EarthShift's Total Cost Assessment is a sophisticated risk/rewards management tool that incorporates broad social, economic and environmental forecasting into complex, forward-looking decision models.
By analyzing risk factors such as the potential for future environmental mandates (e.g. CFC abolition), or the impact of sexually transmitted diseases on work force retention and training, or potential scarcity of key components due to political instability, corporations, institutions and governmental agencies are able to integrate long term planning to achieve the most sustainable outcomes, reduce legal liabilities, avoid potential supply chain disruptions or other forms of unpredictability that can yield to functional risk assessment through probability analysis and situation-specific, customized alternative modeling scenarios.
EarthShift's TCAs give key decision makers the tools they need to justify various forms of investment in long term planning and commitments to socially and environmentally responsible corporate or institutional activity.
An example of how an EarthShift TCA leads to positive economic and sustainability outcomes was a project we undertook for a large international corporation with significant investments in an area where an outbreak of a health epidemic was occurring. The analysis looked at the risks and rewards of investing in HIV/AIDS prevention.
In another instance, an EarthShift TCA was used to investigate a Japanese effort to evaluate risks associated with biofuels production processes including ethanol produced from raw crops and methane from waste materials. The TCA was able to demonstrate that the methane from waste was cost effective for all stakeholders.
The ability to evaluate costs that include social, economic and environmental criteria lead to superior outcomes in profitability, health and safety, and community relations..to name a few.
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (LCA)
EarthShift conducts Life Cycle Assessments utilizing our primary investigative tool, SimaPro software. Essentially, LCA is a birth-to-death evaluation of a product, a process, an institution, a crop, or nearly anything. The principal objective of the investigation is to determine the sustainability of the subject being scrutinized.
The subject to be evaluated can be narrow (What are the consequences of using virgin material vs. recycled material to make Product A), or extremely broad (Determine the carbon footprint of our cookie manufacturing operations at our six bakeries in the US).
Because of the ability of a LCA to profile so many interrelated functions and assess them cumulatively as well as individually, it is possible to accurately represent the sustainability impacts of products or services to customers, competitors, investors, regulators or employees.
The interconnectedness of all things is not always evident, but it is, nonetheless, a reality. Using the tools and training that Earth Shift provides, our clients are able to understand how to achieve positive outcomes for both financial success and environmental sustainability. They are also able to conform to the increasing number of regulatory and legislative mandates that affect market opportunities both nationally and internationally.
EarthShift's experienced consultants can lead you through scope and goal setting, data collection, staff training, and information analysis to arrive at appropriate remedial actions that will result in lower costs and reduce your environmental impacts.
This is, quite simply, the way of the future. Change is unavoidable whether it is due to the decreasing availability of hydrocarbons or increasing atmospheric temperatures. How we manage change is the key to success or failure, and knowledge is foremost amongst the determining factors.
Earth Shift is a knowledge-building resource company that creates options and opportunities to make tomorrow sustainable.
EarthShift 830 Taft Road · Huntington, VT 05462 · Ph: (802)434-3326· Fax: (802)329-2214
