Suppliers > United States > Sphera

Sphera

Overview

HQ Location United States	Year Founded 2016	Company Type Private	Revenue $100m-1b
Employees 1,001 - 10,000	Website Open website	Twitter Handle @SpheraSolutions

Company Description

Sphera is the leading provider of Enterprise Sustainability Management (ESM) performance and risk management software, data and consulting services focusing on Environment, Health, Safety & Sustainability (EHS&S), Operational Risk Management (ORM), Product Stewardship and Supply Chain Transparency.

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Case Studies.

Cenovus Brings New Approaches to Emissions and Energy Management Across 1,000 Facilities

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's Sustainability Journey with GaBi Software

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.

Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner Dow Chemical

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.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner - Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC)

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 Expands GHG Emissions Reporting to Meet Growing Compliance and Sustainability Requirements

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.

Pharmaceutical Company Reduces Quality Risks and Streamlines Processes for Regulatory Requirements

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.

The ‘Secret Sauce’ Driving ConocoPhillips’ Operational Excellence

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 DanielsMidland

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.

Power & Utilities Industry Excellence Award Winner Public Service Enterprise Group

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.

How LCA information Can and Improved Reputation Support Competitive Advantage

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.

Effective Stakeholder Engagement for Sustainable Agriculture

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.

130 EPDs in One Week – When Quality and Speed go Together Case Study | Santex & Sphera

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.

An Environmental Product Declaration for the Italian Ceramics Industry

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.

Reduce Quality Risk and Streamline Regulatory Processes

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 Raises Deepwater Drilling Hazard Assessments to Ensure SEMS Compliance, Enable Sustainable Growth

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.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner - Chevron

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.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner - CITGO

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.

Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner - Lanxess

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).

Life Sciences Industry Excellence Award Winner - Siemens

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.

Enterprise-wide visibility at BASF

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’s Decarbonization Pathway using the Science Based Targets (SBTs)

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.

Sustainability at Lumileds

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 Ensures Compliance Global Growth With Standardized Safety Documentation Process

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 Extends Global Sustainability Leadership with EHS Solution

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 Streamlines Plant Safety Processes Across Global Operations with Standardized Risk Assessments

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.

Manufacturing Industry Excellence Award Winner Cummins Inc.

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.

Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner - Drom Fragrances

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.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner Kinder Morgan

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.

Power & Utilities Industry Excellence Award Winner - Santee Cooper

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.

Government & Military Industry Excellence Award Winner: U.S. Army Red River Depot

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.

Semiconductor Manufacturer Reduces Product Defects and Lost Profits through Consistent Risk Assessment

The semiconductor manufacturer, with several business units spanning three continents, lacked a consistent process for managing risk related to the thousands of products it produces. Each business entity had its own homegrown solution, leading to inconsistency in information across the enterprise. The semiconductor business is complex due to the variety of products and the many risk analyses performed at various levels. An unmitigated risk at the smallest level could have a huge impact on something at a much higher level. The company needed a centralized operational risk management solution.

Achieving a single source of truth for materials data globally

Apache Corporation, one of the world's top independent Oil & Gas Exploration & Production companies, faced significant challenges in managing its materials data. The company's rapid expansion through a series of acquisitions between 1992 and 2012 resulted in operations spread across multiple regions. This led to excessive back-and-forth communication between the centralized catalog team and the regional business units to clarify local material requirements. The situation was further complicated by a lack of 24/7 availability and time zone issues that impacted service levels. In 2008, Apache deployed a single SAP instance with a focus on master data. However, data cleansing was ineffective due to a lack of standards and data governance. By 2010, poor data quality had created significant inventory management, reporting, and sourcing issues, leading to user dissatisfaction.

Building a Sustained Approach to Reliable Data

In 2014, CertainTeed made a strategic decision to consolidate its various ERP systems across its business divisions into a single instance of SAP - to also include SAP’s Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). At the time of the decision, each business operated independently, often using their own management systems. There was little cooperation, and plants typically did not share data. CertainTeed recognized that to support their SAP implementation, they would need to consolidate and standardize their Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) material master data. This included the optimization of over 250,000 material records for 60 facilities across 5 divisions in the United States and Canada.

