Locus Introduces New Platform for Environmental Enterprise Resource Planning

The new Locus platform offers a highly configurable, user-friendly interface to fully meet individual organizations’ environmental management needs

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 21 October 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental and sustainability management software, introduces its newest platform to redefine how companies organize, manage, visualize, and report their environmental, sustainability, and compliance information.

Today, environmental, sustainability, and energy managers for organizations of all sizes face myriad options from software suppliers offering various single-domain applications. Challenged with an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, these managers must select a software provider that can adapt to new compliance constraints and the constant changes of existing regulations, often with multijurisdictional requirements; unfortunately, most software suppliers have rigid platforms or applications that fail to keep up with constantly changing needs, are hard to integrate, and are often obsolete before they are even implemented.

To address this industry challenge, the company designed the new Locus platform to provide rich functionality in a simple way so that it would be easy for customers to make the most of their data management and reporting requirements. In addition, the new platform helps companies avoid many of the costs generally associated with implementing traditional software systems thanks to its simple setup, navigation, and configuration options, thereby eliminating the need for expensive implementations, user training, and customizations.

Locus addressed common barriers to using environmental management software when designing the new Locus platform. Specifically, Locus conducted a gap analysis of current software offerings. It identified challenges through feedback from its end users and other industry professionals, and through customer surveys conducted by several industry research analysts’ firms over the last two years. Specifically, users were wary of complex and expensive systems and implementations; a rigid regulatory environment for businesses that made adapting to new systems costly and complicated; and integration of a new platform with legacy systems.

The resulting Locus platform offers an intuitive interface with the immense flexibility to incorporate features such as drag-and-drop forms creation, visual business-process modeling, Excel import/export integration, and a rich and configurable user dashboards and reporting interface. Locus created every feature with the end user in mind to promote quick and easy data capture and task management. Finally, customers should see significant savings over traditional software offerings both at the time of implementation and over the long term. Because the Locus platform’s system, upgrades, and maintenance are cloud-based rather than configured on individual user workstations, while users can configure the way they use the software, they do not need to pay for customization at the individual level.

“We listened to industry users and created configurable dashboards that are clean, dynamically driven, easy to read, and easy to access. This platform will improve companies’ data collection, analysis, and most importantly, reporting capabilities,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “The new Locus platform will make the required compliance and EH&S reporting expected of most companies more streamlined. The end result is the mitigation of regulatory risks and fines.”

The launch of the latest Locus platform follows the same guidelines and goals that the company established during the original inception of ePortal in 2000. This version is the latest embodiment of Locus’ industry differentiation: to offer an integrated solution so that companies can manage all of their environmental, energy, water, waste, carbon, air, health and safety, and compliance information in one place.

“We’ve updated the platform based on industry wants and needs,” remarked Duplan. “This isn’t a product of different solutions pieced together to look like one; it is the ‘whole solution.’ We have always created our products in this same vein because it means less time to configure, less time to implement, and far fewer support requirements. And it means a dramatically lower cost than customers have seen in the past with the ERP providers or point solutions from different vendors. Budget has long been a barrier to implementation and we are stepping up to the plate to solve that problem.”

Locus will conduct the first live demonstrations of the new platform at the Locus booth at the National Association for Environmental Management 2013 EHS Management Forum from October 23-25 in Montreal.

Locus Achieves a Microsoft Gold Application Development Competency

Locus demonstrates best-in-class capability and market leadership through demonstrated technology success and customer commitment

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 30 July 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, today announced it has attained a Gold Application Development competency, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment and distinguishing itself within the top one percent of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

To earn a Microsoft gold competency, partners must successfully complete exams (resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals) to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. They also must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects (along with implementing a yearly customer satisfaction study), meet a revenue commitment, and pass technology and/or sales assessments.

“This Microsoft Gold Application Development competency showcases our expertise in and commitment to today’s technology market and to providing our customers with the most advanced technology and functionality available,” said Neno Duplan, President & CEO of Locus. “We plan to accelerate our customers’ environmental data management success by combining this and other advanced web technologies with our deep domain expertise.”

“By achieving a gold competency, partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top one percent of our partner ecosystem, and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology.”

Earning the Application Development competency helps partners differentiate themselves as a trusted expert to their customers through development and deployment of commercial or custom applications built using core Microsoft technologies.

Locus Featured in Sustainability Management Software Report by Independent Analyst Firm Verdantix

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 17 July 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, has been recognized as one of the top 15 global sustainability management software suppliers in the report “Green Quadrant® Sustainability Management Software, July 2013.” This report by Verdantix, an independent analyst firm who provide data, analysis and advice in the areas of energy, environment and sustainability, reveals that Locus offers solid data management and sustainability reporting capabilities.The Verdantix report acknowledges Locus for its strengths in data input, data management, and data modeling. Locus has been a strong presence within the industry for more than 15 years now, and continues to present its customer base with a wide variety of functionality offered through the cloud. This includes the full gamut of data input options, from meter integration to third party software integration, and aesthetic features to view and manage information.

