1. Life Cycle Costing
Companies can now calculate their direct costs for supply chain processes based on the monetary values of input products in their supply chain. The SCEnAT tool will visually display economic hotspots in the supply chain which will clearly identify to users those processes within the supply chain that account for more than 10% of the total economic cost in the production process. Indirect costs can also be added by selecting ‘missing inputs’, and the monetary values from the input-output database integrated into the SCEnAT tool will be used to identify the financial value of goods and services deemed beyond the control of the company.
2. Benchmarking
The new benchmarking functionality will report typical environmental impacts related to ‘average’ supply chains (built using input-output tables). This will enable companies to compare life cycle carbon emissions and hot spots against those associated with the ‘typical’ company within their industry. This functionality will enable companies to identify relatively inefficient processes (from a carbon emission perspective) and take steps to improve their environmental sustainability and competitiveness.
3. New Indicators
Companies will now be able to select up to 5 key environmental impacts from a list of 277 indicators from the ECOInvent database. The tool will calculate life-cycle impact intensities of new indicators using the impact intensities and will determine the break-down of emissions of each indicator by supply chain process. Companies will be able to compare their environmental performance beyond carbon emission measures, demonstrating environmental sustainability to consumers, industrial customers, and to comply with specific governmental environmental legislation.
The above techniques will improve the information provision to companies and key decision makers, aiding in greater informed decision making regarding interventions to improve environmental performance and allowing for scenario modelling across a range of different environmental indicators and the associated life cycle cost implications