Getting the most out of configurable EHS and ESG software
Director of Sales Engineering, Steve Paff, highlights Locus Software’s configurable hierarchy and how versatile it can be.
Foster Farms Selects Locus Technologies EHS/ESG Enterprise SaaS
Locus EHS/ESG Cloud will streamline Foster Farms EHS Compliance, ESG Reporting, and Water Quality Management.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 2, 2023 — Locus Technologies, the leading EHS Compliance and ESG software provider, today announced that Foster Farms, a top US provider of fresh, frozen, and prepared poultry products and the leading brand of fresh chicken in the Western U.S., selected Locus’s award-winning enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) to organize and manage their EHS compliance and ESG reporting.
Foster Farm subscribed to an integrated set of apps offered in the Locus Cloud Platform. Some apps include EHS Compliance Management, ESG and Sustainability, GHG Emission Factor and Calculation Management, Inspections, Configuration Workbench, Air Emissions Management, Storm Water, Wastewater, and well data management and reporting.
Locus Cloud is the first fully integrated multitenant platform created from the ground up to allow organizations to manage their environmental, energy, water, waste, carbon, air, health and safety, remediation, water quality, and compliance information in one place. The Locus Platform allows companies to configure their own management, tracking, visualization, and reporting through a graphically driven user interface. This feature enables organizations to configure the software to their needs without worrying about the expensive programming outlays usually associated with customization and single-tenant deployments.
When designing integrated EHS/ESG SaaS, Locus sought to make the complicated workflow and management of environmental data as simple as possible and to make it manageable from a single platform with shared components. The resulting platform offers immense flexibility and endless capabilities with minimal training thanks to the new, intuitive, user-friendly interface design.
“The accurate tracking and reporting of critical environmental resource usage is a necessary part of our compliance responsibilities, and a major component of our efforts to ensure that we are a sustainable producer. The Locus application software will make a significant contribution to our resource management capabilities,” said Don Hill, Foster Farms Director of Environmental Affairs.
“We are delighted that Foster Farms recognized the power of the Locus Cloud platform. Businesses do not want to shop for point solutions from different vendors only to be left with the nightmare of integration, security, synchronization, and vendor management. They want one-stop shops and to avoid having to deal with vendors that don’t integrate well with one another or have spotty service and limited support. Locus will provide Foster Farms single platform through which they can accomplish all their environmental and compliance management needs on a single, fully customer-configurable platform,” said Neno Duplan, President, and CEO of Locus. “Keeping the end user’s perspective in mind, we’ve packed the same 26-plus years of domain expertise that Locus has been offering all along into a highly configurable and scalable software platform built from the ground up on the latest web technologies,” remarked Duplan.
ABOUT FOSTER FARMS
Foster Farms is dedicated to providing families across America with great food. From ready to cook chicken and turkey, to chicken nuggets and corndogs, Foster Farms portfolio of fresh, frozen, and prepared foods, are always welcome whether it’s dinner time or snack time. Since its founding in 1939 Foster Farms has gone on to become one of the largest quality poultry producers in the United States. Headquartered in Livingston, Ca with facilities in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana, the company has nearly 12,000 Team Members, and is committed to building a “culture that nobody wants to walk aways from.”
LCFS Pathways for Alternative Fuel
Locus Technologies, Nancy-Jeanne LeFevre walks through the process of identifying a project pathway boundary in this short video.
6 Must-Haves for Upgraded Mobile Tracking Apps
Mobile apps for water and wastewater operation and maintenance (O&M) activities have been around for some time now. Most users are familiar with the benefits such as instant data collection and access to reference information for better, more reliable O&M monitoring.
Locus Technologies Receives 17th Consecutive EBJ Award for Information Technology in ESG
Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) recognized Locus for ESG software growth and innovation.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 2 March 2023 — Locus Technologies, the leading EHS Compliance and ESG software provider, received their 17th consecutive award from Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) for growth and innovation in the field of Information Technology in the environmental software with particular focus on EHS, compliance, sustainability, and ESG.
