The annual Food & Beverage Environmental Conference (FBEC) continues to be the premier environmental event for the food industry, bringing together senior environmental managers from food and beverage companies to share their experiences with sustainable practices, environmental compliance and new technologies and approaches.
SAN FRANCISCO, 25 February 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Cloud-computing enterprise software for environmental, energy, air, water, and compliance management, has added brand new functionality to its flagship EIM product that gives customers the ability to easily generate the Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report (AREOR) Data Summary Tables.
Any organization that has a Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program (REMP) must submit this report on an annual basis. The AREOR is highly analytical and requires specific groupings and summary statistics in order for an organization to meet regulatory compliance. Typically, generating these AREOR annual data summary tables are a tedious and time-intensive process.
Locus recognized this reporting difficulty after speaking with one of its customers, PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant. After listening to the current challenge and PG&E’s suggestions, the importance of building the AREOR data summary tables as a formatted report and making it available to all of EIM’s nuclear customer databases was apparent. Now, what used to take multiple weeks to complete is condensed down to a few hours.
“REMP professionals who create their site’s AREOR know how long it takes to generate data summary tables. Every year I spent around one to two weeks manipulating data in Excel spreadsheets creating these sampling matrix data tables for my AREOR,” said Martin Wright, Senior RP Engineer at Diablo Canyon. “With Locus EIM formatted reports, each sampling matrix data summary table is now generated in one to two seconds, with just a few clicks. The initial one time setup of the formatted templates took me about two hours to understand and actually setup in EIM. Once the templates are in place in EIM, I simply change the date ranges when generating the annual summary tables for my report. This feature will save 40 to 80 hours of workload for me each year.”
“Locus has a strong presence in the nuclear industry, and after hearing about the difficulties that our customers were experiencing when completing AREOR data summary tables, we knew it was necessary to make the AREOR tables an off-the-shelf formatted report within EIM,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “This is a good example of when ‘wisdom of the crowd’ helps to advance knowledge and streamline otherwise tedious, but necessary processes. With a great idea from one customer—all EIM customers will benefit almost instantly and reduce their operating cost in years to come. That is the real power of a web-based system with a rolling upgrade model. We are grateful to PG&E for working with us and sharing their knowledge and experience in promoting the industry’s state-of-the-art technology.”
In President Obama’s recent State of the Union, he chose to address the issue of climate change more than has ever been done before in presidential history. He spoke about how floods, droughts, storms, and wildfires have all been more frequent and extreme than ever, and stated that the 12 hottest years on record have all been within the past 15.
In addition to the dangers that the effects of climate change pose, there is also the threat of a financial problem, with the cost of rebuilding New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy being approximately $60 billion.
Obama certainly met the expectation of environmentalists during his speech by acknowledging these threats, and stated he would take action to control carbon dioxide pollution. He even stated that if Congress would not act soon, he would direct his Cabinet to form actions that can be taken to reduce pollution, transition to sustainable forms of energy, and be better prepared for the results of climate change.
A variety of options can be pursued to accomplish these goals, one of which being the EPA cracking down on carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, and regulating this as a pollutant. But, one thing is for certain: the recognition of climate change and the need for protection is currently in the public eye more than it has ever been before. It is becoming even more crucial for organizations to properly manage and keep track of their environmental, emissions, and compliance data. This is why Locus will continue to work hard to offer companies the most comprehensive SaaS platforms available today to manage and organize their critical environmental information.
Environmental Business Journal is proud to announce its 15th annual business achievement awards. Our 2012 winners succeeded in a relatively difficult business climate, so we salute the dedication and commitment of the companies awarded.
Starting off the year of air with a bang, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized revisions to standards to reduce air pollution. Specifically, pollution from stationary engines that generate electricity, and power equipment at industrial, agricultural, oil and gas production, power generation and other facilities.
These revisions were made to the 2010 “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICE)” rules. The updated rule will reduce the capital and annual costs of the original rules by hundreds of millions of dollars, and also reduce air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds by thousands of tons.
This is extremely important because the pollution emitted from these engines can cause serious health defects. The updates were meant to make the standards both reachable and cost-effective while reducing emissions, and the EPA estimates the updated standards will be worth $830 million to $2.1 billion in annual health benefits.
