thinkstep Australasiasustainability update - 2015 & 2016

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Sustainability update

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It is with great pleasure that we, the thinkstep Board present our Sustainability Report for 2015 and 2016.

Sustainability is in our organisational DNA. It is what we do as a business, it is how we help organisations to improve their businesses, but more importantly, it is what we believe in, are committed to, and live by. Through this report we can demonstrate how we are tracking in our own journey and find the ways to improve year by year.

This report also marks several major milestones in our organisational journey. It is the first time that subsidiaries of the parent company, thinkstep AG, have documented their own Sustainability Report. With the shift to local ownership at the beginning of 2017, the next Report will record our own Australasian performance, and the areas where we can manage and improve.

The Board of thinkstep and our Australasian staff hope you enjoy this Report and encourage you to join us in our sustainability journeys so that, together, we can make a difference in the world.

Dr Barbara Nebel

Chair of the Boards and Managing Director

thinkstep Pty Ltd and thinkstep Ltd

Simon Whitehouse

Director of thinkstep Ltd and Residential Director of thinkstep Pty Ltd

Matthias Nebel

Director of thinkstep Pty Ltd and thinkstep Ltd

Sustainability update

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At thinkstep sustainability is in our DNA. Our mission is to help organisations succeed sustainably. We’re excited to have a purpose which contributes positively to a more sustainable planet.

2015 & 16 has been a busy and rewarding period in which we have been privileged to work alongside a number of forward thinking organisations to implement positive changes. It has been really encouraging to see businesses embracing sustainability the way they have, also through a business lens. After all, sustainable business is simply good business.

We call our contribution toward reducing footprints our handprint. While we’re proud of our handprint, we acknowledge that all businesses, including ours, have footprints. As sustainability thought leaders we believe it’s crucial we don’t just rest on our laurels but also walk the talk when it comes to our own impacts. This is our first effort at putting our own footprint and actions on paper and it has been a really fulfilling experience.

It’s easy to lose track of what happened in two years which seemed to fly by. This sustainability update has been a great opportunity to look back and take stock of just how far we’ve come.

During the reporting period of 2015 & 16 we are still a wholly owned subsidiary of thinkstep AG in Stuttgart, Germany. This report therefore also contains some global thinkstep initiatives toward which we, as thinkstep in Australasia, contribute. Going forward we will be an independent company which means that in our 2017 report we will focus entirely on our Australasian business!

The thinkstep Australasia team

Welcome to our inaugural sustainability update!

Your

We hope you enjoy the highlights that are included within.

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Our vision is that a culture of sustainability is lived in every organisation.

It is embedded, builds on strong internal expertise and delivers value.

thinkstep’s vision for Australasia

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We are passionate about enabling organisations to succeed sustainably.

We develop strategies, deliver roadmaps and projects and implement leading software solutions. thinkstep in Australasia is part of the global thinkstep group.

We team with our clients to unlock the potential of sustainability for business success

through local experts and a global network

through effective communication of sustainability

by sharing our expertise to build internal capacity

by setting new sustainability standards

by partnering with academia to educate future sustainability leaders

for family businesses through to international corporations

What we do

Governance

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thinkstep in Australasia operates as thinkstep ltd (New Zealand) and thinkstep pty ltd (Australia). Both are subsidiaries of thinkstep AG with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The Australasian business has local directors who set the strategic direction on a regional level.

We enjoy a great relationship and significant collaboration on individual projects and initiatives with our parent and sister companies around the globe. Our suite of software tools are developed by thinkstep AG in Stuttgart.

In the pipeline are also changes to our business ownership structure which we’re really excited about. You’ll read more about those in our next report but it likely means that thinkstep in New Zealand and Australia will be wholly owned locally. This opportunity epitomises the level of trust between ourselves and thinkstep AG in Germany.

thinkstep AG(Germany)

thinkstep ltd(New Zealand)

thinkstep pty ltd(Australia)

Simon WhitehouseIndependent Director

Matthias NebelBusiness Manager

Barbara NebelManaging Director

Michael FaltenbacherDirector

Our products and services

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At thinkstep we know that sustainability isn’t one-size-fits-all. Therefore our solutions aren’t either.

Each organisation’s contribution to a resilient and thriving planet is unique. Our products and services embody 25 years of expertise and ensure we can maximise the business value of sustainability in all businesses.

Materiality Assessment

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In 2014 thinkstep completed our own materiality assessment interviewing 143 both internal and external stakeholders across our business globally.

We’ve structured this report around our most material topics and given some context for what this means for us on a local level here in Australasia. Throughout the report we’ve grouped the related topics together and we now have four key material areas

Thought Leadership

Employees

Energy & Carbon

Sustainable Growth

GOALWe want to complete a materiality assessment specific to our Australasian business.