Locus continues to expand its ESG SaaS solution, including built-in business intelligence tools for interactive, actionable insights into unified EHS compliance and ESG data, forecasting tools predicting future ESG reporting, APIs for utility data sources, and interfaces with third-party systems that house ESG data. Locus’s ESG solutions focus on “enter once, report to many.” enabling companies the efficiency of reporting to multiple organizations and numerous standards from a single dataset. Essential built-in reporting includes state or federal regulations and ESG based on standards, including CDP, GRI, SASB, TCFD, and many others.
“Locus’s pioneering work in integrated ESG reporting and EHS compliance software is paying off. As one of the early SaaS leaders in net-zero digital solutions for ESG reporting, Locus continues to provide value to companies that want to be credible with their carbon reporting and sustainability software.” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Inc. (EBI), publisher of Environmental Business Journal.
“With energy transition, climate resilience, and new federal programs driving business, as well as traditional environmental market drivers in infrastructure, air quality, remediation, water and wastewater it is understandable that companies that offer integrates SaaS platform like Locus has advantage.” added Ferrier.
“As Locus continues to expand our EHS and ESG software we would like to thank EBJ for recognizing Locus again for a 17th consecutive year and for noting the new functionality and growing customer base we achieved in 2022. Locus will continue this trajectory into 2023 with new tools designed to simplify EHS and ESG management in our award-winning Locus software, which offers a single system of record and truth for our customers. Locus SaaS platform enables our customers to manage their carbon transactions and inventory with the same rigor, confidence, and transparency as their financial ones.” said Neno Duplan, the Founder and CEO of Locus Technologies.
Locus Technologies Receives 16th Consecutive EBJ Award for Information Technology in ESG
Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) recognized Locus for ESG software growth and innovation.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 24 February 2022 — Locus Technologies, the leading EHS Compliance and ESG software provider, was awarded a 16th consecutive award from Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) for growth and innovation in the field of Information Technology in the environmental software with particular focus on ESG.
EBJ is a business research publication providing strategic business intelligence to the environmental industry. Locus received the 2021 EBJ Award for Information Technology by growing and innovating its unified EHS compliance and ESG software platform.
In 2021 Locus took a leading market position in the fast-growing space of ESG software. Locus’s ESG SaaS covers carbon data aggregation via a powerful visual calculation engine, investor-grade emissions calculations audit capabilities, reporting to multiple standards from a single data set, integration APIs, dashboards, and carbon reduction goal setting and tracking. This separates Locus from competitors as customers demand integrated net-zero ESG software that supports investor-grade data in disclosure rules such as the EU’s corporate sustainability reporting directive, mandatory TCFD reporting, and anticipated SEC action on climate disclosures.
In 2021 Locus continued to expand its ESG SaaS to include built-in business intelligence tools allowing for interactive, actionable insights into EHS and ESG data, forecasting tools to predict future ESG reporting, APIs linking to utility meters, and interfaces with other Locus and third-party systems that house ESG data. Locus’s ESG application is focused on “enter once, report many times.” The gold standard for multinational enterprises with many locations worldwide is to have a system configured to report to multiple organizations and many standards from a single dataset. Essential built-in reporting in the Locus ESG app includes state or federal regulations, internal CSR, and ESG based on whatever standard their organization adheres to, such as CDP, GRI, SASB, TCDF, or more recent World Economic Forum (WEF) attempt to standardize many voluntary standards.
Locus also expanded its ESG consulting expertise by becoming the first and only software provider to offer accreditation services under new Oregon DEQ guidelines requiring third-party verification for GHG and CFP programs.
Besides strong growth in ESG space, Locus also continues to lead the software for water quality management market with the addition of new SaaS customers in 2021, such as the City of Hillsboro, Oregon for water quality management and Westinghouse Electric Company for control of environmental and radionuclides data, cementing Locus’s market leader position in the space of nuclear facilities.
“Locus’s investment in integrated carbon management software and EHS compliance is paying off. As one of the early SaaS leaders in net-zero digital solutions for ESG reporting, Locus continues to provide value to companies that want to be credible with their carbon reporting and sustainability software.,” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Inc. (EBI), publisher of Environmental Business Journal.
