Last week, our ecoSoftware team had the pleasure of attending the Greentech Media/Groom Energy, “Greening the Supply Chain” event in Boston.  The event was well attended and I would say, very successful.  Importantly, there was plenty of opportunity to network and meet new faces.

As the event unfolded in the morning, we were treated to some interesting and distinguished speakers, with one of my favorites being the opening Keynote by Gary Hirshberg, ‘CE-Yo’ of Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt producer.  Gary has overseen the growth of Stonyfield Farm from a seven cow organic farm to a current $320 million in annual sales.  The leadership and collaboration seen at Stonyfield is inspirational and few would disagree that the company is one of the leaders in pursuing innovative strategies on the unending path to improving their sustainability and overall footprint on the environment.  As Gary said (I’m not sure this was tongue in cheek either), he is looking forwards to the day when you can eat the yogurt pot, thus eliminating waste!

We were also treated to a status update on the upcoming new GHG Protocol standards for Product Lifecycle and Scope 3 GHG accounting and reporting, by Cynthia Cummis from the World Resources Institute.  Cynthia is involved in the project management for these initiatives and it’s clear that these standards are going to be creating a real buzz once their drafts hit the streets in the next month or so.  I had one particular question in my mind -- what is the relationship between the GHG Product Lifecycle standard and the UK PAS 2050 standard, which the UK’s Carbon Trust oversaw?  Cynthia commented that the Carbon Trust is an important stakeholder in the working groups for the new Product Lifecycle standard, which is being aimed as an international standard.  I believe that if these new standards are able to continue to build upon the successful adoption that we have seen with the GHG Protocol, who would bet against these new standards achieving the same level of success…

All in all this was a very valuable event with a lot of interesting insights shared.  I plan to continue to share quick thoughts as I make the rounds on the event circuit over the next few months.  Looking forward to a full schedule!