“For the data management capabilities, Locus Technologies offers the best-in-class solution for geographic information capture,” says Samantha Price, Industry Analyst at Verdantix and author of the report. “The software offers full data capture and management capabilities integrated with mapping tools, displaying full environmental and sustainability data on a web-based, interactive GIS system.”

The report also recognizes that Locus has designed its EH&S software platform, ePortal, to deliver impressive reporting functionality for CDP carbon, GRI and mandatory GHG reporting requirements including U.S. EPA Mandatory Reporting, EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) for which it is certified.

“The concept of enterprise sustainability management may be slightly different from company to company, but its importance remains steady and undeniable, states Neno Duplan, President & CEO of Locus. “It is crucial that we properly balance our resource usage in the present, so that these resources are not depleted for future generations. Locus built its sustainability software to do just that while also providing another equally important functionality to its customers—to lower their operating costs by optimizing resource consumption.”

ABOUT VERDANTIX

Verdantix is an independent analyst firm. We provide authoritative data, analysis and advice to help our clients resolve their energy, environment and sustainability challenges. Through our global primary research and deep domain expertise we provide our clients with strategic advice, revenue generating services, best practice frameworks, industry connections and competitive advantage.

For further information, please visit www.verdantix.com.

Obama Speaks on the Fight Against Climate Change

Yesterday, 25 June 2013, President Obama braved the heat and took to the stage at Georgetown University to give a speech on his climate change plan. Addressing his audience, Obama began with a bold statement that brought the real impacts of the subject at hand immediately to the surface. “It was important for me to speak directly to your generation, because the decisions that we make now and in the years ahead will have a profound impact on the world that all of you inherit,” he stated.

The president proceeded by defining the reasons for why this speech was necessary, and why climate change is such an important topic in the United States today. He stated the scientific facts: that the measurement of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has dramatically increased since the 1950’s, and that 12 of the warmest years in recorded history have occurred in the past 15.

Obama further emphasized the evidence by referencing the droughts, floods, storms, and heat waves that the U.S. has recently experienced- all weather events that may not have been caused by global warming, but were directly affected by it. The progress made in recent years, such as the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase in both sun and wind generated electricity was addressed, but ultimately referred to as a ‘good start’.

President Obama stated that he would direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to put an end to the excessive carbon pollution from power plants, and create standards for new and existing power plants. Other highlights included Obama’s call to develop a better plan to help us prepare for climate change impacts, and his pledge to seek greater international engagement in regards to climate change.

On par with every other hot political topic, the president’s speech did not come without controversy, and certain parts were hailed by some and criticized by others. However, a few key takeaways are as follows: the severity of the United States climate change situation and the urgency to make this a top priority have been made clear.

This means it is more important than ever for organizations to take full responsibility for their GHG and carbon emissions, and energy consumption. The need to properly track and manage all their operational environmental and compliance information is apparent, and will play a crucial role in the fight to subdue climate change. Locus will continue to work it’s hardest to develop the most comprehensive software available to assist companies with the management of their critical, big data, and provide them with the necessary tools to not only comply with new and anticipated regulations, but also to harvest their data for actionable information to lower operating costs.

GRI G4 & the Sustainability Reporting Competitive Advantage

A recent hot topic in the arena of corporate sustainability is the new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 guidelines that were just released. GRI is a network-based organization that provides all companies from around the world with a comprehensive and voluntary sustainability reporting framework. It’s no surprise this new G4 milestone is receiving such publicity, given how popular sustainability reporting has become today, and the fact that this is the first major overhaul to the GRI guidelines since the G3 version in 2006.

One main difference is that the new guidelines place a strong focus on materiality- more explicitly requiring that organizations reporting efforts be centered on impacts, risks, and opportunities. While this idea is not entirely new, the G3/G3.1 framework did not have this as such a specific and strong focus.

The new GRI framework also attempts to quell the problem of companies feeling overwhelmed by the number of options provided. G4 draws a line between requirements and guidance; so companies understand the differences and do not feel compelled to report on every single metric described. The G4 framework offers many other updates and changes, a few of which include up-to-date disclosures on governance, ethics and integrity, supply chain, anti-corruption and GHG emissions.

While the G4 framework is an important milestone for sustainability reporting, there are various other guidelines being implemented around the world as well; for voluntary, as well as financial and mandatory reporting. It is clear that corporate sustainability has become a much more recognized business approach as of late, and that including it as part of a company’s identity can both ensure environmental responsibility and enforce a positive public image. However, while some organizations fully embrace the benefits of being transparent about their ‘green’ strategy, some others may be just starting to dip their toes into the water, and quite a lot remain stagnant and unwilling, or perhaps ignorant on how to take the plunge.

