Sustainability | Page 13 of 23 | Locus Technologies

5 time-saving tools for EHS compliance

We all know the struggle of getting things done with shortened staff without compromising the quality of our work, especially in EHS. Locus Technologies’ Locus Platform (LP) offers multiple options to ease your complexity by providing a truly SaaS platform packed with some nifty apps. Here are some tools in LP that can help you utilize your workforce much more efficiently:

1) Dashboards tailored to your needs

Every software has built-in report and dashboards, but they may not meet all your needs when purchased off the shelf. If you need a new report, chart, or other visualization of your data, it usually incurs a custom software development charge, but not with Locus Platform (LP). LP allows you to assemble the information you want in your chosen format (bar or line charts, maps, tables, treemaps, diagrams, etc.) and share your custom dashboards and real-time information/data with your team. In addition, the views and dashboards export to Excel, so you can easily integrate with commonly used tools and further mine the data. At the enterprise level, powerful dashboards will help you understand the status of each facility based on a matrix you design. With the LPs flexibility, facility information can be automatically populated based on the user credentials, saving your team time and frustration.

2) Simplified Sustainability Reporting

Locus Platform’s Sustainability application and calculation engine support simultaneous calculations using multiple methods for various reporting programs including EPA, California ARB, CDP, TCR, DJSI, and others. This allows users to input data only once and utilize it to report to multiple federal, state, and voluntary reporting programs, according to their required format. The application will also support direct electronic reporting formats for many reporting programs, so that additional manual transcription and submittal of data are no longer necessary. This is a very powerful tool and a huge advantage to customers in terms of improving efficiency, while reducing costs.

3) Integration

Integration, if done correctly, can save you a great deal of time and headache during some of the most tedious and cumbersome tasks in EHS data management. Locus Platform (LP) has built in a unique point and click integration application to enable connection with major databases or third-party systems that have open API (Access privileges). Some integration, database, and communication standards and methods that are supported include OLE compliance, SOAP, COM, Java, XML, web services, ODBC/ODMA/SQL/Oracle, VIM, and MAPI. LP also works well with MS Excel and provides a powerful two-way synchronization allowing users to download parts of the database to Excel, then work, edit, and verify or append data on their local copy of Excel where they have no internet connection. Any revisions they perform to the downloaded data in Excel can be automatically synchronized back to the Locus Platform application. During the process, a complete audit trail will be preserved. This can be a great time saver especially when you are sending large volumes of valid values in a database or if you are migrating any historical data.

4) Mobile

Locus’ Mobile application allows you to sync with your server to create data collection profiles on a mobile device, whether it’s your phone or a tablet. It will allow you to click through and enter data on the device even when you are offline. Data validation is performed in real time and is stored locally on the device, once the phone reaches an internet signal, it will sync with your server, and the data will automatically be updated in Locus’ cloud-hosted solution. What’s more, Locus Mobile works seamlessly with both EIM and Locus Platform.

Using Mobile you receive the benefits of data entry directly on the mobile device, with immediate data availability on the cloud when you reach an internet signal. Other advantages of using Mobile include location metadata and mapping integration, bar-code/OR code scanning, voice recognition, and form customization. If you’d like to know more about the Locus Mobile application, check out the Top 10 cool features in Locus Mobile.

5) XML Exports

Locus has prioritized enhancing its GHG application in Locus Platform to make it easy to manage GHG emission inventory tracking and reporting requirements. Locus Technologies is the only software vendor that is a certified GHG verifier under the State of California’s AB32, and has performed the most GHG verifications in California since 2015. The State and Federal eGGRT web portals are notoriously cumbersome and require a significant amount of your time to input all the required data and generate your report. But with XML support, you can bypass almost the entire data entry process, and complete your submittal within a few minutes. XML reports support many greenhouse gas subparts, including EPA GHG Subparts C, D, W, and NN. And because data entry for EPA and CARB is consolidated in the XML GHG application, it eliminates the need to maintain separate agency spreadsheets and software. Additional reporting programs are also adding support for XML submittals, such as EPA’s eManifest. This functionality can be a huge time saver for anyone working with these online regulatory reporting tools.

Oil companies agree to reduce methane emissions

A coalition of the world’s oil companies agreed to reduce methane emissions from natural gas extraction—part of an effort to shore up the climate credentials of the hydrocarbon.

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative said it would target reducing methane emissions to less than 0.25% of the total natural gas the group of 13 member companies produces by 2025.

