dirty job of decontaminating polluted industrial sites, environmental consultants bill their clients by the hour, capturing…and then completely controlling…the superabundance of project-related environmental data that underlies remediation strategies.

As a result of this process, a “consultant-centric model” has dominated the field of corporate environmental data management.  This is primarily because environmental data is not integral to the daily functioning of a company, and because the quantities and complexities of the data produced are enormous.  So company managers are generally quite comfortable with letting their consultants do all the querying, analysis, reporting…and then storing the data.

And since the consultants derive increased billing hours from controlling their clients’ data, the ultimate incentive for them is a renewed or extended contract, an outcome which, though certainly not guaranteed, is optimized by their control of the data.

But change is coming.  The environmental data management practices of corporations and their consultants are undergoing a profound transformation as new Web-based software provides a low-cost means of making available the critical information that organizational decision makers need not only to better understand and manage their overall environmental liabilities but also to improve their operations by analyzing the valuable data.  While environmental data is collected primarily for compliance reporting, when mined with the right tools it can also be used to point to weaknesses in data gathering and processing operations and provide valuable information on how to eliminate or reduce these.

A new “company-centric” environmental data management model now offers a remote data repository situated in the Internet “Cloud” and equally accessible in real time to all, including both the client and its consultants.

 

Polluters Pay… and Pay Again

Business and industry pay well for the services of experienced, knowledgeable specialists who can help with the job of abating the damage done to a massively polluted environment.  According to the EPA and some state agencies, there are more than two million contaminated sites in the U.S. alone. Among the major sources of widespread water pollution are the effluents and contaminants emitted by industry into the water bodies—lakes, rivers, reservoirs, aquifers—that are the source of all our drinking, cooking and bathing water.

In an effort to stem the tide of environmental deterioration — or at least compel the business world to be more diligent in implementing prevention and conservation efforts — thousands of U.S. state and federal regulations (in addition to numerous voluntary standards) require that organizations be in full legal compliance with mandates concerning environmental protection.

Public opinion is also heavily influencing environmental developments.  In a March 2009 Gallup Environment survey, “pollution of drinking water” was listed as Americans’ No. 1 environmental concern, with 59 percent of those polled saying they worry “a great deal” about the issue. Fifty-two percent said they worried equally about “pollution of rivers, lakes and waters,” and “contamination of soil and water by toxic waste.”  In comparison, 45 percent are worried about “air pollution,” while the “greenhouse effect” (or “global warming”) is of great concern to 34 percent of the survey’s respondents.

Polluting companies with environmental recovery obligations and a portfolio of contaminated sites are on official notice to get busy cleaning up the mess.  However, since tracking environmental data, site cleanup and regulatory compliance are non-core activities for most corporations, doing the work themselves offers very little direct economic advantage, which makes the endeavor ideal for outsourcing to dedicated specialist third parties.

 

Consulting—Lucrative but Uncertain

Enter the environmental consultant, expert advisor to an incredibly lucrative market.

The Environmental Business Journal reports that the total U.S. environmental industry generated revenues of more than $300 billion in 2009.  This dynamic market has given rise to a $30 billion consulting and remediation practice.  ENR Magazine’s Top 200 Environmental Firms ranking, published each July, provides an annual look at this market.

Nearly 9,000 companies, ranging in size from one-person businesses to global corporations, provide environmental consulting services.  Major companies include CH2M HILL, Parsons, AECOM, and URS as well as environmental engineering and consulting divisions of large engineering and construction firms such as Fluor and Bechtel.  Contracts can run into the millions of dollars and extend for years.

But it’s a volatile business. A list of the leading company names from ten years ago would be very different from today’s list of top performers.  If one thing is certain in the environmental industry, it is that clients switch consultants frequently. Sometimes they initiate the action. Other times, it is forced upon them when consultants change ownership via mergers and acquisitions, or simply go out of business.

