Earthster is an organization that helps to make Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) more accessible to all users worldwide. In addition to offering the benefits of LCA without a lot of capital or time investment, Earthster’s web portal provides a market benefit to these organizations, as well as links to resources for environmental and social improvements. Companies will have the option of reporting current performance, year-to-year improvement, or both. This ensures that all companies can participate, even those starting off with poor environmental or social performance. The tools developed for the project are free and open source, and where possible will take advantage of the Semantic Web. Project funders at a minimum level will have the opportunity to beta test the tools, provide input into features and development priorities, and pilot the tools within their supply chain. The tools enable many functions at various levels during the development:
* Environmentally preferable product purchasing (EPP)
* Process and/or product optimization
* Corporate benchmarking, metrics for continuous improvement
* Publishing cradle to gate Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data for downstream purchasers
* Publishing cradle to grave Life Cycle Impact (LCIA) data for downstream purchasers
* GRI and CSR reporting Table 1 outlines the development stages.
The tools enable many functions at various levels during the development:
* Environmentally preferable product purchasing (EPP)
* Process and/or product optimization
* Corporate benchmarking, metrics for continuous improvement
* Publishing cradle to gate Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data for downstream purchasers
* Publishing cradle to grave Life Cycle Impact (LCIA) data for downstream purchasers
* GRI and CSR reporting Table 1 outlines the development stages.
Via: (Earthster)
The tools developed for the project are free and open source.