Cenovus Energy, a Canadian oil company, was facing the challenge of collecting, aggregating, and reporting emissions and energy consumption data across more than 1,000 facilities spread across a vast geographic area. The process was complex and difficult due to the use of numerous spreadsheets and systems to compile emissions data and reports. It was an onerous and labor-intensive process, involving collection and aggregation of data from multiple sources for a very large number of facilities. Much of the data would require additional pre-calculation or other conditioning to be suitable for emissions calculation and compliance report compilation. Cenovus envisioned a single, automated integrated enterprise-wide solution to manage air environmental reporting.

Tata Steel, Europe’s second largest steel producer, has been using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for 16 years to support the development of its products and to contribute to industry-wide efforts to establish standards for sustainability, particularly in the automotive, construction, and packaging sectors. However, the company faced challenges in understanding how steel performs compared to other materials such as aluminium, concrete, timber, and carbon fibre. They also needed to use LCA studies as a marketing tool to support their supply chains and to support decision making in product development. Another challenge was identifying hot spots in the steel value chain so that efforts to reduce a product’s carbon footprint, water footprint, and energy use can be directed to where they will have most effect.

Dow Chemical, a leading producer of plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products, was faced with the challenge of managing its environmental reporting across hundreds of facilities in the United States. The company had been using multiple legacy systems for regulatory reporting, but these systems were no longer sustainable, varied between sites, and required duplicate resources for support. The need for regulatory reporting compliance and technology replacement led to the initiation of the Dow Environmental Reporting Project in 2004. The project aimed to provide a cost-effective, high-quality, multi-media environmental reporting solution.

Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) is a global leader in oil refining, gas liquification and supplying petroleum products to local and international markets. It operates three major refineries with 6,000 employees producing an average total of 900,000 barrels per day of distilled gasoline, diesel, and bitumen products. The company has a goal to be considered as the leaders in safety, health and environmental performance in the petroleum industry. To achieve this, KNPC has taken a proactive approach to environmental, health and safety (EHS) compliance and sustainability, focusing especially on the critical role of information management. In 2003, KNPC was one of the first companies in the Middle East to implement a centralized, enterprise-level software platform for air emissions tracking and reporting. However, the company faced challenges in promoting efficiency in current EHS information management work processes and leveraging EHS data for strategic decisions.

Husky Energy, one of Canada’s largest energy companies, was faced with the challenge of expanding its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting to meet growing compliance and sustainability requirements. In 2010, the government of British Columbia issued its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act Reporting Regulation, which required companies to provide much more granular data. The new rules meant that Husky’s reporting obligations grew from 12 facilities with 14 pieces of equipment to over 136 facilities with 858 pieces of equipment. The company now needed to report on all well-level drilling emissions as well as tracking and reporting emissions down to the equipment level. This presented a significant challenge in terms of data management and reporting.

The pharmaceutical company, with clinical research conducted in more than 50 countries and manufacturing plants in over 12 countries, identified an opportunity to improve current processes with the goal of reducing product defects across its worldwide operations. The company lacked a centralized tool to capture requirements or to conduct risk assessments for hundreds of their products within many product families. As a result, in order to meet regulatory guidelines, the company maintained multiple spreadsheets as well as Process Flow Documents which were over 100-pages long for each product family! This created a very complex and cumbersome process. In addition, since the information was contained in multiple sources, there were no linkages between the requirements and controls, and the content was difficult to search and query. It also meant reliance on a few experts who could assess the relationships between all these elements.

ConocoPhillips, a major player in the oil and gas industry, was facing operational inefficiencies, long wait times for frontline work teams, unplanned downtime and potential process safety losses. The company was also grappling with the challenges of the Digital Age and how it could be leveraged to transform their operations. The oil price downturn five years ago forced the industry to make major adjustments and consider how emerging technologies like data analytics, robotics, automation, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and cloud technology could be used to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The company also had to deal with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a global supply glut.

Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is a vast, international agribusiness with 30,000 employees working at more than 725 facilities in 160 countries. The company's growth over the years is attributable in part to the breadth and diversity of its operations. However, environmental information management was decentralized at ADM. Environmental managers developed their own work processes to meet the needs of their grain elevators, flour mills, corn processing or oilseed processing plants. Their information systems were narrowly scoped and fragmented because they had been built separately by consultants, locations, divisions and departments to comply with only the local, regional and national government regulations applied to their operations. This diverse group of corporate and operations professionals formed an Environmental Leadership Team (ELT) to promote collaboration and enable joint decision-making. In 2009, the ELT responded to proliferating regulations and demands for greater transparency from ADM’s senior management by hiring a third-party consultant to do a formal risk analysis benchmarking study of existing environmental practices and procedures.

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), New Jersey’s oldest and largest investor-owned utility provider, was facing a growing burden of regulatory mandates regarding air, water, and waste emissions. The company was committed to ensuring full compliance with these regulations, but the proliferation of mandates was becoming increasingly challenging. Each of PSEG's plants had its own set of systems, often heavily customized and specific to local operations, and used its own methods to manually compile reports on its environmental performance. This resulted in a fragmented and inefficient system. Furthermore, the knowledge of exactly how information was being captured and aggregated typically remained with a single environmental professional at each plant, creating a risk in cases of staff turnover.

The Zircon Industry Association (ZIA) needed a way to conduct Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in line with the most recognized and up-to-date methodologies and using industry-specific data. They wanted to use LCA as a strategic tool for zircon producers to benchmark with industry averages and to set continuous improvement goals. They also wanted to provide an informed supply chain with an accurate and independently-verified LCA, clearly showing that the very low environmental burden of zircon makes it the preferred choice as far as life cycle environmental performance is concerned. This would help to underpin ZIA member companies’ sustainability profile and provide additional communication opportunities throughout the value chain, including building designers and users of ceramic tiles.

The challenge was to effectively communicate sustainability aspects to customers and the value chain. This is crucial for raising awareness and initiating change, as well as bringing people together to discuss findings and create solutions. The goal was to create a communication tool that incorporates realistic qualitative agricultural and sustainability metrics in an engaging, entertaining, and educational way.

Santex SpA, a major player in the Italian market for the production of medical devices, was seeking to improve the energy performance of the company and the environmental impact of its products. To achieve this, Santex implemented a management system in compliance with ISO 50001 requirements for Energy Management and ISO 14040 and 14044 for LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and EPD® (Environmental Product Declaration) processes. These processes were actively used by Santex to evaluate, monitor and improve environmental performance. However, the company faced challenges in generating Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) autonomously and rapidly for new products.

The Italian Ceramics Industry, represented by Confindustria Ceramica, was faced with the challenge of tackling an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) project that represented 82.6% of Italian ceramic tile production. The industry needed to communicate the environmental performance of Italian ceramic tiles in an objective and transparent manner, while emphasizing sustainability activities and investments. They also needed tools to qualify for green building rating schemes (LEED, DGNB, BREEAM) and Italian green public procurement bidding procedures (CAM). The industry was also looking to identify potential improvement areas and projects for better environmental performance of products and support individual companies in product-related environmental reporting.

The global pharmaceutical company was facing challenges in managing quality risk and reducing product defects. The transition from conventional to biopharma drug production had made compliance more complex and traceability crucial. The company was using spreadsheets and extensive process flow documents to conduct risk assessments for hundreds of products. This process was complex, cumbersome, and difficult to query. The elements of the process were not clearly linked, making the investigation of complaints burdensome and expensive. The company was dealing with disparate risk assessment processes across more than 62 countries, using time-intensive, manual reporting tools, and had an ineffective complaints analysis process.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, one of the world's largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies, was faced with the challenge of complying with new U.S. regulatory requirements to support Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS). The company needed to streamline its drilling permit application process and simplify the management of change. Additionally, Anadarko was faced with the challenge of minimizing operational disruption and delays due to the replacement of experienced staff. The company was deeply affected by the tragic Deepwater Horizon events in 2010, which led to a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling operations across the Gulf of Mexico and the mandatory adoption of SEMS by federal authorities.

