How to Audit Your Suppliers’ Compliance to REACH, RoHS, and Chemicals Reporting Requirements

• Europe has taken a bold position in environmental matters compared to other countries. For example, in contrast to the United States, where legislation can only prevent an activity after it is proven to be harmful, Europe takes a “process” approach, which basically assumes that actions or products are harmful to people or the environment until they are proven to be safe. This approach has been buttressed by a body of extensive and very specific regulations. The EU has effectively set the bar high, and in so doing has defined “world class” benchmarks.
• Whether or not you trade with EU countries, you may be able to increase safety and minimize exposure to potential litigation by adopting EU standards.
• Learn how to benchmark your operations by comparing your practices to leading European companies’ norms, regulations and standards regarding carbon emissions, chemicals, groundwater, leaching, and fracking.

• If consumers knew the “supply chain” consequences of their purchasing choices around the globe, they might buy more environmentally and socially conscious products and services. Sustainability labeling can help your company differentiate itself and price at a premium compared to competitive products.
• Learn how to implement “sustainability labeling” that differentiates your product or service, in a way that is quantifiable and very easily accessible to consumers, and also contributes to awareness of the undesirable social and environmental externalities that are embedded in other companies’ products and services.

• Sustainability reporting can help companies enhance their brand and corporate image.
• However, few companies report on sustainability: and although the largest companies are reporting some facts about the sustainability of their operations, most are unaware of global reporting standards, which results in incomplete,  inconsistent, and ineffective public relations messaging. This leaves an enormous opportunity to use sustainability reporting to differentiate your company and your brand.

Learn how to tout your company’s sustainable supply chain in a way that is accurate, consistent with global standards, and increases sales.

• At the current rate of development, the number of middle-income consumers will triple by 2050, bringing with it a proportional rate of consumption, landfill from solid waste, and ocean contamination.
• To counteract these trends, we need to increase recycling and reuse. The idea is not new. The EU established an End of Life Vehicles Directive, and mandated a 50 percent recycling target for household waste to be enacted by 2020. Consumers in Germany recycle 65% of their household waste.
• However, outside of Europe recycling rates are far lower, and although Design-for-Recycling as a concept has been around for decades, very few top executive have elevated it to the level of their other KPIs.

Learn how your company can implement Design-for-Recycling and Re-Use.

• Many of us meticulously track GDP daily in search of increases, indeed are disappointed if the metric is flat, horrified if it declines. Unfortunately, increases in GDP are often accompanied by negative environmental and social externalities and lower quality of life, to the extent that increases in production may be caused by unproductive activity such as wars or weather-related emergencies.
• The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is a more impactful measurement of progress and positive growth. The GPI subtracts from GDP negative activities such as war, oil spill cleanup, and hurricane relief, and adds to GDP positive activities that do not appear in any national accounts, such as child-rearing and volunteerism. Although not perfect by any means, the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is the most comprehensive metric that adjusts for the externalities of development, and in so doing, it offers a potential path toward more balanced policies.

Learn the right way to implement GPI.

• More than fifteen countries currently tax carbon (including Australia, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK), and this will extend to more countries at higher tax rates over time. The 190 countries that ratified the Paris Accord will need to tax carbon in order to meet their goal of limiting global average temperature increase to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and 1.5°C from current levels, and the pressure will increase as these countries are tasked with setting more ambitious targets every five years, developing national climate action plans, and establishing accountabilities for execution.
• Few oil & gas companies will be able to handle this level of tax without radically restructuring their operations and business portfolio. Carbon taxation needs to be carefully implemented in order to ascertain and manage market value impact in the conventional energy sector.

Learn the process your country needs to follow to hear about the right carbon tax plan.

• The renewable energy revolution seems to be underway – the EU has issued clean energy mandates, Asia has established leadership in low-cost supply of equipment, and Latin America is following the guidance of the Paris accord. Moreover, solar power and onshore wind have lower capital costs than conventional power generation plants.
• However, gas-fired combined cycle plants can in many cases deliver a lower Levelized Cost of Electricity and generate more jobs than solar and wind.
• When will renewables overtake conventional power? The battle for lowest cost production has yet to be played out. Fossil fueled power costs can be driven lower still through smart technology upstream, midstream, and downstream. The political and economic battle for the best energy sources will also be driven by national politics and energy independence priorities.
• This session will provide a perspective as to the outlook for combined cycle, solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power generation alternatives, using actual project examples and case studies.

• No matter how sophisticated your products are, your manufactured products are becoming commodities.
• Your competitors are already integrating manufactured products with services and information to deliver real-time intelligent systems that improve efficiency and effectiveness by orders of magnitude. They are measuring, monitoring, and optimizing conditions in the entire system (well beyond their products), which is providing them with a much higher potential price point compared to being “dumb” components.
• The winners will take market share from the others, and it’s already happening. You are either winning or losing at this game.

Learn whether you are leading or lagging, winning or losing, and what to do about it.

• Companies and industries with strong economies of scale will be competitively advantaged at the global level.
• Energy storage, industrial-scale battery storage, solar panel production, retail distribution, and ride sharing technologies rely on economies of scale and large investments in capacity that most companies cannot finance independently.
• Other industries with barriers to entry based on scale, such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and deepwater offshore oil & gas exploration are potential targets for national technological preference due to their complexity and inherent economies of scale.

Learn how to make your business succeed in a world of global giants.

• The idea of a national strategic economic plan is by no means new or unique, and export promotion strategies are ubiquitous among government agencies everywhere in the world. After World War II, France developed and issued a series of five-year industrial plans that guided its growth. The Monnet plan was instrumental in forming the European Coal and Steel Community, which was the precursor of the European Economic Community, which was in turn the precursor of the European Union.
• Every country should have a growth and adaptation strategy, as well as trade and export promotion strategies to build on their natural comparative advantages. The US and the UK in particular each need an economic development strategy, especially in light of the competitive pressure from emerging nations like India and China each teeming with billions of smart people competing for trade opportunities, and even more especially if they withdraw from international cooperation agreements (if “Plan A” is to tear up the current institutions, agreements, and rulebooks, what is “Plan B?”).

Learn the process your country needs to follow to assure a position of leadership role in the post-globalized world.

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