Methane is the main component of natural gas. During extraction, transport, and processing, it often leaks into the environment. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. In the short term, it traps more heat although it stays shorter in the atmosphere. According to the International Energy Agency, one ton of methane is equivalent to as much as 87 tons of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.

Natural gas production is growing. Many big oil companies are increasing production of natural gas to offset higher emissions from other hydrocarbon and coal sources. The switch makes the oil-and-gas industry look better when demonstrating emission reduction to limit climate change.

For that reason, some oil companies, Shell, in particular, has tilted its production mix toward more gas output.

According to 2018 report by the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, as much as $34 billion of global gas supply is lost each year through leaks and venting. That is another valid reason to limit those methane escapes and park the proceeds to the bottom line. That in itself could fund part of the effort to stop or reduce the leaks.

Locus Technologies to offer its EHS multi-tenant SaaS Locus Platform on Amazon Web Services

Locus and AWS will simplify and expand how customers capture, analyze and take action on EHS compliance and sustainability activities

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 24 April 2018 — Locus Technologies (Locus), a leader in multi-tenant Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environmental compliance and sustainability management, today announced it will offer its award-winning EHS Locus Platform SaaS on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Locus announced it will deliver Locus SaaS services designed to simplify and expand how customers capture, analyze and take action on their data and EHS compliance activities. Additionally, Locus announced that the AWS US West (Oregon) Region will be the first new AWS Region supported in Locus’ planned international infrastructure expansion on AWS. Locus’ customers will be able to use the company’s core service—including Locus Platform and more—delivered on AWS, with general availability expected in May 2018. Locus Environmental Information Management (EIM) will be moved to AWS in early 2019.

Locus also plans to deliver integrations that will connect the Locus Platform with AWS Internet of Things (IoT), Amazon CloudFront, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). Locus intends to leverage AWS IoT by building a new native integration to help businesses generate value from the billions of events generated by connected devices such as real-time environmental monitoring sensors and environmental treatment systems controls.

AWS IoT is a set of cloud services that let connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications like Locus Platform and other devices. Locus IoT Cloud will connect with AWS IoT to combine device data with customer data in Locus Platform, allowing businesses to create meaningful customer experiences based on real-time activity and emissions monitoring across all their connected sensors and devices.

For example, a water utility company that maintains millions of IoT-enabled sensors for water flow, pressure, pH, or other water quality measuring devices across their dispersed facilities can use AWS IoT combined with Locus Platform as a whole solution to ingest and manage the data generated by those sensors and devices, and interpret it in real time. By combining water sensor data from AWS IoT with Locus IoT customer data, the water utility company will be able to automatically create an emergency shutdown if chemical or other exceedances or device faults are detected and will be better prepared to serve their customers.

By combining the powerful, actionable intelligence and rapid responsiveness through Locus Platform with the scalability and fast-query performance of AWS, customers can seamlessly analyze large datasets on arrival in real time. This will allow Locus’ customers to instantly explore information, find insights, and take actions from a greater variety and volume of data—all without investing the significant time and resources required to administer a self-managed on-premises data warehouse.

Locus Platform offers a highly configurable, user-friendly interface to fully meet individual organizations’ environmental management needs. “Locus Platform, when combined with the power and security of AWS, can improve companies’ data collection, analysis, and most importantly, reporting capabilities, resulting in streamlined EH&S compliance and the mitigation of regulatory risks and fines.” said Wes Hawthorne, President, Locus Technologies.

Shipping industry to discuss cuts in CO2 emissions

International shipping produces about 1,000 million tons of CO2 annually – that’s more than the entire German economy.

A meeting of the International Maritime Organisation in London that starts tomorrow will discuss how shipping industry can radically reduce its CO2 emissions. The shipping industry, if it does not change the way it operates, will contribute almost a fifth of the global total of CO2 by 2050. A group of nations led by Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, Panama, and Argentina is resisting CO2 targets for shipping. Their submission to the meeting says capping ships’ overall emissions would restrict world trade. It might also force goods on to less efficient forms of transport. This argument is dismissed by other countries which believe shipping could benefit from a shift towards cleaner technology. European nations are proposing to shrink shipping emissions by 70-100 percent of their 2008 levels by 2050.