Cutting the Cheese: Sustainability Monitoring and Reporting Made Easy

Bega Cheese®, an Australian dairy food manufacturer, had challenges monitoring and reporting environmental performance and sustainability achievements across its supply chain. It needed to collect sustainability data from all business units and integrate it into other internal systems for reporting. At varying levels in the organization and at varying intervals, it collected energy consumption, water consumption, wastewater and solid waste data. Bega Cheese was unable to easily track its sustainability performance or generate ad hoc reports in a timely manner with confidence in the quality of the data it collected. Bega Cheese’s initial software solution could only create a pre-determined, fixed set of reports and provided no way to create ad hoc reports requested by its stakeholders. For every exception, Bega Cheese had to return to the software provider to ask for customized reports, leading to additional cost and time expenditures.

MAPEI and Life Cycle Thinking

Mapei, a leader in the production of adhesives and chemical products for the building industry, faced several challenges. They needed to provide environmental information in a reliable and transparent manner in response to market demands on products in relation to Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). They also needed to assess the performance of products in the design phase, reduce costs associated with the development of EPDs, and create effective communication messaging for the supply chain and consumers.

Streamline chemical compliance and processes with a comprehensive product stewardship strategy

The apparel firm was facing several challenges in managing its chemical compliance systems and processes. The company was using manual systems and processes for managing chemical SDS information, including binder storage and manual label printing at each of their facility sites. This created critical issues in chemical data management, updates, and reporting. The firm was dealing with siloed and limited access to safety data sheet (SDS) documents through a paper-based system. The label-making and formatting were done manually. The company was using a large quantity and variation of chemicals in their manufacturing process. There was also a lack of insight on the environmental impact of these chemicals.

Sustainability at ista

ista, a sub-metering company based in Germany, had set ambitious sustainability goals and needed to measure their success. For the annual collection of sustainability data, roughly 20 data sets from about 174 sites are collected, involving around 130 people. When the company decided to expand their sustainability initiatives, the existing approach was no longer adequate. Instead of focusing only on data collection and reporting, ista also needed to analyze the existing data to improve future performance. The challenges they faced included extensive and time-consuming data collection via Excel and email, plausibility checks required to improve data quality, and a lack of tools for analytics and advanced planning features.

FATER and Eco-design Tool

Fater, a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and the Angelini Group, is committed to environmental sustainability and is constantly striving to understand and improve the environmental performance of its current and future products. The company faced several challenges in its sustainability journey. These included assessing the environmental impact of existing and new products, embedding eco-design in product development, especially in the choice of raw materials and type of packaging, quantifying the share of the use-phase emissions and providing retrospective guidance for product development, and supporting marketing claims with fact-based but easy-to-understand environmental indicators for transparent consumer communication.

More Sustainable Shirt Packaging at OLYMP

OLYMP, a global apparel company, was faced with the challenge of improving the environmental performance of their packaging while maintaining functional requirements. They needed to calculate the environmental impact of different packaging types and identify a reliable and easy-to-use life cycle assessment (LCA) tool for packaging. They also required external results verification for transparent communication. The company aimed to meet the criteria for their sustainability flag GREEN CHOICE by 2025, which involved increasing the proportion of sustainably produced raw materials, reducing the use of critical chemicals, and establishing environmentally friendly processes in production.

Sustainability Automation: The Key to Better Performance and Transparency

YPF, a leading energy company, was looking to enhance transparency and provide stakeholders with a clearer view of their environmental and carbon data. Their existing collection system was technologically obsolete and Excel-based, which made it difficult to aggregate environmental emissions related to waste & water management and biodiversity data into a single repository. They wanted to transition from a manual process with separated data streams to an automated and unified reporting solution. The goal was to improve key performance indicators (KPIs) in sustainability, increase transparency for audit trails and provide more reliable data for stakeholders and investors.

MySafety: Increase Safety Culture and Performance with Intelligent Incident Data and Technology

The Co-op, a large consumer co-operative with interests across various sectors, was facing challenges in ensuring the safety of its workforce. The retail sector is vulnerable to a wide range of incidents, from workplace accidents to antisocial behavior, as well as the verbal abuse and physical assault of colleagues. To improve the safety culture, Co-op decided to establish a new incident reporting and management system, accessible to all colleagues and contractors. The safety strategy went beyond the collection and reporting of incidents and near misses. An important success factor for establishing a broad and efficient safety culture and protecting the workforce was to evaluate the collected data with advanced data analytics capabilities to spot underlying trends and risk profile sites, ensure compliance and enable better decision-making. Due to Co-op’s complex safety requirements and the need to cover all its stores, future-ready mobile technology was needed.