Anyone who has been in the environmental consulting business for any length of time is most likely familiar with the names of those companies that have been relegated to history.  Here are a few: Morrison-Knudsen, Smith Technology Corporation, Canonie Environmental Services, Woodward Clyde, Radian, Dames and Moore, OHM, AWD, Rust, Harding Lawson, and IT Corporation.  At their peak, most of these companies made the ENR Top 100 list.

The changeability inherent with consulting companies presents clients concerned about their environmental liabilities with a problem.  What if a now defunct company was tasked 10 years ago to build and maintain analytical data management software for a client with a portfolio of contaminated sites?  In the upheavals caused by the business transactions involving these companies, the whereabouts and security of a client’s water or air quality data is apt to be one of the least concerns of the involved parties. Environmental Financial Consulting Group (EFCG) reported in October 2009 the staggering statistic that in the previous 12 years, 23 (58 percent) of the top 40 environmental consulting firms have gone bankrupt or disappeared, 17 (42 percent) have survived,  33 (84 percent) have undergone a major ownership change, and only 7 (18 percent) remain the same.

The volatility in the environmental consulting sector is not just limited to the businesses providing these services.  On average, U.S. corporations lose half their customers in five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less than one.” (Frederick Reichheld, “The Loyalty Effect”).  Given these statistics, does any company have any other choice but to take full ownership of its own water, air and other environmental data?

Such instability is another reason why the “consultant-centric” environmental data management model is so appealing to consultants and, despite the availability of alternatives, has endured so long—it works for them.

It also works for corporate environmental managers (if not the company bottom line).  Since corporate environmental departments really don’t help a company make a product or a profit, these departments are often perceived by top management as cost centers…and even potential liabilities.  As a result, they have historically been severely underfunded and understaffed.  Department understaffing results in co-dependent relationships between in-house managers and their hired consultants, who end up functioning as the environmental department manager’s “de facto staff,” performing the job assignments normally carried out by regular employees.

 

Diversity the Key

The designation “environmental consultant” is a general term for a heterogeneous group of professionals with significantly diverse skill sets and experience.  Earth’s natural environment is such a vast, ultra-complex ecosystem that remediation teams must of necessity possess an extensive array of knowledge, talents and multidisciplinary capabilities.

This is apparent in the delivery of services like contaminated site remediation, in which consultants investigate and clean up toxic substance releases like petroleum spills or dumped hazardous materials.  Consultants perform preliminary site endangerment assessments and forensic evaluations, conduct soil and subsurface groundwater investigations, and prepare and carry out cleanup and long-term monitoring (so-called “long term stewardship”).  Typical consultant tasks include capturing and logging in samples, uploading data from labs and field, performing analyses, and producing maps and compliance reports, and supervising long-term archiving of data and information.

The multi-disciplinary field of environmental consulting attracts a wide range of practitioners such as engineers, geologists, geophysicists, hydrologists, environmental studies PhDs, biologists, atmospheric scientists, climatologists, meteorologists and many more with a variety of technical, governmental, commercial, industrial and academic backgrounds.

And because of the significant information technology (IT) demands associated with contaminated site cleanup activities, the business of environmental consulting also involves highly trained IT managers, software developers, computer technicians, network and systems administrators, and more.

 

Corporate Environmental IT

Some outside consulting firms that provide environmental data storage infrastructure utilize commercial, client-server database management systems. Others have in-house designed databases, generally built on top of the Microsoft Access relational database management system.  Surprisingly, though, the most common tool used to store and report data is the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

But that humble application is rapidly giving ground to an emerging “green” software market with hundreds of tools for jobs like managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and industrial pollution, air and water consumption, paper waste, energy conservation and regulatory compliance requirements.

The multi-billion dollar environmental software market encompasses numerous sub-segments with applications for air and climate, energy and renewables, health and safety, monitoring and testing, soil and groundwater, waste and recycling, water and wastewater, and environmental management.  This last segment includes software for categories like investigations and assessments, auditing, compliance, ecology, EHS, environmental finance, management systems, modeling, permitting, planning, reporting, risk, science, sustainability and green building.

