What is the real environmental impact of a waste stream? And how can you minimize that impact? Reasoning often works. But actual calculation? Under the hood of Milgro's online dashboard, the necessary formulas for each raw material stream automatically generate a complete life cycle analysis. This helps on the way to zero waste and zero or even positive CO2 impact.
Companies that want the environmental impact of a waste stream calculated, often do so through the lens of CO2 emissions. This is a legitimate and accepted approach.
For that, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol is used as a method. If you do that as a company, you are in good company; more than 90% of the Fortune 500 use this framework.
GHG and the CSRD
The GHG protocol helps understand a company's greenhouse gas emissions across three so-called scopes. Scope 1 covers direct emissions. Scope 2 addresses emissions from from energy purchases. And the third scope deals with indirect emissions in the value chain, so for example from customers using a company's product.
Once mapped out, you can get to work reducing emissions. Moreover, the GHG protocol is in line with regulations from Brussels. For example, the new Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires emissions to be calculated and reported via the GHG protocol.
LCA: a broader and circular perspective on environmental impact
This all sounds logical and sensible, of course. And it is. Yet for waste streams, there is an even more sensible and especially richer method: a life cycle analysis (LCA). This analysis calculates the comprehensive impact of a raw material stream. The scope covers all environmental impacts throughout the life of a raw material stream, not just greenhouse gases.
What is notable and valuable about this approach is that avoided emissions are also taken into account. As a result, choosing to use recycled raw material streams instead of virgin raw materials can ensure a positive environmental impact. This gives the life cycle analysis a broader and circular perspective compared to the GHG protocol.
In practice: paper
So how does that work in practice? A waste stream, let's take paper, is carefully disposed of within your company. For years. This causes greenhouse gas emissions, because the paper has to be made (production) and disposed of after use (transport) and, in the best case, reused. All these effects create a CO2 footprint via the GHG protocol. You can reduce this environmental impact by optimizing all these phases, for example more effective processing of the paper, or reducing the flow of old paper.
When you take the LCA as a starting point for that same paper stream, you look a step deeper. Here multiple environmental impacts are considered, such as how much water is needed to make paper, and what impact the extraction of raw materials has on biodiversity. And yes, greenhouse gas emissions are also taken into account.
This broader scope makes it possible, and interesting from a circular perspective, to examine what happens if you use recycled paper instead of new. For example, this eliminates the need for raw material extraction, avoiding impacts on biodiversity, land use annd perhaps saving water. You can also calculate the environmental impact if no more paper is used at all. Or replaced by another material.
Under the hood at Milgro
Under the hood of Milgro's online dashboard, all these scenarios are calculated. And presented to you via CO2 impact as a result. With this information, you can properly and thoroughly weigh the impact of all types of optimizations on waste and thus take measures that are ecologically most beneficial. Yes, even making a positive environmental impact is possible.
For our LCA method for circular waste management, Milgro put all its clever heads together. From our vision, we wanted to move towards a quantification of the ecological impact of waste that does justice to the effects of waste avoidance. This is unique in the waste market where the frame of reference is often still the burning of waste. This is how we help our clients move towards zero waste. We continuously update our LCA method as we gain new insights from processors in our network.
Incidentally, the expertise involved in making and interpreting a correct LCA should not be underestimated. There is a tendency to simplify information in order to keep an overview, but a small carelessness sometimes means a large deviation in CO2. We want to be precise. Not for nothing was the method drawn up according to ISO standards and LAP, and validated by specialists from Royal Haskoning DHV.
Request a free demo
Interested in a broader perspective on resource management? Request a free demo of our online Milgro dashboard and discover the environmental impacts of various waste strategies. Can you achieve a positive impact with resources?