Supply Chain Resilience with Sphera Sub-tier Visibility: Best Practices from DEUTZ

DEUTZ, a leading manufacturer of innovative drive systems, faced challenges in securing its supply chain and being risk aware. The company had integrated Sphera Supply Chain Risk Management into its global risk management within procurement, but realized that limited visibility into sub-tiers represented a significant risk of supply disruptions or shortfalls. In 2022, the focus was on meeting strong demand, fulfilling delivery obligations, and keeping supply chains up and running. At the same time, the German Supply Chain Act with special focus on human rights and environmental protection along the supply chain, drove companies such as DEUTZ to perform risk management and reporting for all suppliers. DEUTZ’s attempt at manual identification of sub-tier suppliers failed due to two significant hurdles: it did not meet the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and it involved a high expenditure of time, yet did not provide value to neither DEUTZ nor their customers.

How Clariant stays competitive with Sphera Supply Chain Risk Management

Clariant, a leading specialty chemical company, recognized supply chain risk management as a megatrend that they would have to manage if they wanted to stay ahead of the competition. They wanted to secure their market position by cooperating with the right suppliers who didn’t pose a threat to their reputation, whether because of noncompliance with regulations, sustainability issues or other reasons. As a chemical company, Clariant can’t produce their products without all the supplies they need—even if that supply is only one tiny component of a much larger product.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner - CenterPoint Energy

In 2010, CenterPoint Energy stepped up to address one especially critical environmental management challenge facing US energy companies – global climate change. The company’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Program team began implementation of an enterprise-level Environmental Management System (EMS) that is significantly enhancing their ability to maintain compliance with mandatory government regulations as well as voluntary sustainability reporting. CenterPoint Energy had previously managed its environmental reporting processes with hundreds of spreadsheets that were separately developed and maintained at its many facilities. But, to meet more rigorous information management demands imposed by a new generation of regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) GHG Mandatory Reporting Rule (MRR), and voluntary reporting to non-governmental organizations such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), senior managers realized that complying with these complex new requirements using spreadsheets would be inefficient and potentially risky.

Aerospace & Defense Industry Excellence Award Winner Enginetics

Enginetics Aerospace Corporation, a leading provider of complex metal formed components and fabricated assemblies for the global aerospace industry, was seeking ISO 14001 certification. ISO 14001 is a framework that companies can follow to assure management, employees and other stakeholders that environmental impacts are being measured and improved. The certification would not only boost the company's reputation but also lower operating costs. However, the process of achieving this certification was challenging due to the need for accurate, timely Safety Data Sheets (SDS) information. Enginetics was already committed to ensuring compliance with other global mandates for product stewardship and sustainability, including Tier II chemical inventory reporting under the US Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), the Globally Harmonized System for Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), and the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). However, managing these compliance mandates manually was proving to be inefficient and prone to errors.

Energy & Transportation Services Industry Excellence Award Winner

Lloyd’s Register, a world leader in assessing business processes and products for safety standards, sought to improve its client risk assessment meetings. The company wanted to interact more effectively with clients during these meetings and expedite follow-up actions. Previously, meeting notes had to be captured by the engineers and support specialists in the meeting. Data about the client’s specific risks, safeguards, recommendations, and actions would be entered into various word documents and spreadsheets. Afterward, all of that information would have to be manually combined into a single draft document and circulated to the team that had attended the meeting. Each attendee would have to spend additional time checking to see that information from their discussion had been captured correctly and included in this encompassing document. Consolidation of information could take days and people could not see each other’s comments until they were issued in a draft revision. Important points made during the meeting might even get lost in the process.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner - Repsol

A decade ago, Repsol executives realized that increasing pressure from local regulators and rigorous European emissions legislation as well as from ESG investors meant that their company needed to establish more reliable and credible environmental management processes. Repsol’s legacy processes for calculating air emissions were disparate, labor intensive and time consuming. Each facility had its own process to create the required regulatory reports and documentation. Many consisted of a series of steps to copy information from source systems – such as PI, laboratory information management systems (LIMS) and production systems – then create and maintain hundreds of spreadsheets with all the necessary calculations and reports. Each process required a host of manual tasks, which had to be performed repeatedly by Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) staff. As a result, these facility-specific processes left room for human error and provided only limited visibility across the company.

