Locus Technologies Joins The Climate Registry and The Global Reporting Initiative
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., September 28, 2009 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in web-based environmental software, announced today that it has joined The Climate Registry and The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to report its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GRI Performance Indicators and to assist its clients with doing the same. The Climate Registry is a nonprofit organization established to support organizations in calculating and publicly reporting GHG emissions in a common, accurate and transparent manner consistent across industry sectors and geographical borders. The Global Reporting Initiative has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework and is committed to its continuous improvement and application worldwide. This framework sets out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance.
“Locus Technologies has demonstrated exemplary environmental leadership by taking the critical first step toward analyzing its impact on the environment” said Doug Scott, Chair of The Climate Registry and Chair of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. “In order to manage and reduce emissions, it is important to calculate and verify emissions data accurately. By measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions according to the most rigorous and comprehensive standards, Locus is holding itself to the highest level of accountability and responsibility.”
Registry Members calculate and verify their GHG emissions according to The Climate Registry’s protocols, which are based on and consistent with international standards such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and WRI/WBCSD. By calculating, reporting and verifying their GHG emissions, Members serve as international role models for environmental responsibility and commitment. Because they have experience in managing their emissions, they also serve as valuable resources in developing future policies.
The GRI Guidelines are the world’s most widely-used sustainability reporting framework. The common framework enables like-for-like comparison to be made between companies, and for change to be effected from within a company. GRI’s mission is to create conditions for the transparent and reliable exchange of sustainability information through the development and continuous improvement of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. The GRI vision is that disclosure on economic, environmental, and social performance is as commonplace and comparable as financial reporting, and as important to organizational success.
“Locus is very happy to join these organizations that are leading initiatives to standardize reporting of GHG and Sustainability Indicators for the benefit of the planet and business community. For the last several years Locus has been developing web-based software that incorporates guidance documents from these organizations to help its clients with reporting needs in various jurisdictions around the world. Locus’ goal is to provide its clients with Software as a Service (SaaS) tools where clients need to input GHG and Sustainability information only once and report it many times in accordance with various geographies and standards. This is particularly important because many regions around the world still don’t have a clear set of enterprise GHG reporting standards. With passage of the Federal Greenhouse Gases Rule on 22 September 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time, require large emitters to begin reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) data under a new reporting system. This new program covers approximately 85 percent of the U.S. GHG emissions and applies to roughly 10,000 facilities. The owners of these facilities need to be ready to organize and report their data in the most efficient way. Furthermore, by organizing their GHG and Sustainability data in a system like Locus’, companies will not only be able to lower the reporting costs and organize their data better, but also use the very same data to improve their operational efficiency across their organization in a way that could self-fund these important initiatives,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus.
“We hope that Locus will pave the way for many other companies from the US and other regions of the world to recognize the importance of GRI and GHG reporting. Embedding the GRI guidance in ePortal applications through a multi-stakeholder process will help industry to faster adopt a set of standards for sustainability disclosure,” added Dr. Duplan.