This will give us the opportunity to collect thoughts from a broader range of local stakeholders than were included in the global assessment.

Thought Leadership

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Life Cycle Association of New Zealand (LCANZ)

Barbara Nebel, our Managing Director, is the inaugural and current President of LCANZ. She started LCANZ as a focal point for life cycle assessment and management in New Zealand, initially as an informal working group over 10 years ago, and then formally launched LCANZ as an incorporated society to provide a hub for everyone interested in LCA in New Zealand.Gaya Gamage, another senior staff member, sits also on the LCANZ committee and chairs the Best Practice working group.

The LCA community

thinkstep is an active supporter and contributing member of the LCA community. We see the open exchange of ideas, agreement on consistent approaches and knowledge sharing as critical for embedding life cycle thinking in industry and government. We believe that we, as practitioners, have a significant role to play in this.

Pro bono workings days spent for LCA

community

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As an organisation we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of sustainability for over 25 years. Our thought leadership means we don’t just follow sustainability standards and trends – we influence and shape them. Both internal and external stakeholders recognise this as a point of difference critical to thinkstep’s past and future success. We remain unequivocally committed to driving sustainability progress and ensuring it is embedded in everything we do.

Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society (ALCAS)

thinkstep is a longstanding member of ALCAS.

Barbara sits also on the Life Cycle Inventory committee of ALCAS.

New Zealand Life Cycle Management Centre (NZLCM)

NZLCM is a collaboration between Massey University, AgResearch, LandcareResearch, Plant & Food Research and SCION to build capability in Life Cycle Management by providing education, training and research. The collaboration brings together academia and research to build capability in Life Cycle Management in New Zealand.

Barbara is a member of the Advisory Group of NZLCM since it was set up in 2009.

Thought Leadership

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Our current involvement

Technical Advisory Group of the Australasian EPD Programme

Technical Advisory Group of the International EPD Systems

thinkstep Australasia’s Technical Director, Jeff Vickers, is an Approved Verifier for the Australasian EPD Programme

The Australasian EPD Programme

The Australasian EPD® Programme provides a trans-Tasman platform for communicating credible environmental information. EDPs are a science based, third party verified document which have very quickly become the international gold standard for communicating environmental information.

Barbara initiated the set up of the programme that was launched in 2014 to help making Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) more mainstream in New Zealand and Australia. The programme provides organisations with the option to communicate the science based environmental credentials of their products in a transparent and internationally recognised manner.

International Journal for LCA

Barbara is the regional editor for the international Journal for Life Cycle Assessment. She edits and reviews papers on a regular basis. In total she has reviewed 24 papers and acted as submission editor for 17 papers.

Thought Leadership

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Capacity Building in Developing Countries

Many of the world’s under-privileged areas are at most risk from the threats posed by climate change. People from these regions are eager to be involved but often lack the resources or training to implement international best practice.

The Swedish Standards Institute facilities a program around Trade Promotion through standardisation in the South and South East Asia (SESA) by capacity building to calculate the carbon footprints of products.

Barbara’s involvement assists in building capability around carbon footprinting in these regions to implement ISO /TS 14067 “Carbon Footprint of Products” on a practical level.

Barbara’s role in these areas is to upskill the locals so they can continue to make meaningful differences in their organisations, communities and to our planet.

ISO standards

Closer to home thinkstep gives support for the development of ISO standards. Barbara is a representative in ISO working groups and participates in the commenting rounds.

thinkstep was engaged by MPI (MAF initially) to contribute New Zealand’s perspective to the development of the ISO standard 14067 for Carbon Footprinting. Throughout the negotiations Barbara’s input ensures that the development remains consistent with New Zealand’s view.

11Working days

donated to developing countries

Thought Leadership

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SBC's Value Chain workstream

thinkstep was an active member in the Sustainable Business Network’s (SBC) Value Chain workstream and contributed to the development of the Value Chain Guide. The purpose of the guide is to promote the integration of sustainability into business value chains. This is facilitated throughout the guide using case studies and clear steps to help you identify your value chain and advice on how to manage it effectively.

SBN’s Circular Economy Accelerator

As a founding partner of the Sustainable Business Network’s (SBN) Circular Economy Accelerator Programme thinkstep facilitated three workshops together with it’s partner Catalyst Ltd.

150 participants from government, academia and research joined our workshops in Auckland, Tauranga and Wellington. The workshops encouraged the integration of life cycle thinking in businesses and research.

Launch webinar and workshop series to share learnings with clients, peers and others.

