Locus and ChemAdvisor Team Up to Offer Integrated Portal for Chemical and Regulatory Information Management

Two Industry Leaders to Address a Growing Need for Integrated Regulatory and Chemical Management

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and PITTSBURGH, PA., 9 January 2012 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in web-based environmental, energy, and compliance software, and ChemADVISOR, Inc., the leader in regulatory products, chemical databases, and regulatory compliance needs, announced today the signing of a formal partnership between the two premier environmental software companies. The popular ChemADVISOR Chemical Regulatory database will be integrated into and offered as a module within Locus’ award-winning ePortal via a Single Sign On (SSO).

ChemADVISOR maintains the List of Lists (LOLI) database, which contains almost 4,000 regulatory lists from around the world. These lists are useful for material safety data sheet (MSDS) preparation and other regulatory compliance needs. Data sources include inventories, physical properties, and toxicity data, as well as data necessary for U.S. and international environmental, health, and safety compliance.

ChemADVISOR will refresh the LOLI database through the Locus ePortal to ensure the lists continually reflect the most up-to-date information in the industry. Locus ePortal customers who subscribe to the LOLI database will have seamless access to a fast, reliable, and cost-effective way to search for regulatory information on specific chemicals and chemical groups. They will have an efficient way to perform an occasional regulatory check on a chemical that is managed and reported from one of Locus’ ePortal modules without needing to log into a separate application. Customers will be able to for search CAS numbers by chemical name, PMN number, EINECS, number and more.

“With the integration of ChemADVISOR into ePortal, customers will have even more comprehensive tools to manage all aspects of their regulatory compliance, energy and water usage, water quality, air emissions, greenhouse gas reporting, and health and safety through one online portal,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “More than half a million records on hundreds of thousands of chemicals can be searched in seconds. Customers can check chemicals against ChemADVISOR inventory lists, extensive sets of health and safety regulations and advisory sources, or both, all while in ePortal performing other compliance tasks. They can compare chemicals at their facility to regulatory frameworks that are associated with those chemicals and may be relevant to their sites. That is very powerful because it saves times, reduces risk of non-compliance, and improves regulatory diligence.”

Included in ePortal will also be The Transportation Database that contains all of the information from the U.S. Department of Transportation, ADR, ADN, RID, Canadian TDG, IATA, ICAO and IMO hazardous materials tables in a database format. This list includes proper shipping names, packing groups, CFR notations, synonyms, and more.

“Using the Locus ePortal, integrated with the ChemADVISOR database, clients can take a more holistic view of their enterprises, which can enable them to manage their compliance expenditures and operational costs more effectively. The industry needs integrated solutions that allow fewer people to manage more using less. That was the main impetus behind our decision to join forces with Locus and offer an integrated solution in the Cloud,” said Andrew Dsida, President and CEO of ChemADVISOR.

“Indeed, the market has lacked an integrated solution that brings many-if not all-environmental, energy, water, and other compliance and consumption requirements under a single portal infrastructure and sign-on online,” added Duplan. “With the addition of ChemADVISOR to ePortal, customers now have the integrated system, similar to ERP, that will manage all environmental, energy, water, and other sustainability needs.”
ABOUT ChemADVISOR
Since 1986, ChemADVISOR, Inc. has been the chemical industry’s indispensable source of Environmental Health Safety & Transportation information. Specializing in providing regulatory consulting services, products and training, ChemADVISOR has a solution ready to meet your compliance needs. Our LOLI database is the largest and most comprehensive regulatory database available, providing a single source of world-wide regulatory information at your fingertips.

For more information, visit www.chemadvisor.com or email info@chemadvisor.com.

Entrepreneur Journey: Cleaning up the environment. Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant Sramana Mitra interviews Locus CEO

“Shortly afterward, I left the consulting company I was working for and kind of forgot about the whole business of data management for environmental projects until 1996.” – Neno Duplan

Read article here.

