One of the most effective tools that responsible organizations are using to measure and reduce their environmental impact are comprehensive life cycle assessments (LCAs) of their products and services.

Many of those organizations lean heavily upon the expertise of WSP USA and its Climate, Resilience and Sustainability (CRS) team, which is collaborating with those organizations to adopt modern and Future Ready® business practices to measure, evaluate and ultimately reduce their environmental impact.

An LCA is a systematic and scientifically rigorous approach to quantify the environmental impacts from the production, transportation, use and end of life of goods or services. These impacts include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, water quality, energy use and air quality. LCAs — governed by guidelines established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), including 14040 and 14044 — are considered the gold standard in holistic environmental assessment.

LCAs inform an organization’s environmental goal setting and help identify the most cost-effective ways to reduce their environmental impact. Companies with novel technologies or new production methods for common products can benefit from demonstrating the environmental benefits of their methods. An LCA can systematically and scientifically compare the environmental impacts of their product to conventional products. Doing so avoids claims of greenwashing under the FTC Green Guides and allows companies to substantiate external marketing claims that differentiate their products from competitors.

By helping organizations communicate the environmental impacts and benefits of their products, LCAs benefit business-to-business and/or business-to-consumer relationships with clients and consumers, investors and other stakeholders.

Those benefits are illustrated in the case study of two food production companies, Perfect Day and its subsidiary, The Urgent Company (TUC), who both work closely with WSP.

Perfect Day is a precision fermentation technology leader that manufactures animal-free dairy protein by using microflora to produce whey that is molecularly identical to bovine dairy whey — but without the cows. The company’s whey protein is now a key ingredient for vegan ice cream and other climate-conscious products.

This client evaluated the GHG emissions, energy and water consumption of its whey compared to the total protein in bovine milk. This was essential for Perfect Day to show that its whey method is not only more compassionate, but also more environmentally sustainable.

WSP conducted an ISO-conformant comparative LCA that was guided through third-party critical review by a panel of three independent experts. The panel found that Perfect Day’s whey method reduced GHG emissions by 97 percent, blue water consumption by 99 percent and non-renewable energy by 60 percent when compared to protein found in traditional bovine milk.

WSP’s Sustainability, Energy and Climate Change team revealed a great deal of beneficial data for the client by conducting this LCA, such as how the environmental impacts of bovine dairy milk can vary greatly based on where the cow is raised, what she ate and the amount of protein in her milk. The team compared the environmental impacts of Perfect Day whey to protein in bovine dairy milk across many different production scenarios to ensure that a complete picture of the comparative impacts could be presented to the client and readers of the study.

The LCA helped raise Perfect Day’s brand awareness in publications such as Fast Company, Time, Green Queen and Dairy Processing, and the company was able to confidently promote this information both on their website and directly to consumers and to clients using their whey in dairy products, such as TUC.

TUC is a food company that uses Perfect Day whey protein across its portfolio of food brands. Its current products include Brave Robot ice cream, Modern Kitchen cream cheese, California Performance Co. whey protein and Coolhaus ice cream.

WSP recently completed an ISO-conformant comparative LCA on the company’s Brave Robot ice cream, which was contrasted to bovine dairy-based premium ice cream. The Brave Robot ice cream had roughly 70 percent lower GHG emissions, 60 percent lower non-renewable energy demand, and 20 percent lower blue water consumption when compared to premium vanilla ice cream.

The results enabled TUC to clearly and confidently promote the environmental impact reductions of its ice cream directly to customers on their packaging. WSP continues to support TUC in its sustainability journey with additional assessments.

Over the course of this LCA, the team learned much about the process and different considerations for premium ice cream production. It was also very beneficial that WSP had conducted the Perfect Day whey LCA, as the team was able to clearly explain how that study was conducted to the three-person independent critical review panel that reviewed the Brave Robot LCA.

Overall, there are many reasons why companies are considering LCAs for their products and services:

• To substantiate a comparative environmental claim, such as that a product reduces GHG emissions, energy use, water consumption, water quality or air quality impacts, resource use or land use compared to another product or a different process or production method.
• To make a declarative statement of the carbon, water or other environmental impact of its product on their label or to provide that information to a client or customer and communicate environmental benefits of a product.

   

• To understand the environmental impact hot spots in the material inputs and/or the life cycle phases of a product to effectively target resources for environmental impact reduction.

   

• To comply with regulations or other requirements to transparently declare product or service environmental impacts.

A company can also use the GHG emissions quantified in an LCA to inform a Scope 3 GHG inventory. A GHG inventory is a summation of all the greenhouse gas emissions from an organization across its value chain and is typically conducted to support company-wide reporting, set GHG emissions reductions targets for entire organizations and track progress towards meeting targets.

For example, if Perfect Day decided to conduct its own GHG inventory to better understand the GHG emissions footprint of the organization and identify additional opportunities to extend its environmental impact, it could use the results of the LCA to inform several Scope 3 categories.

>Using both LCAs and GHG inventories, WSP can help organizations improve their practices and become Future Ready®. For more information on using LCA and GHG inventories together, read our previous article here.

[To subscribe to Insights, contact the editorial staff at [email protected].]