Consumer products, Manufacturing, Printing and publishing, Canada Value chain mapping and materiality assessment

Summary

ÉEM recently completed value chain diagrams for the products and services of a large printer and leading provider of media and marketing activation solutions.

Approach and Solution

Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are great tools but can be lengthy and costly to produce. While they serve a specific purpose (determining the impact of product, or accurately comparing two products), often, much of the benefit that corporations derive from LCAs comes from a better understanding of the value chain of the products and services, including upstream and downstream impacts.

Value chain diagrams will also form the basis for determining the topics that are material for reporting under the soon to be released G4 Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative.

ÉEM mapped the value chain of the products and services of the organization in order to identify environmental impacts. The diagram was then used to present the actions that the company had taken to mitigate these impacts.

Results

Completing a value-chain diagram allowed our client to identify environmental impacts throughout its entire value chain and their materiality to its operations, allowing for a more comprehensive and focused environmental management effort. The value chain diagram can be seen here.