The traditional “consultant-centric” approach to environmental site cleanup is changing under pressure from clients and within the industry itself to adapt consulting practices to the new “company centric” information processing realities of the Internet age, e.g., Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and “Cloud” Computing. In summary we are witnessing the early stage of the transformation from a highly distributed, unconnected, multiple platform  silo systems to the centralized, single platform web-based Enterprise Environmental Resource Planning (EERP) systems .

 

SaaS via Cloud Computing

In the SaaS delivery model, the software vendor provides access to its software and functions remotely as a Web-based service. SaaS allows organizations to access business functionality at a cost typically less than paying for licensed applications, since SaaS pricing is based on a monthly rental fee.  Instead of users buying software and paying for periodic upgrades, their use of a SaaS application is subscription based and all upgrades are provided during the term of the subscription. When the subscription period expires, all a client needs to do is to renew.

This on-demand service provides measurable economies of scale and cost advantages because the more customers a SaaS vendor has, the less each customer pays for a subscription.  This process continuously drives down costs while improving software quality as a SaaS application benefits from the “wisdom of the crowd,” i.e., its many users.  When a large “network effect” is present, as is the case with SaaS-based software, the value of a product or service increases as more people use it. This effect, which originally described the rapid spread of telephones, and that has manifested itself more recently in the rapid adoption of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIN, states that the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it.

SaaS applications are maintained in the service provider’s datacenter, and every time users launch their browsers and log on, they get the latest version of the software as well as access to the most current data, which is also stored in the service provider’s datacenter.  Because the software is hosted remotely, users don’t need to invest in additional hardware or software. SaaS removes the need for organizations to handle installation, set-up and often daily upkeep and maintenance.

SaaS environmental applications are remotely hosted by service providers like Locus Technologies and made available to customers via the Internet—the “Cloud.”

“Cloud Computing,” a name inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams, is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services on the Internet.  Cloud Computing describes all data processing activity that occurs “outside the firewall” of security measures that protect an organization’s networked computer systems.  The Cloud provides the computing capacity required to run SaaS and other types of applications.  Since SaaS is a subservice of Cloud Computing, all SaaS applications are in the Cloud, which provides the computing power to run those applications.

In environmental information management, Cloud Computing puts companies back in charge of their own data while at the same time offering individuals with the appropriate logon privileges unfettered access not only to relevant data, but also to tools needed to analyze these data.  If one can find information on something he or she is looking for on the Web in seconds and for free, why should one have to pay a consultant to dig into their own data to give them information they already own?

By storing their clients’ data on their own servers or otherwise monopolizing that data, consultants erect a substantial barrier to any improvement in a situation that has amounted to client management’s willing relinquishment of control over a critical asset and resource the company actually owns.  When senior management generally lacks familiarity with (and even interest in) their own environmental data, a company often has a poorly connected relationship with that data.  This can result in having to pay consultants to mine the company’s own environmental data to find information that the company already possesses and should be able to readily access.  Cloud Computing circumvents this artificial barrier.

Companies that pay a price for polluting also pay an additional price for turning over control of their environmental data.  This comes in many forms, including:

  • Increased expenditures
  • Greater data inconsistency and variability
  • More frequent QA/QC issues
  • No access to performance metrics
  • Fewer opportunities to reduce sampling
  • Poorer security and backup, and duplicative efforts across consultants.
  • Less opportunity to improve their operational processes that could ultimately be optimized to prevent a need for environmental data collection and reporting in the first place.

Consultants provide valuable advice and service in their particular areas of expertise, and the best consultants utilize the best tools available to meet their obligations to their clients.  Savvy environmental consultants and their clients clearly recognize the mutual benefits to be derived from adapting to the new realities of “company centric” environmental data management in the “Cloud.”