LANL Sends Environmental Management to the Cloud

Locus Technologies claimed the contract to manage the LANL’s lab data in their cloud was worth up to $2 million.

Del Monte invests in enterprise software for energy, water

A management application from Locus Technologies will provide an integrated view of energy and water consumption across the food giant’s operations.

Del Monte Foods Selects Locus Software for Energy, Sustainability, and Resource Management

Solution to Drive Food Manufacturer’s Integrated Environmental Management

SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 12, 2011 — One of the nation’s largest food companies has joined with a Silicon Valley innovator to advance its position as a leader in sustainable energy and environmental resource management. Locus Technologies today announced that Del Monte Foods has selected Locus Technologies’ award-winning ePortal™ platform to provide a comprehensive, integrated system for monitoring and managing its energy use, water, and other sustainability efforts throughout the corporation’s facilities.

Together, the two companies are combining the latest in sustainable agricultural, food processing, and product delivery efforts with next-generation online technologies for Environmental Enterprise Resource Planning (EERP). In particular, ePortal will provide Del Monte with enterprise tools to optimize consumption of environmental resources to lower greenhouse gas emissions and encourage more sustainable growth.

For several years, Del Monte has pursued an aggressive agenda for environmental sustainability, including reductions to its waste stream, greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption.

Today’s announcement adds the critical component of energy management to this integrated resource approach by using Locus’ web-based environmental management and analytical tools for a simpler, more effective sustainability campaign. Through a single Cloud-based secure system, the Locus platform will collect, monitor, and analyze multiple streams of energy and environmental data flowing from Del Monte’s operational locations, with consumer production ranging from Kingsburg, California to Mendota, Illinois, as well as a wide array of Pet Food manufactured throughout the United States.

Locus’ ePortal works with Del Monte’s resource planning system to aggregate critical financial and operational data into a single platform for effective environmental resource monitoring and management.

“Companies are looking beyond single solution to address their energy, resource management, water, and compliance needs,” said Neno Duplan, president and CEO of Locus Technologies. “They seek solutions that help to align their energy, environmental emissions, and resource management strategies to become more efficient and to manage their energy and water consumption. ePortal provides that simple, integrated system, similar to ERP, that manages all environmental, energy, water, and other sustainability needs under a single portal infrastructure and Single Sign On (SSO) on the web,” Duplan said.

“By working with Locus, we will improve our ability to analyze and forecast our reliance on critical environmental resources, which will help Del Monte meet its sustainability goals,” said Robin Connell, Sustainability Programs Manager for Del Monte Foods. “Management of our complex set of activities requires robust software architectures that are best delivered via the Cloud. We found all of these in Locus’ platform.”

 

ABOUT DEL MONTE FOODS
Del Monte Foods is one of the country’s largest producers, distributors and marketers of premium quality, branded pet products and food products for the U.S. retail market, generating approximately $3.7 billion in net sales in fiscal 2011. With a powerful portfolio of brands, Del Monte products are found in eight out of ten U.S. households. Pet food and pet snacks brands include Meow Mix®, Kibbles ‘n Bits®, Milk-Bone®, 9Lives®, Pup-Peroni®, Gravy Train®, Nature’s Recipe®, Canine Carry Outs®, Milo’s Kitchen® and other brand names. Food product brands include Del Monte®, Contadina®, S&W®, College Inn® and other brand names. The Company also produces and distributes private label pet products and food products.

For more information on Del Monte Foods, visit the Company’s website at www.delmontefoods.com.

Del Monte. Nourishing Families. Enriching Lives. Every Day®

EPA announces schedule to develop hydrofracking wastewater standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing a schedule to develop standards for wastewater discharges produced by natural gas extraction from underground coalbed and shale formations. No comprehensive set of national standards exists at this time for the disposal of wastewater discharged from natural gas extraction activities, and over the coming months EPA will begin the process of developing a proposed standard with the input of stakeholders – including industry and public health groups. Today’s announcement is in line with the priorities identified in the president’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources.

