Session: Corporate Use of LCA

LCA as a Tool for Supporting Sustainability
Valerie Bone,^*   Pacific Market International

PMI has been engaged in Corporate Social Responsibility since the founding of our company in 1983. Our journey began with philanthropic and community involvement. As we increased our factory base in Asia, we published our first Code of Conduct in 1998 and have grown in this work steadily since. In 2006 PMI was awarded the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai Award for advancement in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

As part of building a sustainable company, we built upon the environmental requirements in our Code of Conduct by launching our Environmental Sustainability Plan in 2006. Our Sustainability Plan includes both eco-efficient goals and eco-effective goals. Our eco-efficiency goals focus on continuous environmental management improvement at our factories and offices. We have water recycling and waste material recyling programs established in our core factories that reduce our environmental impact while improving costs.

We engaged Iere and other NGO's with environmental expertise to help us complete our first LCA in June 2006. Our LCA experience has opened up new ideas for environmental improvement at our factories and in our products. The LCA has provided the base-line information we need as we engage in eco-effective product development. Before perfoming the LCA at our largest JV factory, we thought that our biggest environmental impact was in the manufacturing process. It our scoping for the LCA, we set the system boundary at the maximum scope from raw material suppliers through end of expected consumer use of the product. The results of the LCA surprised us because the analysis showed that our manufacturing process was only responsible for 3% of the environmental impact. The largest opportunity to make a difference is in our upstream raw material supplier choices, and in our downstream variables such as freight choices. The materials we choose to use to make our products and the material suppliers we choose to source the raw materials from is now a focus for our company. We now understand that supplier location in addition to level of supplier commitment to sustainability in their operations may have a significant impact on our product's environmental impact.

LCA has provided a platform for us to link B2B with our (upstream) supply chain and our (downstream) clients. The LCA showed us that the real opportunity for improvement was in material sourcing, product and packaging design and downstream actions in addition to the manufacturing process at 1% to 3% impact. This was a surprise to us. It has provided a new way to look at our sustainable business opportunities.

There is a popular myth currently circulating that says LCA is "old" eco-efficiency thinking. We see LCA as a viable tool that should be used in conjunction with other sustainability tools. From the LCA we understand what to focus on and where we can make the most impactful improvements. We see LCA as a sustainability tool we will continue to use as we move forward in our sustainability plan. We intend to perform another LCA in 2007. We are currently talking with several of our clients to engage them in this process.

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