New tool based on EPS under development
Environmental damage costs society enormous amounts of money – and often leaves future generations to foot the bill. Now, a new tool is under development by Chalmers students, to help companies valuate and manage the impact of their environmental damage, by providing a clear figure for the cost of their goods and services to the environment.
For as long as 30 years, several global companies have been using the so-called ‘EPS tool’ (Environmental Priority Strategies) developed by partners within Swedish Life Cycle Center, to place a monetary value on environmental damage. Until now, this has been complex work, requiring a lot of manual input and expert knowledge. Three students at the education program Venture Creation Track at Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship has spent their last year developing a user-friendly tool based on EPS.
“We felt immediately that this was a good idea that many organizations could use”, says Carl Danielsson, one of the project members. “Sustainability is becoming more and more important, and consequently easy-to-use tools are needed to make decisions.”
During fall 2018, the students Olle Mattsson, Jacob Rockmyr, Carl Danielsson interviewed a number of companies, which are partners in Swedish Life Cycle Center, about their views on monetary valuation, how they use it today and how their needs could look like in the future.
“All companies we have talked to have been positive to EPS, but they do not use the tool in their daily decisions but more for strategic choices”, says Olle Mattsson. It’s something that surprised us. ”
Unlike software vendors such as GaBi, where the user needs to have LCA knowledge to be able to do the modeling himself, the project team sees that users of their tool can be procurers, buyers, product developers, etc without deep knowledge in LCA.
The project group will now create a custom business model and a tool that suits the users. Dialogue is conducted with financiers, developers and potential customers and they hope to be able to roll out a demo version in early 2019.
Contact persons:
Jacob Rockmyr: jakob@rockmyr.com
Olle Mattsson: olle.mattsson.om@gmail.com
Carl Danielsson: carld.danielsson@gmail.com
Text: Ulrika Georgsson
Photo: Sammie Chimusori
Photo from left: Olle Mattsson, Jacob Rockmyr, Carl Danielsson