The problem has developed over many years. As the shipping industry is international, it evades the carbon-cutting influence of the annual UN talks on climate change, which are conducted on a national basis. Instead, the decisions have been left to the IMO; a body recently criticized for its lack of accountability and transparency. The IMO did agree on a design standard in 2011 ensuring that new ships should be 30 percent more efficient by 2025. But there is no rule to reduce emissions from the existing fleet.

The Clean Shipping Coalition, a green group focusing on ships, said shipping should conform to the agreement made in Paris to stabilize the global temperature increase as close as possible to 1.5C. The pressure is on the IMO to produce an ambitious policy. The EU has threatened that if the IMO doesn’t move far enough, the EU will take over regulating European shipping. That would see the IMO stripped of some of its authority.

Some say huge improvements in CO2 emissions from existing ships can be easily be made by obliging them to travel more slowly. They say a carbon pricing system is needed.

EHS&S in the age of blockchain technology

Blockchain is a highly disruptive technology that promises to change the world as we know it, much like the World Wide Web’s impact after its introduction in 1991. As companies look to the blockchain model to perform financial transactions, trade stocks, and create open market spaces, many other industries are looking at utilizing blockchain technology to eliminate the middleman. One sector well-positioned to benefit from blockchain technology is the data-intensive Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability (EHS&S) space.

In particular, I see three major ways that the EHS industry can utilize blockchain technology to change how they manage information: 1) Blockchain-based IoT monitoring, 2) emissions management, and 3) emissions trading.

My belief is that blockchain technology will help to quantify the impact of man-made emissions on global warming trends and provide tools to manage it. One cannot manage what one cannot measure!

Imagine this: every emissions source in your company, whether to water, air, or soil, is connected wirelessly via a sensor or another device (thing) to a blockchain ledger that stores a description of the source, its location, emission factors, etc. Every time that the source generates emissions (that is, it is on), all necessary parameters are recorded in real time. If air emissions are involved, equivalent tons of carbon are calculated and recorded in a blockchain ledger and made available to reporting and trading entities in real time.

Blockchain ledgers may exist at many levels. Some may record emissions at a given site. Others at higher levels (company, state or province, country, continent, etc.) may roll up information from lower level ledgers.

Suppose that emissions are traded so that they are not yours anymore. In that case, someone else owns them, and you do not need to report them again, but everyone knows that you were the generating source. The same logic can be applied to tier 1, 2, and 3 level emissions. Attached to the emissions ledger are all other necessary information about the asset generating those emissions, financial information, depreciation schedule, time in service, operating time, fuel consumption, operators’ names, an estimate of future emissions—the list goes on.

To learn more how blockchain technology will impact emissions monitoring, management, reporting, and trading click here.

The world’s most sustainable companies

One notable difference among attendees of the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland last month was the presence of Chief Sustainability Officers in much larger number than ever before.

This makes sense given the themes of many of the discussions. None more than a panel that focused on integrating sustainability risk into enterprise risk management.

This is an important evolution for the sustainability community—one that we welcome at Locus and are working with our clients to achieve using our fully-integrated, multi-tenant software platform.

Just in time for the World Economic Forum, an annual assessment of the world’s most sustainable companies emerges, highlighting large firms from around the world whose sustainability in various categories puts them in a league of their own.

The report, now in its fourteenth year of publication, is compiled by Corporate Knights, a Canada-based financial information company and magazine with a focus on how business and societal and ecological benefits can go hand in hand.

In compiling its report, Corporate Knights looked to publicly-disclosed data—financial filings, sustainability reports, etc.—from some 6,000 financially healthy companies across the globe, in all industries, with minimum annual revenue of $1 billion. Key factors Corporate Knight included in its analysis included energy use, carbon, waste, and clean air production. Top 900 companies were contacted for data verification before the results were boiled down to a final 100.

Topping the list this year was Dassault Systemes, a French firm that designs engineering software to assist organizations in waste reduction.

Behind Dassault is Neste, a Finnish company that deals in renewable diesel and other petroleum products. Within the next five years, according to Corporate Knights, more than half of its revenue will come from renewable fuel and bio-material.

Overall, the U.S.-based companies held 18 spots in the ranking.

