Strategic Analysis: By combining our technical, business and strategic capabilities, we help you recognize the environmental and social forces that affect your business and products. Our research, benchmarking and strategic analysis helps brand and product-oriented companies understand:

• The changing landscape of regional, national and multi-national regulations and legislation - from materials and substances to waste, take-back and climate change
• Your competitor's environmental and social programs, systems, tools and activities
• Emerging environmental and social issues and trends related to your products and services - from toxic substances to recyclability to energy efficiency
• Customer and other stakeholder expectations around your management systems, products and services - from communities and employees to customers and shareholders

Management Support Tools: Our product and management system expertise can help ensure your company implements practices and systems that will continuously manage product environmental risks, stimulate innovation and create brand value. This includes:

• Integrating environmental aspects into product development, procurement and marketing process and implementing best practices
• Developing management approaches such as a balanced score card for business units and product developers
• Developing environmental product performance indicators, metrics and targets
• Integrating eco-design, design for environment and sustainable design into ISO 14000 and ISO 9000 management systems
• Tailored program development, change management and training

Supplier Engagement: A thorough understanding of your supply-chain can help you identify and seek opportunities for improving business relationships and managing environmental risks. We can work with your company to:

• Conduct initial analysis of your supply chain including material and substance analysis
• Develop supplier management and training programs
• Build strategic partnerships

Product & Process Analysis: What can be measured can be managed. Identifying key product and process issues - such as waste, end-of-life, energy consumption, toxicity or green house gas emissions - can help your company identify potential risks and opportunities for innovation and improvement. Our design, material science and life cycle engineering capabilities can help you conduct in depth product, process assessments for:

• Identifying significant product aspects and impacts, crucial life cycle issues and hot spots
• Climate change and green house gas assessments
• Waste and recycling assessments across regional, national, and global markets
• Identifying energy and water issues and profiles
• Developing specific product environmental profiles for communication and marketing purposes

Design Tools: Your designers, engineers and other professionals' need solid techniques and tools to make informed decisions. We offer a range of off-the-shelf tools and utilize our material science, decision theory and design expertise to customize and tailor these tools for your business.

• Total Cost of Ownership Analysis Tool^TM
• Eco-Scoring and material selection tools
• Design for environment and eco-design checklists and guidelines
• Assess, improve and redesign product development procedures and tools

Product Marketing & Communications: To enhance and support your corporate image and product brand, we assist your marketing and sales functions to effectively communicate environmental and sustainability messages with customers. We develop effective communications around your products by:

• Developing product environmental profiles and information sheets
• Helping you with reporting and stakeholder communications
• Developing Type II Claims and Type III Product Declarations
• Assistance with obtaining eco-labels and certification

Capacity Building: Successful change within your company can be ensured through providing customized training and workshops for individuals, teams and departments within your company and implementing performance measures for employees around environment and social issues. Facilitating strategy sessions and workshops to create awareness, learn new tools and develop action plans is a core part of our service to help you manage successful change and stimulate innovation. Our custom training curricula and workshops cover:

• Product sustainability
• Life cycle management
• Eco-design, design for environment and sustainable design
• Life cycle assessment and GaBi 4^TM
• Eco-labeling, Type II claims and Type III declarations
• Eco-materials and substances
• Eco-efficiency

Some of our clients include:

Case Studies Available:

• Johnson Wax and BASF Test Total Cost of Ownership Tool
• New York City Transit Implements Design for Environment and Sustainable Design
• Automotive Parts Capacity Building Partnership in Canada
• National Research Council's Design for Environment Website
• Teknion Screening Level Life Cycle Assessment
• Product Sustainability Round Table

Our Publications:

• UNEP/SETAC Life-Cycle Initiative
• A Flexible Framework for Integrating Sustainable Design
• Implementing DfE in a Tier 1 Auto Supplier
• The Evolution of Design for Environment in Electronics Firms
• Lean and Green: Environmental Performance and Product Design
• Extended Producer Responsibility, Integrated Product Policy and Market Development: Lessons from Europe and the U.S
• Building for Tomorrow, New York City Transit