Goal

In 2017 we are looking to launch a webinar series discussing topical sustainability subjects. Because we think knowledge sharing is critical to embedding sustainability on a large scale, we are planning to invite guest speakers to share their experience in the respective field at each of the webinars.

Employees

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From good to great

thinkstep is dedicated to providing opportunities for employees to upskill. As part of this, thinkstep sponsored an LCA course at Massey University for a new employee. Additionally, two employees became Certified LCA Practitioners in 2015/16.

Becoming a Certified LCA Practitioner is a significant achievement. The independent assessment process requires a comprehensive demonstration of technical life cycle knowledge. This is even more notable given there are presently only four Certified LCA Practitioners in New Zealand. Certified LCA Practitioners use their specialist knowledge to help inform better product design or review and provide LCA guidance to others.

Hours spent an employee

training

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Conference presence

We use conferences to raise the profile for sustainability and for continuous development of our employees. Conferences thinkstep was part of in 2016 include:

Sustainable Brands 2016, Sydney

Sustainable Business Network Conference 2016, Auckland

Green Cities Conference, Melbourne

Climate Change & Business Conference, Auckland

The Global Future Conference, Wellington

thinkstep will encourage and sponsor three further employees to become Certified LCA Practitioners in 2017

Goal

Health and Safety

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Health and Safety

In 2016 thinkstep launched our first Health and Safety Policy. While we’ve traditionally been a ‘low risk’ environment, formulating the H&S Policy was a great opportunity to review our work environment. An annual review process was also established. As a result we installed additional motion activated lights to make it safer and easier for employees moving between offices and arriving/leaving work outside daylight hours.

Employees at thinkstep are entitled to sick leave exceeding the legal requirements by two days, which equals 40% above the legal minimum.

Bumblebee Sanctuary

In summer 2016 the thinkstep team conducted a bumblebee rescue. A one-winged bumblebee which became stranded at the office was adopted. The bumblebee lived in a terrarium in the thinkstep office for three months.

The sanctuary has since been strongly endorsed by other bumblebees who have worked out that it is a convenient all-you-can-eat buffet and offers great respite from the strong Wellington winds.

Fostered bumblebees

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Graduates from local institutes

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Young talents and local expertise at thinkstep

Ben joined us in February 2016 as a graduate of the Wellington Institute of Technology (WelTec). He now works in the fields of corporate and product sustainability.

“I discovered my passion for sustainability during my lectures at WelTec. I am very happy that I found a leading company in this field, operating from the Wellington region. Coming from Wellington, I was not expecting a world-leading specialist organisation like thinkstep to be so close by. I have learnt so much from thinkstep’s global experience and knowledge base.”

Ben now regularly presents LCA at WelTec, using his sustainability experience to ‘give back’ and inspire others passionate about sustainability.

NZ residents in

the thinkstep

team88%

At thinkstep we’re very proud of our team and it’s been an exciting year with two new staff joining us. A big welcome to Ben Fisher and Gaya Gamage! Both share a passion for sustainability and are a huge asset to the team.

“The cycle of learning was completed. I was given the opportunity to passmy LCA experience on to students who were sitting in the same place I was not too long ago.”

In June 2015 Gaya, a doctoral graduate at Massey University, joined thinkstep. Gaya is a Sustainability Engineer at thinkstep which means that she is able to apply her background in sustainability to complex manufacturing and engineering projects. Currently Gaya is working extensively with the steel and construction industries.

As an LCA specialist at thinkstep, Gaya has found a way to align her values with her work:

“Working in academia left me with a thirst to understand business and how LCA and research can feed improvements in everyday life. Transitioning from academia to business helped me see the real world value

of LCA and research. At thinkstep I conduct LCA, research, work with internal and external teams, and have a good idea of where my expertise fits into the worldview.“

From Academia to thinkstep

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Female employees

at thinkstep50%

thinkstep supports the development and

capacity building with its programme “GaBi education”, providing

the GaBi LCA software to students for free.

“I wanted to work for an organization

that reflected my ownsustainability values

and ethicswithout internal

politics.”

Energy & Carbon Footprint

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Internal and external stakeholders identified energy and carbon were two of the key material topics during our materiality assessment. We monitor our energy consumption and carbon emissions and reduce these where possible. You’ll find some of the initiatives we have implemented in this report.

The 2015 and 2016 carbon footprints include the Wellington office and all business travel. Given there are no direct carbon emissions on site, we report on Scope 2 and the most significant Scope 3 emissions. In total, our activities produced 28 t CO2 equivalents in 2015 and 22 t in 2016.

The main source of carbon emissions is business travel with 97%. See further details on the next page.

