The environmental impact of waste processing at the airport: our collaboration with Schiphol

A business can reduce food waste by implementing simple initiatives for its employees. These actions can include organising a 'food-swop' for colleagues to exchange unwanted items from home, using measuring tools to cook precise quantities for office lunches, and providing instructions on proper food storage to extend shelf life.

The environmental impact of food waste is high because producing, packaging, transporting, and storing food all consume significant energy, land, and water. When food is thrown away, all the resources used to create it are also wasted, which in turn contributes to climate change.

Measuring is a key principle in preventing food waste because, as the mantra goes, 'you can’t manage, what you don't measure'. By precisely measuring ingredients like pasta or rice before cooking, you can prepare the exact quantity needed, which is a simple and effective way to minimise leftovers and waste.

A business can use LCA results to enhance communications with customers, strengthen its reputation, and guide strategic improvements. These factual insights can be included in slide decks for partners and used in conversations with clients to build credibility. Most importantly, the results pinpoint specific impact areas, like transportation, allowing you to focus on changes that will meaningfully improve your environmental score.

An LCA can lead to significant carbon reductions by pinpointing the activities with the greatest environmental impact, allowing for focused and effective improvements. For example, after an LCA identified energy usage as a major impact area, one company switched to 100% renewable energy and achieved a 75% reduction in its product's climate change impact.

You can begin by using Hedgehog's guidance on planning towards an LCA report. The available resources are structured to help you create a clear and effective plan for the reporting process.

An LCA process typically takes a few months, especially at the beginning when gathering extensive data from suppliers for the first time. The timeline can be shorter, potentially just a few weeks, if a supplier already has its data in good order and the product's production process is not overly complex.

An LCA helps validate sustainability claims by providing a factual, data-driven assessment of your environmental performance, leaving no room for interpretation. This process supports your company's story by backing it up with precise data, such as a specific Climate Change Impact score like 0.552 kg CO2-eq per unit. These objective results can then be used to impress partners and confidently communicate your environmental credentials.

Impact categories are specific environmental themes used in a Life Cycle Assessment to group and measure different types of emissions and their potential effects. For example, various greenhouse gas emissions are grouped into the 'Climate change' impact category. This allows businesses to translate inventory data, such as the amount of natural gas burned, into its actual calculated effect on a specific environmental issue like global warming.