San Francisco, Calif., 21 January 2013 — Locus Technologies (Locus) announced today that Environmental Business Journal® (EBJ) granted the company the award for Information Technology in the environmental and energy industry for the record-breaking seventh time.
Locus is one of 50 companies EBJ has honored for revenue growth, acquisitions, innovative project designs, technology applications, new practice areas, social contributions, and industry leadership in 2012. Locus was recognized for continuing to enhance its position in the energy, sustainability, and compliance software markets by growing its Fortune 100 and Department of Energy (DOE) customer lists, and also pursuing and achieving essential certifications and reports.
In 2012, Locus had its best year yet in terms of expanding its software offerings and diversifying its customer base across many new industries. Locus added two of the three world’s largest chemical companies to its list of customers this year, and also one of the largest companies in the agribusiness industry, expanding Locus’ impressive penetration in the food and biotech industries. Locus also welcomed two DOE research laboratories to its list of customers, and signed a contract with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply that opened the door to water quality management for water utilities. In the private sector Locus signed numerous new customers including Kelly-Moore Paint Company, Jack Engle & Co. and the University of Texas at El Paso.
Other notable accomplishments for 2012 include a 100 percent renewal rate for Locus’ carbon verification services administered under the California AB 32 program, and several Locus staff members being certified as carbon offset verifiers by the California Air Resources Board. In order to assure its growing list of customers that they can trust Locus with their data, Locus pursued and obtained Service Organization Controls reports, both SOC 1 (SSAE 16) and SOC 2. Locus also became an approved contractor with the federal General Services Administration (GSA) for a range of services, and was recognized by Verdantix, one of the top industry analysts, as one of 12 leading environmental management software suppliers globally.
“In what is widely regarded as a stable market, a number of companies exceeded the norms of low single-digit growth with double-digit growth or ambitious ventures into new practice areas or technology development,” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Inc. (EBI, San Diego), publisher of Environmental Business Journal. “Locus continues to influence the industry with its forward-thinking product set and eye for customer needs.”
“We are very proud to be selected for the seventh time for the prestigious EBJ Information Technology award in environmental business,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “I believe our success is due to our cutting edge technology that has been tested in the Cloud longer than any other in our space, the domain knowledge of our team, and their dedication to the company’s mission to organize environmental, sustainability, energy and related compliance information in a single integrated enterprise software offered via the Cloud. I thank and congratulate the entire Locus team, and our customers who entrusted Locus to put their data in the Cloud, for making this award possible.”
The Environmental Business Journal is a business research publication that provides high-value strategic business intelligence to the environmental industry. The 2012 EBJ awards will be presented at a special ceremony at the Environmental Industry Summit XI in Coronado, Calif., March 6-8, 2013. The Environmental Industry Summit is an annual three-day event hosted by EBI Inc.
In the past few years the focus has been on energy and water, and now in 2013 it will be on clean air. Being recognized predominantly in Europe, the ‘Year of Air’ will shine the spotlight on air pollution and emissions: an area where some progress has been made, but also where an immense problem still exists.
With air pollution being the main cause behind debilitating lung conditions, and even death, it is imperative that we take the necessary steps in order to improve our air quality. After all, it is mostly a result of human activities and man-made apparatus. The mission behind the year of air is for there to be a general focus on understanding the health effects of air pollution, its main causes, and what can be done to cut back on pollution and improve the quality of our air.
One necessary step in supporting this focus on clean air is for organizations to properly manage their emission inventory. Especially in 2013, companies must do their part to ensure they stay in compliance with regulations, and show they are not negatively affecting air quality. Locus’ Air and Greenhouse Gases module within ePortal software assists companies in managing emission inventory and permit compliance programs. Users are able to easily collect, calculate, compare, and report on their emissions data all in one centralized system.
SAN FRANCISCO, 3 December 2012 — Kelly-Moore Paint Company, Inc., a leader and innovator of waterborne-coating technology and one of the first companies to offer recycled paints and higher performance no-VOC paints, announced it has selected Locus Technologies’ award-winning ePortal™ platform to provide a comprehensive, integrated system for environmental compliance and safety management throughout the corporation’s facilities.
ePortal will provide Kelly-Moore with enterprise tools to manage compliance activities. The software will allow the company to take a more holistic view of its operations, enabling it to reduce both compliance expenditures and costs at all of its locations.