Manufacturing Industry Excellence Award Winner SAMTEC

SAMTEC, a manufacturer of specialized electronic components, was facing challenges in managing and monitoring its chemical materials due to the growth of the company and the expansion into new product lines. The company needed to ensure compliance with regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which required constant monitoring of certain chemicals used in their manufacturing processes. The DHS provides companies with a list of thresholds for quantities of selected chemicals that they are permitted to have on site at their facilities at any one time. If the aggregated amount of a restricted chemical reaches thresholds specified on the “Chemicals of Interest” list, then the company must report the variance to DHS. EPA’s Tier II inventory reporting for EPCRA is another threshold-based regulation that provides a limit (in pounds) of specified chemicals that may be managed over a reporting year. If a business operation exceeds that threshold, then the company must provide an annual report to EPA. SAMTEC was committed to ensuring compliance with these and other regulations by constantly monitoring and managing all of its chemical materials but the job was getting more difficult.

Oil & Gas Industry Excellence Award Winner Spectra Energy

Spectra Energy, a FORTUNE 500 company, is one of North America's premier pipeline and midstream companies. It has a commitment to sustainable operations and has been recognized by a host of independent organizations for its efforts. To deliver on these commitments, the company relies on its Environmental Performance and Safety System (EPASS). It standardizes processes for collecting and managing an array of environmental, health and safety (EHS) data, and then shares key aspects of that information both inside and outside of the company. EPASS also supports methodologies for calculating and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are consistent with accepted industry guidelines from the Global Reporting Initiative and World Resources Institute. The company faced a challenge when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented its landmark Mandatory Reporting Rule, which applies to companies emitting 25,000 metric tons or greater of greenhouse gas emissions. Under current MRR’s Subpart C and Subpart W requirements, Spectra Energy initially was required to report combustion emissions data at 25 U.S. facilities.

Energy Industry Excellence Award Winner: Total Petrochemicals & Refining

Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA (TPRI) had an outdated proprietary software for management system auditing that was inefficient and costly. The software included over 1,500 questions, but any changes to these questions had to be made by the vendor for an hourly fee. This made the process of updating the system cumbersome and infrequent. Furthermore, the system was not integrated with the company's incident management and reporting software, Sphera Impact, which meant that audit findings had to be manually transferred from one system to another. This process was time-consuming and prone to errors. The situation worsened when the company upgraded its IT infrastructure, leading to functionality problems with the legacy auditing tool.

Metals & Mining Industry Excellence Award Winner - Vale

Vale, a global mining company, was striving to achieve best practices in risk management. The company’s operational risk management team had historically focused primarily on loss recovery, looking at how the cost of assets could be protected through insurance. In 2006, however, Vale’s risk managers saw that they needed to take a broader view by identifying potential events or circumstances that might impede their company from achieving its business objectives, assessing those issues in terms of their likelihood and magnitude, determining preventive or remedial actions, and then monitoring the progress of those actions to completion. The Operational Risk team at Vale recognized that the success of their evolving strategy would depend upon their ability to collect, aggregate and analyze vast quantities of information from across the company so they established a framework for integrated risk management.

Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner - Sipchem

Sipchem, a globally recognized chemical manufacturer in Saudi Arabia, has always been committed to safety and environmental responsibility. The company continually works to follow international standards and improve processes surrounding safety, health, the environment, and security. In 2011, it became the first chemical manufacturing company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to achieve the prestigious Responsible Care® certification. However, by 2011, the company was looking to take the next step. It wanted to adhere to industry best practices by implementing a new Management of Change (MOC) solution to improve its ability to ensure that the recommended changes were completed and implemented properly. The company had previously used several simple workflow systems to manage change. While these solutions could manage basic workflows, they were not designed by plant safety experts and lacked the sophistication to handle the change management processes and sub-processes necessary for chemical plants.

