GCC Assists Beverage Industry to Complete Greenhouse Gas Sector Guidance
United States - The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) completed the Beverage Industry Sector Guidance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting (Sector Guidance), Version 2.0 in January 2010. The Sector Guidance is a groundbreaking document, as it is the first greenhouse gas guidance document to incorporate both enterprise inventory and product carbon footprinting approaches for a single industry.
Tod Christenson of the Global Corporate Consultancy (part of Delta Consultants) is the Director of BIER, with overall responsibility for Sector Guidance development. "The Sector Guidance is a work product which required tremendous effort from the members of BIER," says Christenson. "With the completion of the latest version, BIER has developed a work product which can be used to establish the beverage industry as a leading sector, and BIER as an indispensible technical resource."
The Sector Guidance is intended to be used to enhance globally accepted greenhouse gas accounting protocols with instruction specific to the beverage industry. Currently, the Sector Guidance aligns with two leading methodologies. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, prepared by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and was used as the foundation for enterprise inventory guidance. Similarly, Publicly Available Specification 2050 (PAS 2050), prepared by British Standards Institution [BSI] and co-sponsored by the Carbon Trust and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [DEFRA], was referenced for product carbon footprint sections of the guidance.
The Global Corporate Consultancy (GCC) was instrumental in the completion of the Sector Guidance. As primary facilitator for BIER, the GCC contributed to the working group that developed the Sector Guidance, as well as facilitating discussions that led to highly specific appendices. Included in Version 2.0 of the Sector Guidance are appendices on: maturation of beverage alcohol, beverage retail and home refrigeration, transportation logistics and product distribution, and recycling allocation. Critical stakeholders, including WRI and Carbon Trust, participated in a formal review of the Sector Guidance and provided valuable comments.
The challenge for BIER now lies in promoting its work in light of emerging protocols. BIER has participated in the stakeholder comment period to the new WRI/WBCSD Scope 3 and Product Standards, and has multiple members who were selected to participate in the road testing of those documents. In this process, BIER members intend to use the Sector Guidance to enhance their calculation efforts, and promote the work of the industry to WRI/WBCSD.
Finally, BIER intends to adapt its document, as appropriate, to new standards. The GHG Protocol and PAS2050 were the leading global protocols at the time BIER embarked on Sector Guidance development, but BIER remains open to adjusting should other standards, including those developed by WRI/WBCSD or International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), become more prevalent.
The Sector Guidance, Version 2.0, will be available for public download from BIER's website in March 2010.
BIER is a technical coalition of 17 leading global beverage companies collaborating to share best practices, benchmark performance and engage external stakeholders. Upon its launch in 2006, BIER focused its agenda on water stewardship activities, but recognising the need to align greenhouse gas emissions calculations across the industry, expanded its agenda in early 2008. The Sector Guidance has been the single focus of the Greenhouse Gas Working Group over the past two years.
Current BIER Members include: AB InBev, Bacardi Limited, Beam Global Spirits and Wine, Brown-Forman Corporation, Carlsberg Group, Coca-Cola Enterprises, DANONE, Diageo, MillerCoors, Molson Coors, Nestle Waters, New Belgium Brewing Company, Ocean Spray Cranberries, Pepsi Bottling Group, PepsiCo International, Pernod Ricard, and The Coca-Cola Company. Additionally, BIER includes American Beverage Association, Ecolab and JohnsonDiversey as contributory members.
For more information: http://www.bieroundtable.com Contact: Gregory LeMay, Global Corporate Consultancy: glemay@deltaenv.com