No matter what category a company falls in, it’s important to remember that employing the help of a sustainability management software application, such as Locus’ ePortal Resource Management Module (RMM), can be a great advantage in reaching your sustainable goals. Having the necessary tools to create powerful reports and track KPIs such as resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water and wastewater usage across the enterprise can ensure reporting success. Also, the information you collect and organize during the reporting process will help to lower your operating costs by reducing resource consumption.

Whatever you do, don’t wait much longer- the time to reap the benefits of the sustainability reporting competitive advantage is now.

Locus to Attend and Co-present with Del Monte Foods at the 2013 Food and Beverage Environmental Conference

The annual Food & Beverage Environmental Conference (FBEC) continues to be the premier environmental event for the food industry, bringing together senior environmental managers from food and beverage companies to share their experiences with sustainable practices, environmental compliance and new technologies and approaches.

Fracking’s Role in Reducing CO2 Emissions

There’s no doubt that hydraulic fracking has become a popular term today, but have you heard of cracking? I am referring to the drop in carbon emissions partly made possible by the cheaper fuel source brought forth by fracking. In fact, American CO2 emissions have fallen nearly 13 percent since 2007, which makes President Obama’s promise to cut these emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020 possibly obtainable without enacting a major new legislation like cap-and-trade.

While certain regulations and tax break incentives have helped make this reduction possible, the main driving force is economics. Not only have Americans been encouraged to drive less and purchase vehicles with better fuel economy due to high prices, but power companies have also been making the switch from coal to natural gas, a cleaner and cheaper fuel. These actions have resulted in the drop in CO2 emissions, and it’s doubtful that they will change too severely in the near future. Or to put it simply, market forces have taken care of CO2—for now.

However, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a positive, it may come with a high price to pay if water quality around fracking sites is not properly monitored and managed. Many concerns have already arisen about chemicals and methane potentially leaking from wells and contaminating water supplies and air. If we don’t monitor aquifers around fracking sites and end up contaminating them, all gains on reduced emissions could quickly be lost as water treatment is expensive, requires a large amount of energy, and takes a long time, which again translates into more carbon emissions.

It is important for companies to take responsibility for their fracking sites, so that the decrease in CO2 emissions and the protection of our water resources may occur simultaneously. In order to ensure that water quality is preserved, a sufficient amount of monitoring needs to happen at a reasonable frequency. Aquifer and surface water samples must be collected and analyzed for probable contaminants. Locus offers the industry leading water quality management software, EIM, to assist companies that face this challenge. EIM is a Cloud-based data management system that supports all management and workflow processes necessary to better determine water quality, so that cracking may be accomplished safely.

EPA Looks for Improved Drilling Data

According to the Energy Information Administration, production of natural gas from shale formations has increased approximately 30 percent from 2006 to 2012. This increase, due to advancements in drilling technologies, has caught the EPA off guard and left it with limited knowledge about the amount of pollutants entering the groundwater, surface water or air.

This poses an issue because states rely on the EPA’s information when issuing permits or determining if someone breaks a rule, and these decisions are being compromised if they are reliant on non-existent or questionable water quality or air emissions data. This realization is also a bit concerning considering hydraulic fracturing releases chemicals such as methane, the main component of natural gas and also a potent greenhouse gas.

The EPA has agreed it needs to improve its data, and is working with the appropriate parties to ensure the continued expansion of oil and natural gas drilling is done safely and responsibly. This situation shows that being prepared to handle big data like this is vitally important. Locus’ EIM and ePortal software are Cloud-based platforms for effectively managing air emissions, as well as hydrofracking data of any kind, water, groundwater, SPCC, and compliance information. By managing this information in one, easily accessible, web-based platform it is easier to stay on top of essential data collection, and to make sure your data quality is at its best.

Locus Adds New Functionality to Generate AREOR Data Summary Tables in its EIM Software

Locus’ Nuclear Customers can Easily Meet Regulatory Compliance with EIM

SAN FRANCISCO, 25 February 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Cloud-computing enterprise software for environmental, energy, air, water, and compliance management, has added brand new functionality to its flagship EIM product that gives customers the ability to easily generate the Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report (AREOR) Data Summary Tables.

Any organization that has a Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program (REMP) must submit this report on an annual basis. The AREOR is highly analytical and requires specific groupings and summary statistics in order for an organization to meet regulatory compliance. Typically, generating these AREOR annual data summary tables are a tedious and time-intensive process.

Locus recognized this reporting difficulty after speaking with one of its customers, PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant. After listening to the current challenge and PG&E’s suggestions, the importance of building the AREOR data summary tables as a formatted report and making it available to all of EIM’s nuclear customer databases was apparent. Now, what used to take multiple weeks to complete is condensed down to a few hours.