Government & Military Industry Excellence Award Winner: Eglin Air Force Base

Eglin Air Force Base, the largest base in the U.S. Air Force, conducts a wide range of mission-critical activities, many of which involve the use of chemical materials and generate waste materials. These materials are regulated under local, state, and federal environmental, health, and safety (EHS) regulations. In addition, base personnel must maintain compliance with Air Force standards, some of which are even more stringent than comparable federal government mandates. The challenge was to implement a material management system that would meet USAF Mission Readiness requirements, comply fully with federal, state, and military EHS regulations and ISO 14001 standards, and minimize the burden of compliance processes on base operations, aligning with overall goals.

U.S. Military Maintenance Facility Improves Hazardous Materials Management

The U.S. Military Maintenance Facility (IMF) is responsible for maintaining and modernizing the fleet of submarines. The maintenance process involves the use of many materials classified as hazardous, so effectively managing these materials is critical to worker safety and regulatory compliance. The HazMat team is responsible for the inventory of approximately 1,100 types of hazardous materials. The team coordinates the annual distribution of $885,000 worth of hazardous materials to approximately 90 civilian shops that perform the work on its transport vehicles. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has the overall responsibility for the management of the Hazardous Material Management System (HMMS) program for the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal government facilities. DLA requires an enterprise solution to manage Hazardous Material (HM) and Hazardous Waste (HW).

Meridian: Increasing productivity and building credibility with transparent energy and greenhouse gas management

Meridian, a renewable energy company, was faced with increased stakeholder interest in its own energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The company wanted to move to best-practice carbon and energy reporting and saw a growing need to provide more accurate reports on emissions as well as credible reduction initiatives. This would help to communicate with key stakeholders in a confident and authentic manner. However, Meridian’s GHG accounting system was a spreadsheet-based solution requiring manual data entry, multiple checks and re-checks and frequent requests to update data. It was an inefficient system that posed credibility risks through data integrity issues and made analysis difficult.

Defining Product Sustainability Hotspots to Enhance Business Opportunities

Whirlpool Corporation, a global manufacturer of home appliances, faced several challenges. They needed to quantify the environmental impacts of their products throughout their entire life cycle to improve their environmental performance. They also wanted to integrate environmental KPIs among the main drivers of product development. Furthermore, they aimed to identify potential areas of improvement and hotspots that needed to be addressed in a conscious PCR development for refrigerators.

Opening up New Markets and Achieving Corporate Objectives with LCA

Interface, a global market leader in developing and manufacturing modular textile floor coverings, has been committed to sustainable action through its Mission Zero®. The company has been using GaBi software since 2001 to conduct life cycle assessments (LCAs) for its products. LCAs take into account the entire life cycle of a carpet tile, from raw material extraction, production, and transportation, to use by the customer, care, and disposal. The challenge was to identify the environmental impacts at each of these stages and pinpoint areas with the greatest potential for improvement in terms of transparency, innovation, product portfolio, cost savings, and risk management.

Understand Your Impacts Improve Your Footprint

ANTER, a non-profit organization, aimed to generate awareness of personal environmental responsibility through the 'Voluntary Chart of the Sustainable Citizen' initiative. They wanted to create a user-friendly platform that enables families to understand their Environmental Footprint and the consequences of daily habits and choices. The challenge was to differentiate from available Environmental Footprint Calculators, assuring a scientific basis. They also needed to present the initiative and the tool within a short timeframe.

A Taste Test for FONA International

FONA International, a company that creates 500 to 600 new flavors a month for clients, was facing a challenge with the documentation of potential chemical hazards on a Safety Data Sheet (SDS). The company was operating in a competitive industry where the ability to send samples in a timely manner could be the difference between winning a contract or not. However, it was equally important to comply with any pertinent regulatory safety-related requirements. The company was manually creating labels in many different languages depending on the country the product would be sold in. Each sample required its own SDS, which was a time-consuming process. The company also had to meet the requirements of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), a system set up by the United Nations to standardize the definition of what constitutes a chemical hazard.

From Linear Manufacturer to Circular Supplier: Business Case for Circular Economy at Lorenz Meters

Lorenz Meters, a German company that produces over 1 million high-quality water meters annually, has developed an innovative circular economy business model to sustainably offer customized products for metering services, water utilities, and industrial applications. However, the company faced several challenges. They needed fact-based proof of the environmental performance of their circular business model and quantification of the environmental impact over the entire product life cycle. They also required data-driven insights into Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and identification of improvement potential for the further development of the circular business model.