Locus Technologies introduces all new Sustainability software

The new Sustainability application is fully integrated with the dynamic Locus Platform and GHG calculation engine and will automate emissions calculations for large enterprises.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 17 October 2017 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in multi-tenant SaaS EHS compliance and sustainability management software, introduces the new Sustainability application on its award-winning Locus Platform. The new Sustainability application is fully integrated with other Locus Platform SaaS applications and Locus’ calculation engine, and it is intended to redefine how companies organize, manage, and calculate their greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and other Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

Today, environmental, sustainability, and energy managers for organizations of all sizes face myriad options from software suppliers offering various single-domain applications. To address this industry challenge, Locus designed the new Sustainability application on the versatile Locus Platform to provide rich functionality, simply, to make it easier for customers to make the most of their data management, compliance, and reporting requirements.

The Sustainability application will provide Locus’ customers a comprehensive, integrated system for monitoring and managing their energy use, water, and other sustainability efforts throughout their facilities. Users will have full control over the setup of the source of emissions, emissions factors as well the equations used in generating calculations. The reports and calculations are also fully transparent and auditable, so that report outputs can be traced back to input data.

GHG inventories may be the result of mandatory state, regional, or national reporting programs, such as California Air Resource Board (AB 32), US EPA Mandatory Reporting Rule, or European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Organizations need sustainability software and a GHG calculation engine that can calculate GHGs automatically and accurately from all emission-producing activities, at all their facilities, anywhere in the world. Some companies may choose to report their sustainability metrics via voluntary programs, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the CDP, or some other voluntary reporting standard. Locus can handle all related calculations and reporting requirements via a single app. No competing software available in the market today can do this.

The new Locus Platform Sustainability application and calculation engine support simultaneous calculations using multiple methods, so that users can input data once and report to federal, state, and voluntary reporting programs, according to each proper protocol. The application can also support direct electronic reporting formats for many reporting programs, so that manual transcription and submittal of data are no longer necessary. This is a very powerful capability and a huge advantage to customers in terms of efficiency and cost savings.

“We’ve updated Locus’ sustainability module based on industry demands,” said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus. “The requirements and procedures for GHG reporting are varied, complex, and rapidly evolving. To ensure compliance, companies need a calculation engine that can handle complex equations using appropriate emission factors, conversion factors, and calculation methodologies for each reporting program. The right calculation engine can reduce the stress, time, and potential inaccuracies found in homegrown accounting methods. This isn’t a product of different solutions pieced together to look like one; it is the ‘whole solution.’ Our approach means a dramatically lower cost than what customers have seen in the past with the ERP providers or with single-point solutions from different single-tenant vendors,” Hawthorne explained.

As a leading accredited GHG verification company in California, Locus directly observed challenges that many companies experience with GHG inventory calculation, coupled with the gross inadequacy of tools currently available in the market. Informed by their experience verifying hundreds of GHG inventories, Locus developed the new Sustainability application and calculation engine with a deep, unique insight into the customer’s needs.

Locus will have leading industry experts available to discuss the features of the Sustainability application at the National Association for Environmental Management (NAEM) 2017 EHS Management Forum, October 25–27, 2017, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

From the foundations of Rome to global carbon emissions reduction

Does the solution for over 5% of world CO2 emissions lie in the 2000-year-old concrete-making technology from ancient Rome?

Concrete is the second most consumed substance on Earth after water. Overall, humanity produces more than 10 billion tons (about 4 billion cubic meters) of concrete and cement per year. That’s about 1.3 tons for every person on the planet— more than any other material, including oil and coal. The consumption of concrete exceeds that of all other construction materials combined. The process of making modern cement and concrete has a heavy environmental penalty, being responsible for roughly 5% of global emissions of CO2.

Scientists explain ancient Rome’s long-lasting concrete

So could the greater understanding of the ancient Roman concrete mixture lead to greener building materials? That is what scientists may have discovered and published in a 2017 study, led by Marie Jackson of the University of Utah. Their study uncovered the Roman secrets for formulating some of the most long-lasting concrete yet discovered. Our ability to unlock the secrets of ancient concrete formulas is dependent upon interdisciplinary analytical approaches utilized by the Jackson heat group and could lead to further discoveries that would reduce cement-based carbon emissions.

Unlike the modern concrete mixture which erodes over time, the Roman concrete-like substance seemed to gain strength, particularly from exposure to sea water. And most importantly, the process generates fewer CO2 emissions and uses less energy and water than “modern”, Portland cement-based concrete.

Read the full article here.

