As companies and businesses grow, so does the amount of waste and CO2 emissions they produce. Business waste goes beyond your operations and factories, and the energy, billing models, or even transportation of goods play a significant role in your environmental impact. If you’re trying to improve sustainability in your workplace, but you don’t know how to start, technology and data might be the answer. Thanks to waste tracking and data reporting tools, many companies see the opportunity behind waste, saving money while benefitting the environment. We spoke with Daniele Biffi from the EIC-funded company DVP Vacuum Technology to discover which steps are they taking to monitor data and reduce CO2 emissions with the support of the EIC Greenhouse Gas tool.
Step 1: Analyse your product’s lifecycle to identify wasteful practices
DVP Vacuum Technology has produced an intelligent vacuum pump system. StarLink is a patent-pending system that uses data analytics and machine learning to identify pump malfunctions before they happen, proposing actions to be taken. The innovation funded by the European Innovation Council reduces pump downtime-related costs by 30%, increases productivity by 50%, and makes operation manager tasks easier.
Daniele Biffi has always strived for sustainable actions on its operations, implementing recyclable packaging or even giving new life to old vacuum pumps to place them again in the market. But when he decided to test the EIC Greenhouse Gas Tool to monitor CO2 emissions, he immediately realised many wasteful aspects of their supply chain had never been considered.
“Our production is just a tiny portion of our work and waste. Our company is not located at the city centre, and we have many employees that use the private car every day, which means many new GHG emissions”, Daniele explained. “We feel that we need to monitor this data because if we want to be sustainable, we also need to consider every aspect of our emissions”, concluded.
According to Daniele, the first step is always to analyse the data coming from all processes, including production, storage, distribution, etc. Every little action and data need to be considered to achieve a sustainable supply chain, including internal practices.
Step 2: Prepare your inventory with brand new data
When Daniele decided to monitor their CO2 emissions, he started to face some difficulties with collecting data.
“The problem is that many startups are not prepared or able to collect this data”, he highlighted. “Companies are always concerned about the collection and management of data from their production, but it’s very rare to find a company that controls data from their waste or mobility, for example. I realised that we were not internally organised to collect it”.
Daniele’s advice for companies planning to start using this tool and monitoring their waste data is simple: prepare the data required beforehand and organise your system for the past, present and future.
Step 3: Define concrete goals when it comes to sustainability actions
If you want to steer your company towards a green journey, it is necessary to clearly define what goals you can accomplish and create a company-wide sustainable mindset. Daniele believes that companies need to define the problem: “With this (EIC GHG) tool, you can use the data collected to take action inside your company and make people aware of the real level of the problem. If you can present a current concrete number on your emissions, for example, and define the new number you want to achieve, it will make it easier to implement measures.”
Take Daniele’s example: “At the beginning of this month, our company has defined an ethical code where we set four principal elements, and one of those elements is sustainability. The other elements are necessary consequences of our focus on sustainability. It is very relevant to promote this approach inside the company and with our stakeholders”, concluded.
About the EIC Greenhouse Gas Tool:
The GHG Tool allows each EIC beneficiary to simulate the GHG emissions of their activities on the largest scope possible, i.e., their daily direct GHG emissions (e.g., site combustion such as on-building heating or mobile consumption such as vehicle fuel consumption) and their indirect emissions (e.g., manufacturing of sold products, business travel, waste, etc.). Once the carbon footprint is assessed for a baseline year, the tool will suggest a selection of typical mitigation measures applicable to the company’s activities. It will then be possible to choose the preferred measures and commit to a certain level of ambition for the implementation of each measure in the next years. Starting from these results and the choices of measures, the beneficiaries may consider or suggest innovative products which may help reduce emissions for each emission category.
Regular webinars on the use of the GHG Tool will be organized. To apply, please go to the EIC Community.
For more information on how to fill in the EIC GHG Tool, check out the tutorial here.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.