Enhancing Sustainability Through TCFD Assessments and CDP Disclosure

Aptar, a global leader in the design and manufacturing of a broad range of drug delivery, consumer product dispensing, and active packaging solutions, faced several challenges related to sustainability. The company was struggling with the identification of climate-related risks and opportunities and the application of the TCFD (Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure) methodology. They also needed to benchmark their performance against competitors regarding the assessment of climate-related risks and opportunities. Quantifying the financial impact of these risks and opportunities was another challenge. Lastly, they needed to communicate their sustainability performance to investors and customers through recognized programs like TCFD and CDP.

Building Standardized, Streamlined Global Product Compliance

Drom, a leading fragrance manufacturer, was facing challenges in ensuring product compliance of regulations and industry standards across 43 countries. The company was dealing with disparate regulatory and safety data management and documentation workflows. There was a need for data standardization across global operations and increasing customer transparency into regulatory and safety information. The company 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.

Quantifying supply chain decarbonization as a pillar for becoming a net-zero company

Mercedes-Benz, as part of their Ambition 2039, committed to becoming a carbon-neutral company by 2039 across their entire value chain. This includes not only the emissions produced by their vehicles but also those that occur during the production process. A significant proportion of these emissions occur not at Mercedes-Benz locations, but within its supply chain. To develop a realistic yet ambitious decarbonization strategy, it was crucial to gain transparency about emissions hotspots in the supply chain and quantify possible reduction measures. However, the company faced challenges such as missing emissions transparency in the supply chain, lack of reliable, detailed emissions inventories for steel, aluminum, and plastics, lack of knowledge about the influence of renewable energy and recycled or bio-based materials and their impacts on supply chain emissions, and lack of CO2 reductions potentials for target setting.

Assess Risk to Ensure Quality in Design and Manufacturing Processes

The consumer appliance manufacturer was facing numerous challenges from increasing global competition. To stay competitive, they developed a strategy centered on R&D and innovation to produce new technology that would satisfy client needs. To preserve the quality of its design from conception to manufacturing, post-market upgrades and productivity changes, the Manufacturer performed Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). This approach helped reduce errors throughout the product lifecycle and avoid costly failures and recalls. However, the FMEA process required many manual hours using standard spreadsheet software to edit, update and format risk reports. The manufacturer was struggling with inefficient analysis of risk, difficulty upholding standards and reactive mitigation of product failures and recalls.

Life Cycle Assessment of Beverage Packaging: Pathways to a Circular, Low-Carbon Future

Ball Corporation, a manufacturer of billions of aluminum cans each year, aimed to improve the sustainability credentials of their products. They wanted to identify the environmental hotspots of the aluminum can and compare it with competing beverage packaging options. The assessment was conducted in Europe, the U.S., and Brazil, considering regional collection/recycling rates, recycled content, weight optimization, and energy efficiency. The challenge was to provide an objective and reliable benchmark to interested 3rd parties, inform and enhance Ball’s sustainability strategy, and compare the regional sustainability performance of aluminum beverage cans with alternatives.

Winning the Bid: Benefits and Competitive Advantages of EPDs

Stiferite, a leading company in Italy in the production of polyiso foam thermal insulation, was looking to improve its market position and create bigger opportunities in public bids and building projects. The company needed to obtain Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) certifications swiftly and autonomously to promptly respond to bid specifications and market requests. They also wanted to generate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on their entire product range and improve communication along the supply chain through transparent, credible, and effective messages.

Introducing the New Easy-To-Use (Bio)plastic LCA Tool

In recent years, sustainability-related issues concerning plastics, such as sourcing from non-renewable resources and end-of-life issues (recycling, reuse, littering, biodegradability), have gained significant attention. The plastics industry is under pressure to provide credible solutions to these problems. To bring about sustainable change in the plastics industry, accurate information in the form of standardized and credible Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results needs to be made available in a transparent way to as broad an audience as possible, including non-LCA experts.

Turnaround Excellence is Now Operational

The operator of one of the Middle East’s largest and most complex oil refineries was committed to adopting best-in-class industrial practices, recognizing international management standards, and ensuring compliance with all requirements regarding quality, health, safety and the environment (QHSE). As part of its commitment, and in accordance with its company standards, the operator is required to complete a turnaround (TAR) every five years. Performing a TAR on a site this large and complex involved substantial operational risks as a result of potentially hazardous work activities. With more than 2,300 separate pieces of equipment, 40,843 separate but interrelated jobs and no historical activity to act as a guide, the TAR required meticulous planning and exemplary execution to mitigate risks and ensure deadlines were met safely and efficiently.