“We would like to thank EBJ for recognizing Locus for a 16th consecutive year and for taking note of our industry-leading ESG software. We aim to continue expanding our software offerings to customers in 2022,” said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus Technologies.
Locus to Provide GHG Verification Services in Oregon
Locus Technologies has received accreditation by Oregon DEQ for GHG and CFP verification services.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 21 December 2021 — Locus Technologies (Locus), industry leader in environmental compliance and ESG software, has been accredited by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to provide verification services for mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and the Clean Fuels Program (CFP). Locus is the first of a select few to receive approval for verification services.
The accreditation allows Locus to provide verification services for GHG emissions reports, which are now mandatory for facilities in the State of Oregon. The verification team at Locus consists of experts in all reporting requirements. Locus’ in-house Lead Verifiers are certified in all reporting types, including air contamination stationary sources, electricity suppliers, fuel suppliers, natural gas suppliers, natural gas systems, and process emissions. Locus verifiers are also certified for all report types under the Oregon CFP.
The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) updated their rules in May 2020 to enhance the data collection of Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions. The adopted rules incorporate existing reporting and emissions accounting protocols into rule and improve the specificity of how emissions data are calculated, reported, and verified. The regulation requires mandatory reporting and verification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by third-party verifiers like Locus, starting in 2022.
“Locus is proud to become an accredited GHG and CFP verification body for the state of Oregon, as we have been in California since the inception of that program. We are continually committed to staying informed on new and updated ESG reporting frameworks, which we accomplish first and foremost through domain expertise. Our field expertise and industry knowledge allow us to provide a vital service, while also further expanding on our ESG software to support these new reporting programs” said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus.
Building on over a decade of GHG verification experience, Locus remains the only software provider for collecting, managing, and reporting GHG emissions that is also an accredited verifier. Using this expertise, the software includes unparalleled tools for transparent and auditable calculations for GHG programs.
No-Code Application Development
Locus delivers capabilities that enterprises need to achieve true digital transformation in a unified low-code or no-code automation platform. Locus provides out-of-the-box tools and services to automate business processes, integrate with external applications, and provide a rich user experience.
No-Code EHS Application Development
Locus offers low-code app building, rich multi-experience capabilities, business process orchestration, automated decision making, and easy integration with other databases. Locus makes it easy to modify existing seeded apps or build entirely new apps in a few clicks and provides easy ways to write business logic to solve challenging EHS or ESG problems. We let you blend “off the shelf” apps and unique requirements with exceptional ease.
Who is a User-Developer?
If you know how to layout slides, if you can draw a flow chart, build a spreadsheet using formulae, sorting, with tables and charts, then you are a User Developer. We empower domain experts to build applications within the Locus Platform using the platform’s drag and drop functionality.
What is No-Code Development Platform Software?
No-code development platforms provide drag-and-drop tools that enable end-users with proper access privileges to develop software quickly without coding. Locus Platform provides WYSIWYG editors and drag-and-drop components to rapidly assemble and design EHS, ESG, or any other application applications. Both developers and non-developers can use these tools to practice rapid application development with customized workflows and functionality. Locus Platform provides tools for enterprise-sized businesses that need to quickly design business processes and workflow applications at a large scale, such as ESG reporting or EHS compliance management. The software tools provide templates for workflow, element libraries, and interface customization to create fully functioning applications without any coding.
With Locus, your organization can:
- Drag-and-drop entities to assemble applications.
- Allow non-developers and non-technical users to build applications.
- Build ESG, EHS, or any other apps fast using visual tools that empower IT and business lines alike.
- Leverage no-code integration to connect and act upon data across databases, cloud services, and legacy systems without data migration or use APIs to tie in data.
- Deliver enterprise-grade security, scalability, and reliability to support mission-critical business apps.
- Easily build complex workflows to suit your organizations needs.