For our GHG reporting we use our own corporate reporting and management software, SoFi.

kg CO2e

Emission source 2015 2016

Electricity Scope 2 322 243

Electricity Scope 3 26 20

Business travel 27,616 21,277

Total 27,964 21,540

2016 kg CO2e

Electricity Scope 2 Electricity Scope 3

Business travel

Include the emissions for commuting of employees and estimates for home offices.

Offset carbon emissions.

Goal

Travel related emissions

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Perhaps typical of a service based organisation, travel constitutes the bulk of our 2015 & 2016 carbon footprint. Where possible we try to utilise options such as teleconferencing or VOIP.

Given our business is split approximately 50/50 between New Zealand and Australia some travel across the Tasman is also incurred. Emissions from short-haul flights correspond to approx. 50 return flights from Wellington to Auckland and the long-haul flights correspond to about 16 return flights from Sydney to Wellington.

Our approach to reducing travel includes:

Coordination of client visits to reduce number of flights

Use of public transport where possible instead of taxis (2016):

$2,430 spent on public transport vs.

$1,780 spent on taxis

Increased use of online meetings instead of travel

We also make our online meeting and webinar tools available to our clients to communicate results of their projects within their companies

Further increase use of online meeting facilities to reduce air travel.

Goal

Environmental – Office & Waste

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Office Environment

Within our office environment we rely on a mix of new, reused and recycled products. We’re proud to say that all of our office desks are second hand.

Our office chairs are Formway LIFE chairs. Not only are they great ergonomically, they were designed with life cycle thinking in mind and our very own colleague Gaya completed the LCA for them as part of her PhD: http://bit.ly/2lQOpFS

When sourcing computer monitors we make sure to select those which are both energy efficient and are proven to reduce strain on eyes.

When possible we buy refurbished laptops and upgrade our existing stock with extra RAM and SD drives to significantly extend their life expectancy.

Heating in the office is on timers and outside lighting is activated by motion sensors.

Minimising Waste and CompostingSucceeding sustainably begins in our own backyard. The thinkstep team is passionate about composting teabags, coffee grounds and any other organic waste. We estimate that a total 300L of waste is diverted from landfill annually.

Additionally we recycle absolutely everything possible through our local recycling facility.

Given we’re still a relatively small organisation, any electronic waste we generate is extremely limited. Anything in this category is disposed of via a dedicated service for electronic waste. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it ensures we keep our colleague Jeff onside (who completed his PhD on LCA of electronic products).

Disposable coffee cups

used

4

Litres of composted

waste in 2016

300

Additional life expectancy of

our refurbished laptops

66%

Environmental Product Declarations

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‘Sustainable Growth’ and ‘Products and Services’ were identified as material issues during our materiality assessment. For this report we have chosen to focus on our work producing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) as our contribution to these topics.

EPDs are like nutrition labels: they provide a transparent, science based and internationally recognised overview of the environmental performance of a product during its life cycle. EPDs assess and help communicate the true footprint of a product by considering the impacts through the full life cycle, including the use phase and disposal. Due to detailed assessment of each stage, EPDs are a powerful tool for informing better product design. Worldwide, they have been recognised as providing valuable information for decision-makers and are quickly becoming a cornerstone of green procurement.

Our clients understand that EPDs can help grow their business which presents an exciting opportunity for thinkstep. We expect demand for EPDs to continue to accelerate, reflective of the increasing demand for environmentally considerate products and services.

In 2015 & 2016 60% of all published EPDs were produced by thinkstep clients.

Our clients published

60%of all EPDs in 2015/16

Support for Small Enterprises

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Sustainability on every level

We believe that sustainability should be embedded in everyone, everything and everywhere. It’s a way of thinking as much as an action.

We appreciate that investing in something like LCA might be financially difficult for a small business starting out. That’s why thinkstep is proud to sponsor small and medium sized enterprises with similar values and a strong sustainability aspirations.

In 2016 the recipient of our sponsorship was Return to Sender, then a family business manufacturing caskets, with four staff. At thinkstep, we believe it’s really important to spread the awareness of LCA and the novel way in which Return to Sender was looking to incorporate life cycle thinking into their products really resounded with us.

thinkstep subsidised the project by investing time free of charge, provided an LCA student with an opportunity to work on a real project and supported Return to Sender to apply for some co-funding from Callaghan Innovation.

Work at least with one small business annually to help them along on their sustainability journey.

Goal

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To accompany us on our sustainability journey follow us on social media or contact us:

thinkstep Australasia

@thinkstepanz

anz@thinkstep.com

thinkstep‘s sustainability journey

NZ +64 4 234 5678

AU +61 3 9015 9455