OneSafety at UPM: From Identification of Risks to Practical Measures

UPM, a global company with operations in 12 countries, faced challenges in maintaining safety standards due to its diverse locations and growth in new business areas. The company had clear priorities and goals for social responsibility at work, including creating a safe and healthy working environment for all stakeholders. However, the various international, national, and local safety laws, regulations, and rules necessitated a global OHS&E solution for all sites and countries. The solution needed to ensure overall compliance with the UPM Safety Standards and assess and mitigate health and safety risks. The company faced challenges as different sites used different solutions for safety and environmental data, there was no common tool and processes for UPM in place, and there was a lack of global reporting for UPM Safety & Environmental KPIs.

Yara Uses SDS Authoring, Managed Regulatory Content as Foundation for World-Class Product Stewardship

Yara International ASA, the world’s largest fertilizer company and a leading chemical manufacturer, needed to enhance its Safety Data Sheet authoring capabilities to comply with higher requirements from REACH, CLP, and other mandates. The company also needed to establish a new integrated chemical compliance system compatible with its corporate IT environment. The goal was to drive continuous improvement of SDS work processes and core business operations.

Sustainable Packaging for Naturata’s Products

Naturata, a leader in the sale of organic and biodynamic foods, is committed to sustainability and considers it its duty to use organic products and sustainable packaging. However, the ongoing debate and tension between their use of packaging and ecological responsibility are particularly crucial for Naturata. In addition to the quality of their goods, food safety and shelf life are of vital importance to them. Packaging designers and developers, therefore, must consider many different criteria to implement the ideal packaging solution. The challenge was to align packaging solutions with the company’s values and products, integrate sustainability criteria in the demanding processes around the packaging life cycle, identify relevant environmental aspects for comparing different packaging solutions, and cater to increased consumer preferences towards sustainable packaging solutions.

Ensuring Greater Safety and Reliability with Global Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) Templates

Covestro, a leading manufacturer of high-tech polymer materials, was facing challenges in standardizing its Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) documentation. The company wanted to ensure that all its plants could access and share templates, reduce the effort spent on maintaining software and keeping hardware up to date, and have the flexibility to modify templates in accordance with changes in business and industry requirements. Additionally, Covestro wanted to improve the visibility of process safety information to enable solution evaluation and tracking.

A Global Approach to Mitigating Process-Related Risk

Bayer, a global leader in healthcare and nutrition, was using various documentation tools for their Process Hazard Analysis (PHA), including MS Word, Excel, PHA Works, Leader and PHA-Pro. This disparate approach did not allow for shared data analysis, and Bayer had no way of identifying the common risks shared by their sites. They were in need of a risk management documentation tool that would allow for consistent and accurate data recording and analytics. The tool needed to be capable of recording PHA safety reviews across all sites and sharing them globally throughout Bayer’s network.

Streamlining Systems to Improve Efficiency with a comprehensive chemical management solution

The multinational footwear and apparel company was struggling with a manual material approval process and difficulty managing safety data sheets and inventory. The lack of documentation led to the repetition of tasks and confusing communication to internal stakeholders. The company's processes were spread across multiple software solutions, which were cumbersome and often created redundant work.

Driving Value Creation with Supply Chain Risk Management

Joyson Safety Systems (JSS), a global leader in mobility safety, faced several challenges in managing its supply chain risk efficiently. The automotive industry is governed by strict regulations and standards to ensure product safety, quality, reliability, and business integrity. As a tier-1 supplier of safety systems to automotive manufacturers, JSS had to ensure compliance with these laws and rules. The company also had to monitor the financial stability of its suppliers, many of whom were small to mid-sized businesses. The merger of two global automotive suppliers to form JSS in 2018 further complicated matters. The company had to deal with multiple interfaces of systems and databases, and the lack of a systematic approach to supply chain risk management. The company's risk reporting was based mostly on downloads from various regional systems, which were then consolidated manually. This led to inefficiencies and increased the likelihood of human errors.

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