Locus Technologies performs a record number of GHG verifications in California

Locus takes the lead in GHG verification services for California Air Resources Board AB32 Program

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 8 February 2017 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in multi-tenant SaaS environmental compliance and information management software, performed 74 verifications for the reporting year 2015 for the California Air Resources Board AB32 Program — more than any other accredited verification body. With six full-time accredited verifiers, Locus has been providing verification services since 2010 for reporting entities across California. Even more notably, after completing hundreds of these verifications and complying with several routine audits by ARB, Locus has never had a single verification statement overturned. This means that facility operators using Locus’ verification services have high confidence that their participation in the cap and trade program will not be affected by potential delays related to questions on their verification statement.

The GHG verification services cover facilities in California that are regulated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) under the Mandatory Reporting Rule (AB32). Locus is accredited as a verification body through CARB and has Lead Verifiers certified in all reporting sectors, including process emissions, oil and gas, and transactions. Over the past eight years, Locus staff have completed verifications for several industries and have become experts on reporting for most covered product types which translate into emission allowances under the cap and trade program.

GHG emission reports are coming under increased scrutiny from regulators, stakeholders, and financial auditors. Choosing the right verifier plays a critical part in remaining compliant with these rapidly evolving requirements and regulations. Locus verifiers have noticed that many companies struggle with complex GHG calculations. Some ‘black box’ calculation tools in the market have not been sufficiently stress-tested and are generating errors that cause enterprises to fail their GHG verifications. Locus’ calculation engine addresses these deficiencies and capitalizes on the architecture of the highly scalable Locus platform. All calculations performed by Locus SaaS are viewable and traceable through the tool to the original data inputs.

“We are very pleased to lead the California verification program and that so many Fortune 500 firms selected Locus for verification services. Locus continues to expand its carbon practice at a rapid pace. Coupled with our software services and domain expertise in all three key AB32 reporting sectors, Locus is becoming a partner of choice for all companies wishing to be credible in their carbon reporting needs,” said J. Wesley Hawthorne, President of Locus. “Our growth in this market has been largely fueled by referrals from existing customers, and it speaks volumes about the quality of our service that so many of our customers speak highly of Locus to their colleagues.”

Historic binding agreement reached to cut greenhouse gasses from HFC

There are roughly 1.6 billion new air conditioning units expected to come on stream by 2050, reflecting increased demand from Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

On 15 October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda nearly 200 nations have agreed a legally binding agreement to cut back on greenhouse gasses used in refrigerators and air conditioners, a significant move against climate change.
The International deal would require countries to phase out greenhouse gasses called hydrofluorocarbons beginning in 2019.

Under the agreement, developed nations, including much of Europe, the United States, China, and India commit to reducing their use of the gasses incrementally, starting with a 10 percent cut by 2019 with the goal of an 80% reduction globally by 2047. But many wealthier nations and companies have already begun to reduce their use of HFCs.

A parallel deal was struck last year in Paris to slow the growth of carbon emissions, the most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. That deal entered into force earlier this month. But unlike the Paris agreement, the Kigali deal is legally binding, has very specific timetables and has an agreement by developed economies to help emerging countries adapt their technology.

The HFC agreement comes in the form of an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty undertaken nearly 30 years ago to protect the Earth’s ozone layer.

According to the Wall Steet Journal article, Chemours Co., a publicly traded chemicals company spun off from DuPont Co. last year (and Locus Technologies customer), said that it was introducing a new line of gasses to help replace HFCs for some industrial-scale refrigeration and air-cooling systems.

The deal is the latest installment in the US administration’s efforts to curb the global greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet with harmful consequences. Earlier this month, countries also agreed to limit carbon emissions from global aviation for the first time ( http://locustec.com/blog/epa-plans-regulate-carbon-emissions-aircraft/ ).

HFCs account for about 1% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and 1.5% of all U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But they are considered one of the fastest-growing greenhouses gasses in the world. The agency predicts HFC emissions could increase up to 15% a year globally if they aren’t limited.

As a greenhouse gas, HFCs are more potent than carbon dioxide. Their heat-trapping capacity can be hundreds or thousands of times that of carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Plus, some HFCs can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, according to a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a result, even small amounts can have profound, long-lasting effects on the environment.

HFCs belong to a family of compounds known as fluorinated gasses. Such substances don’t exist in nature; they are entirely man-made, according to the EPA. After the Montreal Protocol, HFCs were developed to replace another class of fluorinated compounds, known as chlorofluorocarbons, because these were depleting the ozone layer.

One of the industry challenges will be to track, organize, and report on avalanches of data stemming from the binding HFC compliance requirements. SaaS like Locus Platform is ready for the challenge.