“REMP professionals who create their site’s AREOR know how long it takes to generate data summary tables. Every year I spent around one to two weeks manipulating data in Excel spreadsheets creating these sampling matrix data tables for my AREOR,” said Martin Wright, Senior RP Engineer at Diablo Canyon. “With Locus EIM formatted reports, each sampling matrix data summary table is now generated in one to two seconds, with just a few clicks. The initial one time setup of the formatted templates took me about two hours to understand and actually setup in EIM. Once the templates are in place in EIM, I simply change the date ranges when generating the annual summary tables for my report. This feature will save 40 to 80 hours of workload for me each year.”

“Locus has a strong presence in the nuclear industry, and after hearing about the difficulties that our customers were experiencing when completing AREOR data summary tables, we knew it was necessary to make the AREOR tables an off-the-shelf formatted report within EIM,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “This is a good example of when ‘wisdom of the crowd’ helps to advance knowledge and streamline otherwise tedious, but necessary processes. With a great idea from one customer—all EIM customers will benefit almost instantly and reduce their operating cost in years to come. That is the real power of a web-based system with a rolling upgrade model. We are grateful to PG&E for working with us and sharing their knowledge and experience in promoting the industry’s state-of-the-art technology.”

 

Locus Technologies Wins Environmental Business Journal’s 2012 Business Achievement: Information Technology Award

Environmental Business Journal is proud to announce its 15th annual business achievement awards. Our 2012 winners succeeded in a relatively difficult business climate, so we salute the dedication and commitment of the companies awarded.

San Francisco, Calif., 21 January 2013 —Locus Technologies (Locus) announced today that Environmental Business Journal® (EBJ) granted the company the award for Information Technology in the environmental and energy industry for the record-breaking seventh time.

Locus is one of 50 companies EBJ has honored for revenue growth, acquisitions, innovative project designs, technology applications, new practice areas, social contributions, and industry leadership in 2012. Locus was recognized for continuing to enhance its position in the energy, sustainability, and compliance software markets by growing its Fortune 100 and Department of Energy (DOE) customer lists and also pursuing and achieving essential certifications and reports.

In 2012, Locus had its best year yet in terms of expanding its software offerings and diversifying its customer base across many new industries. Locus added two of the three world’s largest chemical companies to its list of customers this year, and also one of the largest companies in the agribusiness industry, expanding Locus’ impressive penetration in the food and biotech industries. Locus also welcomed two DOE research laboratories to its list of customers and signed a contract with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply that opened the door to water quality management for water utilities.  In the private sector Locus signed numerous new customers including Kelly-Moore Paint Company, Jack Engle & Co. and the University of Texas at El Paso.

Other notable accomplishments for 2012 include a 100 percent renewal rate for Locus’ carbon verification services administered under the California AB 32 program, and several Locus staff members being certified as carbon offset verifiers by the California Air Resources Board. In order to assure its growing list of customers that they can trust Locus with their data, Locus pursued and obtained Service Organization Controls reports, both SOC 1 (SSAE 16) and SOC 2. Locus also became an approved contractor with the federal General Services Administration (GSA) for a range of services, and was recognized by Verdantix, one of the top industry analysts, as one of 12 leading environmental management software suppliers globally.

“In what is widely regarded as a stable market, a number of companies exceeded the norms of low single-digit growth with double-digit growth or ambitious ventures into new practice areas or technology development,” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Inc. (EBI, San Diego), publisher of Environmental Business Journal. “Locus continues to influence the industry with its forward-thinking product set and eye for customer needs.”

“We are very proud to be selected for the seventh time for the prestigious EBJ Information Technology award in environmental business,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “I believe our success is due to our cutting edge technology that has been tested in the Cloud longer than any other in our space, the domain knowledge of our team, and their dedication to the company’s mission to organize environmental, sustainability, energy and related compliance information in a single integrated enterprise software offered via the Cloud. I thank and congratulate the entire Locus team, and our customers who entrusted Locus to put their data in the Cloud, for making this award possible.”

The Environmental Business Journal is a business research publication that provides high-value strategic business intelligence to the environmental industry. The 2012 EBJ awards will be presented at a special ceremony at the Environmental Industry Summit XI in Coronado, Calif., March 6-8, 2013. The Environmental Industry Summit is an annual three-day event hosted by EBI Inc.

About Locus Technologies:
Locus provides businesses with the power to be green on-demand and has pioneered web-based environmental software suites. Locus’ software enables companies to organize and validate all key environmental information in a single system, which includes analytical data for water, air, soil, greenhouse gases, sustainability, energy, compliance, and environmental content. Locus software is delivered through Cloud Computing (SaaS), so there is no hardware to procure, no large up-front license fee, and no complex set-ups. Locus also offers services to help implement and maintain environmental programs using our unique technologies.

For more information, visit http://www.locustec.com  or email: info@locustec.com.