Locus Technologies (www.locustec.com), Mountain View, Calif., is the industry leader in Cloud Computing environmental solutions serving mid-market and Fortune 500 corporations in numerous industrial segments, including technology, manufacturing and energy production (e.g., Alstom, Chevron, ExxonMobil).

Locus Recognized as Carbon Software Leader

Emissions Trading & Monitoring Software Study Applauds Locus

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., December 14, 2009 — In the midst of climate change discussions in Copenhagen, Locus Technologies (Locus), was recognized as one of the oldest and most comprehensive providers of greenhouse gas (GHG) software in a study just published by UtiliPoint International, Inc., a key utility and energy industry analysis and consulting firm.

The UtiliPoint study focuses on both software aimed at emission reporting and software aimed at emissions trading as well as the need for a link between the two types of software. “We are very pleased with leading industry analyst UtiliPoint’s comprehensive study of software providers for greenhouse gas management and with their recognition of Locus,” said Dr. Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus.

The Emissions Trading & Monitoring Software Study highlights Locus’ experience in the domain of Software as a Service (SaaS), not only for GHG emissions management, but also as a general leader in the complex space of environmental sustainability software, including water quality management. UtiliPoint predicts that Locus’ record of environmental software expertise will help Locus to become a top player in the emerging field of GHG data management and reporting.

eGHG, Locus’ GHG emissions monitoring software, is applauded in the UtiliPoint report. This software can create an emissions inventory that can be easily verified and reported to various emissions reporting programs in the US and internationally.

“Whether or not carbon is regulated through the Clean Air Act as announced by EPA last week, or a United States Federal cap-and-trade program is created in the near future, a comprehensive monitoring and reporting system is still needed for compliance with the Clean Air Act, various voluntary registries such as The Climate Registry or Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and for trading with the various international programs already in place. We are already witnessing an explosive growth in carbon data, analysis, and reporting that comes on top of other environmental data streams such as water and sustainability. Locus provides one stop shopping for all enterprise environmental software needs,” added Dr. Duplan.

ZDNet GreenTech Pastures | Locus adds water module to environment software application portfolio

Water management problems capture more attention from environmental technology player Locus.

Santa Clara Valley Water District selects Locus Technologies for recycled water study

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., August 25, 2007 — The Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) selected Locus Technologies to perform a study of potential groundwater impacts from expanded use of recycled water for irrigation in the Santa Clara and Llagas Groundwater Sub-basins, California.

For this project, Locus will be using several investigative techniques to assess the potential impact to groundwater from use of recycled water. In addition to fate and transport evaluation of recycled water chemicals of concern, such as NDMA, HAA5, and trace metals, Locus will perform soil core bench tests and conduct a full-scale pilot test to monitor chemical concentrations as recycled water percolates through the vadose zone. From these tests, Locus will assess the soil aquifer treatment capacity, evaluate the potential of recharged recycled water to degrade the groundwater quality, and develop water quality standards for the recycled water to be used in the Llagas and Santa Clara Groundwater Sub-basins. To help the stakeholders in their practice, Locus will identify best management practices for irrigating with recycled water and identify necessary ongoing monitoring requirements to protect groundwater resources.

This award cements Locus’s reputation as a company on the forefront of the high-end environmental consulting business on complex groundwater problems.

“This is an important win for us at the time when companies and government are under pressure to achieve sustainability goals,” said Mr. Elie Haddad, Vice President of Locus’s Environmental Services Division. “On one hand, there is a push to reuse recycled water, and, on the other hand, this reuse should not degrade our precious groundwater resources. Our study will bring the balance between what seems to be competing goals. We are very pleased to be selected through a competitive bidding process by SCVWD for this important groundwater study. We look forward to continue partnering with industry and local governmental agencies to protect the precious Silicon Valley groundwater resources and provide long term stewardship for this most important resource.” added Haddad.

Project execution will come primarily from Locus’s office in Mountain View, California.