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Q&A with the Locus Support Team
The biggest differentiator between Locus and other EHS software providers is our support team. Not only do we pride ourselves on the quickest and most efficient resolutions in the industry, but on our human approach to support. Get to know our support team as we recently sat down (virtually) with them to talk about the ins and outs of their field, how it is working for Locus, and more.
What is your most common support case?
Our most common support case is user management related. Many times, our customers need assistance adding new users or updating their user lists. We receive a lot of requests for resetting passwords.
What is the most unique case you’ve seen?
Almost ten years ago, there was a bug within SQL itself! It was quite a mystery. We would venture to say that we have at least one unique case every week. No single case is the same! It certainly keeps us on our toes. We also had a case once where an organization was acquired by another organization. Due to this, we had to rename the users and organizations which ended up resulting in over 300 user changes which impacted historic records.
What is your average response time?
It is our policy to respond to all cases within two hours of receiving them (given that they come in between the hours of 5am and 3pm Pacific Time). If they come in outside of those hours, we respond within 2 hours of beginning our normal hours. We get many compliments on how speedy our response times are! It is the policy of the team for Tier 1 staff members to check new cases every thirty minutes or so. Critical issues typically receive almost immediate responses! Quick response times are one of our proudest achievements.
Can you name a case that made a great impact on the user?
We have had many cases where we have received numerous thank yous from the customer. There has been a time or two when a customer did a widespread data update without meaning to. Our quick response and ability to revert their changes was much appreciated. We have also been known to help our customers with some very interesting issues that require quite a bit of troubleshooting on our end. The Support Team is incredibly patient and willing to dive deep into questions that customer’s come to us with.
What is something people may not know about the support team?
The Locus Support Team consists of many individuals from a variety of backgrounds ranging from Environmental Engineering, Biology, Environmental Science, Environmental Health and Safety, Mathematics, Data Management, GIS, and much more! The Tier 1 team consists of three outstanding individuals who work across the Support Team, Engineering Team, and Configuration team. The Tier 2 team consists of a wide variety of developers, configurators, and specialists in the field. Together, the Locus Support team has over 75 years of combined experience in the Environmental field. We have a few folks on the team that have outward appearances outside of the norm ranging from long hair, piercings, tattoos, and even purple hair.
How has working more hours remotely affected your team?
Because our team is spread across the United States, with team members working out of the Asheville and Mountain View offices, as well as remote employees, we haven’t been impacted as much by the stay at home COVID-19 orders. Our team has always excelled at communication through email and other online chat services. The ability to talk through tools such as Teams and Skype, has given us the advantage edge during this pandemic. In addition, a large number of our Support Team are remote employees ranging across California, Tennessee, Indiana, Utah, and many other states.
What is your favorite part about working on the Locus support team?
The first answer that came to the team was that we are all a family! We are incredibly supportive and encouraging of one another and we have FUN while working! One of the fun things that we all have in common is our deep–rooted love for animals. One of our favorite pastimes is sharing pictures of our animals, as well as their silly antics! We also like to share about our parenting concerns, particularly during COVID-19 times! Locus is an amazing place to work, in part because of the educated, experienced and awesome personalities we have working as a WHOLE team, rather than just a support team. When asked, the number one response was the friendly and family-like atmosphere.
What certificates/degrees does the support team hold?
Master of Applied Science
- Environmental Policy and Management
- Environmental Engineering
- Biology
Associate’s
- Crisis, Emergency and Disaster Management
- Emergency Management
Bachelor of Science
- Environmental Science
- Environmental Chemistry
- Civil Engineering
- Physical Geography
- Mathematics
- Integrated Science and Technology
Certifications
- FEMA Certifications
- ISO 9001, 9000 and 14000 Internal and Lead Auditor Certification
- Accredited GHG Verififier
- 40-hr HazWoper
- Graduate certificate in GIS
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5 Ways To Save With Locus
For over 20 years, Locus environmental software customers have saved enormously on their setup and and data entry costs. This infographic highlights the aggregate savings of all users based on conservative estimates of time and cost for different aspects related to our software.