Chevron, a global energy company, has been committed to managing greenhouse gases (GHGs) in its operations. With the proliferation of GHG regulations worldwide, timely and accurate emissions reporting has become essential for the company. Many new GHG protocols include cap-and-trade or carbon pricing requirements, making GHG emissions data financially significant and subject to stringent standards associated with accounting and third-party auditing. Chevron, with its 55 business units and 10,000 sites worldwide, required a standardized system for tracking and reporting GHG emissions data.

CITGO, a multi-faceted refiner and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other petroleum-based products, is dedicated to the safety and health of its employees and the protection of the environment across its operations. The company is subject to numerous local, state and federal environmental and safety regulations from agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). CITGO continually analyzes, maintains, and improves its business processes to address compliance issues across the corporation. The company was looking for tools that would further strengthen its work processes and enhance performance. CITGO’s most recent project has been the design of an innovative Management of Change process powered by the IMPACT.

LANXESS Corporation’s Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) group supports global efforts to meet the highest safety standards covering more than 20,000 products in 52 production sites. The Pittsburgh HSEQ group is responsible for keeping all safety data sheets (SDS) current and compliant for 4,000 products in the United States, as well as for a few thousand more products produced in Canada and distributed in Mexico. They work together with other HSEQ groups in the EU, Brazil, China and Japan to author GHS compliant Safety Data Sheets in 39 different languages for destination countries around the world. The United States Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has mandated that companies implement the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).

Siemens, a global Fortune 500 company, faced a major business challenge due to the confluence of two major regulatory changes becoming effective on the same date. The U.S. OSHA adoption of the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) framework as its standard for hazard communication combined with the enforcement of the EU GHS regulation on mixtures meant Siemens had to reassess and reclassify over thirty-five hundred products by the June 1, 2015 regulatory deadline. Non-compliance would have created an extreme business disruption since Siemens would have been unable to sell its products in several markets. The GHS implementation project formally began in 2014 and leveraged software, content and expertise from Sphera to help them facilitate the transition.

BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer, was using decentralized tools like Word and Excel to document process hazards. As a result, documentation was inconsistent and data extraction was cumbersome. Gathering strategic insights required experienced staff to review long, 300-page reports. The company had limited visibility of risk across the global organization, which was a significant challenge.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M Ltd. or Mahindra), a mobility products and farm solutions provider, is the flagship company of the Mahindra Group, an Indian multinational federation of companies operating in over 100 countries around the globe with a presence in multiple industries. In order to take action on combating climate-related risk and contribute to the ambitious emissions reduction target set by the Group, M&M Ltd. decided to set a robust Science Based Target (SBT) in line with the climate goal from the Paris Agreement. During the target development process the company assessed and set science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, considering their direct (scope 1) and indirect (scope 2 & 3) emissions. Mahindra evaluated their emissions based on the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) methodology, using primary collected data and data from Sphera’s LCA databases GaBi, to get robust insights for their entire value chain.

Lumileds, a company committed to a culture of quality, responsibility, and sustainability, was facing a challenge. Their custom-built, end-of-life software for the monthly data collection for health & safety and quarterly data collection for environmental data was no longer adequate. They needed to replace it with a state-of-the-art sustainability solution to track, monitor, and report against their sustainability targets. The new solution needed to be easy-to-use and intuitive for data collectors and data admins. Furthermore, the implementation had to be completed before the next reporting window.

Tikkurila, a paint manufacturing company, has been providing consumers and professionals with user-friendly, sustainable paint solutions for over 150 years. The company prides itself on product safety and quality, which are among the cornerstones of its operations. Tikkurila's product labeling must meet customer needs and expectations as well as regulatory requirements. The company works hard to systematically determine the health, safety, and environmental impact of the raw materials used in its paints. Product teams must develop material safety data sheets (SDS) and labels in up to 15 languages as it markets more than 2,000 products. However, Tikkurila’s facilities across 11 countries used different methods to create safety data sheets and labels, including outsourcing for translation. They realized that they needed a more efficient way to create their SDSs if they were going to continue to grow.