Through a single Cloud-based secure system, the Locus platform will help the company collect, monitor, analyze, and report multiple streams of environmental data flowing from Kelly-Moore operational locations. Compliance and safety modules of ePortal will be deployed first to organize and manage relevant data, tasks, permits, safety, and regulatory reporting. Strong ePortal business analytics will be used to prepare management reports and dashboards.
“Companies are looking beyond single solution or single medium to manage all of their compliance and safety reporting,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “They seek solutions that help to align their compliance, safety, environmental emissions, and resource management strategies to become more efficient, integrated, and automated to not only comply with regulations and reporting requirements, but also to lower their operational cost. ePortal provides that simple, integrated system, similar to ERP, that manages all compliance, environmental, energy, water, air and other sustainability needs under a single portal infrastructure and Single Sign On (SSO) on the Web.”
Kelly-Moore has always pursued an aggressive agenda for environmental compliance and sustainability. Kelly-Moore was also recognized for its carbon offset program resulting in the San Carlos Plant becoming carbon neutral.
Kelly-Moore has received several widely recognized green business awards from the state of California and San Mateo County for its outstanding efforts to reduce pollution and solid waste, and conserve water, energy, and other natural resources, including the recent ”Large Green Business of the Year” award for its recycling effort, a rare achievement for a company in the chemical-based paint industry.
“Managing our environmental impact has always been a major priority for our organization; by working with Locus’ Cloud software, we will improve our ability to analyze and forecast our reliance on critical environmental resources and perform better compliance management. This will not only help the company meet its compliance goals, but will also improve our financial performance,” said Mr. Robert Stetson, Director of Risk Management. “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 KELLY-MOORE PAINT COMPANY
Headquartered in San Carlos, Calif., Kelly-Moore is one of the largest employee-owned paint companies in the United States, where each employee-owner is committed to offering exceptional customer service. When you call or visit a Kelly-Moore store you are speaking with an owner. A leader and innovator of waterborne-coating technology, Kelly-Moore was the first major paint company to offer recycled paints, along with the largest selection of stock colors. Kelly-Moore is one of the few companies to continue to offer stock colors for superior color consistency. Trusted and preferred by professionals since 1946 as the “Painter’s Paint Store” for its high quality, performance and consistency, Kelly-Moore’s paints are safe and easy to use for everyone. The company’s environmentally friendly paint factory in San Carlos, Calif., is the recipient of four widely recognized and among the most stringent environmental awards. Kelly-Moore is dedicated to giving back to the communities it serves. This ethos is reflected in its corporate giving program and its numerous industry-leading green business accolades. For more information, visit www.kellymoore.com
Enablon, IHS and SAP have emerged as key application providers for forward-thinking businesses looking beyond compliance for ways energy and resource conservation can make them more competitive.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 14 November 2012 — Today, California kicked off the first auction of their cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases under the California Air Resources Board (CARB) new cap-and-trade program. This is the first large-scale carbon market in the United States, and is expected to be the second largest carbon market in the world, after the European Union.
“Many may agree, especially with the buzz around climate change lately, that this cap-and-trade program is an attempt toward reaching an admirable goal of reducing California’s greenhouse gas emissions,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “However, Locus also recognizes the challenges that face businesses dealing with this auction, and stands at the ready to assist them in minimizing the costs of complying with the cap-and-trade regulation.”
Locus has been involved in the development of California’s carbon market from nearly the beginning. Locus was one of the first accredited verification bodies for greenhouse gas emissions, and has years of expertise in reporting greenhouse gas data. Locus staff have also been certified as carbon offset verifiers under CARB. From experience, Locus knows that participants in the cap-and-trade program have many options available to them in how they calculate and report their greenhouse gas data, and how they select those options can have significant effects on the financial impact of the cap-and-trade program. Some of Locus’ customers have saved thousands by making simple changes to their greenhouse gas reporting methods, as recommended by Locus’ technical experts or by using Locus’ Cloud-based GHG software.
The outcome of today’s auction will likely determine the future of greenhouse gas policy in the United States. California’s program already includes the concept of potential “linkage” with other carbon markets, which means that carbon credits could be transferred between other cap-and-trade programs. This essentially allows for expansion of this market to other states or jurisdictions outside the U.S.
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Locus Technologies provides cloud-based environmental software and mobile solutions for EHS, sustainability management, GHG reporting, water quality management, risk management, and analytical, geologic, and ecologic environmental data management.