Global GreenTag on board for ALCAS Conference Series

This article orginally appeared as 'GLOBAL GREENTAG RESEARCH TEAM TO DELIVER LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT & MANAGEMENT PAPERS AT ALCAS 2015' on GlobalGreenTag.com. It is reprinted here with permission.

The Global GreenTag research team will present six new peer reviewed presentations at the ALCAS 2015 Conference Series on Life Cycle Assessment.

Helping to help raise the benchmark on green product certification, the teams led by David Baggs (GGT) and Delwyn Jones (The Evah Institute) will bringing their knowledge to three conferences - AgriFoodLCA, LCM Australia and AusBuildLCA in Melbourne from November 22 to 27.

Five papers have been co-authored by our core team of researchers – Shloka Ashar, Mathilde Vlieg, Omar Biaz, Tricia Rimando and Dr Judy Luo. Each one dedicated to working with manufacturers from within Australia and around the world in a Type 1 Eco-Label, Life Cycle Assessment environment.

Mathilde Vlieg, who joined GGT from the Netherlands, says she hopes that her presentation at AusBuildLCA - the first LCA conference for the Australian construction industry – will bring “Recognition for wood products being carbon sinks.”

Form, Fire, Fuel and Fate in Forest product EPDs says Mathilde was written together with Global GreenTag’s Certification Manager Shloka Ashar and Delwyn Jones of the Evah Institute, where Mathilde also serves as a Supply Chain and Life Cycle Analyst.

This particular paper, says Mathilde, who carries a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design and a Master of Science in Industrial Ecology, will be addressing a gap in current LCA global practice.

“At the moment LCA practitioners generally do not account stored carbon, ignoring the fact that every stored CO2 molecule means a CO2 molecule less in the air,” says Mathilde. Global GreenTag and Evah have for some years been including embedded carbon in pur product assessments and EPDs. Reflecting this Mathilde agrees stating: “we need to reconsider the carbon accounting in forestry products and understand the variables influencing the amount of carbon to account for.”

Global GreenTag’s CEO David Baggs says: “GreenTag has been leading the LCA industry using life cycle benefit analysis, including carbon sink calculations for more than 5 years now. There are many leading edge products, such as Laminex, Alpine and Dongwha New Zealand Limited that are demonstrable carbon sinks and the quantified embedded carbon of the products are available in every GreenTag certificate and product score card."

Dr Judy Luo will be representing Global GreenTag at the AgriFoodLCA conference in November. Judy who is originally from China, is GreenTag’s key liaison with Chinese companies and undertakes all GreenTag’s translation needs. She comes from a background in Landscape Architecture and her PhD is in the built environment and sustainability. Judy will be presenting a paper co-written with Mathilde and The Evah Institute’s Delwyn Jones, which delves into the apiary sector, titled: Apiary Services and Apis mellifera Coproducts.

“The paper considers the LCA of Honey Bee services and co-products (many of which are used in natural wood finishes, paints, beauty and personal products). We compare common agricultural and apiary practices in North America and Australasia,” says Judy, adding that "we have discovered how geographically distinct operations are potentially linked to colony collapse disorder (CCD) of the Honey Bee”.

“Given that CCD has a significant impact on agriculture and potentially over 70% of our food chain, the outcome of this paper provides practitioners with holistic LCA data plus an increased understanding about apiary processes to support agricultural strategies in order to reduce the rate of decline of Apis mellifera due to CCD,” says Judy.

Other papers that are being delivered under the affiliation of Global GreenTag and The Evah Institute are:

FLOORCOVERING LCA FOR ECOLABELLING IN AUSTRALIA

Co-authors: Shloka Ashar, David Baggs, Delwyn Jones, Mathilde Vlieg

SYNTHETIC FIBRE LCA FOR ECOLABELLING

Co-authors: Omar. Biaz, Tricia Rimando, Mathilde Vlieg, Delwyn Jones

LIFE CYCLE BENEFIT THINKING AND METRICS

Authors: Delwyn Jones, Mathilde Vlieg, Shloka Ashar, David Baggs.