Alcoa, a leading producer of primary and fabricated aluminum, aimed to integrate sustainability with its business operations to enable financial success, environmental excellence, and social responsibility. The company needed to ensure full compliance with regulations, standards, and company policies across its global operations. Alcoa also sought to continuously improve its management processes to drive operational excellence. The challenge was to manage compliance with over 1,200 active permits, including 2,500 rules and 225,000 requirement citations, across 250 jurisdictions worldwide, as well as adhering to 87 Alcoa corporate standards and a host of international standards.

BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer, was facing challenges in managing plant risks and safety processes. The company was using Word, Excel, or specialized desktop software to document process hazards, leading to inconsistencies in documentation across the global organization. Staff members were using different languages for classification and different methods for HAZOP assessments and data collection. This lack of consistency limited the visibility of BASF managers across facilities and hindered comparisons of issues and safeguards. Comparisons had to be done 'intellectually', by experienced staff reviewing documents that were up to 300 pages long, which was inefficient, time-consuming, and labor-intensive.

Cummins Inc. embarked on the task to enforce a list of prohibited chemicals among its locations worldwide. The list of 50 substances that were internally selected and potentially hazardous to employees and environment must be screened from more than 16,000 SDSs (Safety Data Sheets) utilized in the corporation globally. This represented a major challenge given some inaccuracies in outdated SDSs, partially disclosed ingredients and on-going procurement of materials potentially containing prohibited ingredients. Moreover, monitoring the number of SDSs containing prohibited chemicals as a key indicator and the ability to identify and filter SDSs which sites plan to upload into the system (SDS management tool) would become critical actions in the overall project.

Drom Fragrances, a global fragrance manufacturer, was facing challenges in tracking and analyzing massive quantities of data from across their global organization to ensure compliance with numerous overlapping jurisdictions. The company was using seven disparate systems across different sites to collect product compliance and safety information. This process was time-consuming and inefficient, leading to potential inaccuracies and high operating costs. The company needed a centralized, global system to standardize and streamline their work processes, ensuring accuracy and reducing costs. They also needed to continue meeting the requirements of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) Compliance Program, which requires “eco-labeling” and bans or restricts the use of 174 chemical substances in fragrance products.

Kinder Morgan, one of the largest pipeline transportation and energy storage providers in North America, was facing a complex challenge of managing compliance for 918 facilities across hundreds of jurisdictions. The company's facilities were subject to 3,482 environmental permits and sets of safety requirements, which mandated reporting and other requirements for government regulations associated with air emissions, hazmat transportation, water, hazardous waste, spill prevention and more. In 2007, the company's leadership was seeking ways to significantly improve compliance across the company. They wanted regular compliance status reports like they get for budget and financial status, which the company couldn’t produce at the time. They had several different compliance systems, including a variety of different compliance calendars in spreadsheets or documents, but they didn’t have the ability to quickly retrieve data out of these systems or generate all of the reports they needed. As a result, they couldn’t look at compliance across the enterprise or quickly zero in on problem areas as easily as they wanted to.

Santee Cooper, South Carolina's largest power producer, faced increasing pressures from stricter environmental regulations and internal changes such as employee retirements. The company had a large number of paper forms, spreadsheets, and databases across the company, and needed a central database for consistent and accurate environmental information. The reporting needs had increased and there were more regulations in the pipeline with final rulings coming. The company needed an Environmental Management Information System (EMIS) to manage the current requirements more efficiently and deal proactively with the next generation of environmental demands. Furthermore, the company was undergoing operational adjustments due to organizational and personnel changes, including the shutdown of four coal-fired generating units, which required a lot of change with roles, responsibilities, and people all being shifted between various stations and locations.

The Red River Army Depot (RRAD) is a large-scale production complex that serves as an ammunition depot storage site and maintenance facility for various military vehicles. Many of its storage and maintenance processes require the use of numerous chemicals or materials that generate significant quantities of waste. RRAD’s Environmental Division staff members carefully track and manage thousands of transactions involving material receipt, inventory and waste generation to assure full compliance with state, federal and U.S. Army regulations. The challenge was to manage a high volume of hazardous materials and waste in compliance with state, federal and military regulations, provide up-to-the-minute visibility into the status and location of materials & waste onsite, and identify opportunities to reduce materials inventory, thereby eliminating the need for waste disposal.