Currently, wastewater associated with shale gas extraction is prohibited from being directly discharged to waterways and other waters of the U.S. While some of the wastewater from shale gas extraction is reused or re-injected, a significant amount still requires disposal. As a result, some shale gas wastewater is transported to treatment plants, many of which are not properly equipped to treat this type of wastewater. EPA will consider standards based on demonstrated, economically achievable technologies, for shale gas wastewater that must be met before going to a treatment facility.

EBJ Business Achiever of the Week: Locus Technologies

EBJ is the leading source of business intelligence in the environmental industry. EBJ provides a strategic overview and an independent perspective on market trends and business strategy in a monthly publication.

Locus Ranked 3rd Largest Environmental Firm in Silicon Valley

L.A. may have bested the rest of the country when it comes to green job creation, but other regions can still be considered green tech hubs.

Locus Technologies Pioneers Water and Energy Software in the Cloud

CEO Neno Duplan’s Entrepreneur Profile

Water Price

There is a saying from the book and movie Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) “Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron. Water can carve its way through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.” There is also a famous Chinese proverb about water: “not only can water float a boat, it can sink it also.”

And with global water shortages on the horizon, climate change supporters say an extreme response will be needed from international governments to provide enough drinking water in some parts of the world. The World Bank in a report said that 1.4 million people could be facing water scarcity by 2025. But the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecast is even gloomier. It estimates that 47% of the world’s population could face water stress in the same period–equivalent to more than three billion people.

The issue isn’t restricted to countries that typically see temperatures soar like ones in the Middle East. Northern hemisphere nations like the U.K. are also finding themselves in the midst of a drought in some regions, forcing governments to start to take action. The U.K. government, for instance, plans to issue a Water White Paper this December (2011) that will focus on the future challenges facing the water industry and measures to increase protection of river flows during summer months. No one really knows whether this year’s snows and rains in California are providing only a temporary respite from a long dry spell or signaling a return to normal—or at least what much of the developed world considers normal.

Maybe Israel’s entrepreneurial approach to the issue is the way forward. In the recent book “The Big Thirst” Mr. Charles Fishman, makes an interesting argument for a market-based approach to water’s distribution and usage… But the fact remains that water scarcity is now firmly on the agenda of the world’s governments, and isn’t going to evaporate overnight.
“The Big Thirst” offers a torrent of statistics. It is overflowing with stories large and small about water: The average American flushes the toilet five times a day, the author says, using 18.5 gallons of water. That comes to “5.7 billion gallons of clean drinking water down the toilet.” An Australian rice farmer with 10,450 acres uses six gigaliters of water—that’s six billion liters, or enough to hand almost everyone on the planet a bottle of Evian.

Water is a local problem. The wastefulness (and water conservation) has little or no effect on people in other watersheds because water is so difficult to ship. Shipping consumes energy. Energy production generates GHG. Hence a close relationship between water and climate change. Compared to other big problems facing society today, such as finance, climate change, and energy consumption, they are all interconnected in some way. No way out. And water will move to the top of agenda during this decade.

Mr. Fishman predicts that we will arrive at a water solution by putting a market price on water, because in most places today, neither farms nor industry nor residents pay what it costs to develop, purify and deliver water to their faucets. Rather than pay a market price for their water—which would direct the resource to where it provided the most economic value—most users pay a rate set by the government or their water utility, a rate usually aimed only at recouping the portion of the cost not subsidized by the general taxpayer. This distortion tends to keep the retail price of water lower than it would otherwise be where water is scarce, encouraging consumption rather than conservation.

Mr. Fishman asserts that pricing water beyond a basic ration for all would “help fix everything else,” including scarcity, unequal distribution, misuse and waste. Putting the right price on water would stop us from using purified water to flush our toilets or water our lawns, and it would lead us to more aggressively tap our own wastewater—the water from your shower could be used to wash the car or water the lawn. “The right price changes how we see everything else about water.”