Sustainable Conscience
Spring Associates would like to function as the ‘sustainable conscience’ of its clients. Increasingly, conscience needs science; to act responsibly, companies and consumers need a great deal of knowledge that currently is not always readily available. Not using child labour for the manufacturing of sports shoes is an intuitive decision, but in order to choose between a sea bass and a salmon, a consumer (or a buyer) needs real knowledge. We help companies gather and disseminate this type of knowledge in an understandable way.
Concept
Our concept of sustainability goes beyond CO2. We believe that companies should consider all energy consumption, as well as the use of materials and water, in their extended supply chains, and try to manage it sustainably.
Investing
We help investment firms, banks and individual entrepreneurs in assessing the real value of their green investments. We check environmental performance and economic value. Our due diligence – besides our economic modelling and business planning skills – builds on our technical knowledge, and on our knowledge of regulations.
Impact modelling
We have considerable expertise in modelling environmental impacts across the value chain. We use our own format of ‘light life-cycle analysis’ (LCA), to combine analytical rigour with efficiency and speed. We have built up knowledge of life-cycle analysis in several industries, from electronics, to food and clothing.
Roadmapping
Once companies know their environmental impact, they will need to develop a vision for change over time. It appears that it is difficult for most companies to put goals into perspective. What does the world need? What are competitors doing? What does legislation require?. We help them do this, and develop roadmaps for the future.
Food
Sustainability of food has our special interest. We have invested significantly in building our own knowledge base of food items, containing the output of LCAs of thousands of food products.