Product & Service Sustainability

Home » What We Do » Product & Service Sustainability

Achieving Real-World Sustainability Outcomes

Evaluate, optimise and communicate the environmental performance  credentials of your organisation’s products & services.

WSP Environment & Energy provides consulting services to a diverse range of organisations, including business, government agencies and not-for-profits. We are a global consultancy providing specialist advice on all aspects of environmental, energy, sustainability, climate change, and business risk issues.

WSP can demonstrate the role of innovation, good design and knowledge transfer in achieving an environmentally sustainable future. The design and deployment of online software tools is our core capability, but we also provide professional services to help organisations maximize the environmental performance of their products, services and operations.

Our approach is focused on purpose, market relevance and the ability to deliver environmental benefits and ‘real-world’ solutions. Efficient research and business-oriented strategies are the cornerstones of WSP’s sustainability consulting services.

Our Strengths and Capabilities

The Digital Solutions team offers four key areas of expertise related to product and service sustainability:

1. Product Stewardship Strategy and Implementation
2. Sustainability Communications and Stakeholder Engagement
3. Life Cycle Thinking and Product Footprinting
4. EcoDesign Strategy and Sustainable Product Development

We understand how innovation can enhance the life cycle environmental performance of products, services or operations. More importantly WSP can develop and implement solutions with measurable environment benefit.

Our approach and methods are driven by the prospect of seeing solutions and strategies effectively implemented.

Read more about the keys to achieving sustainable outcomes and how we can help meet your objectives.

1. Product Stewardship Strategy and Implementation

Effectively managing end-of-life products and materials demands a smarter approach with a focus on waste avoidance, resource recovery and life cycle thinking. WSP’s Product and Service Sustainability Practice is strategically placed to support all of your activities when it comes to Product Stewardship and EPR.

We have the experience and skills to help you extract maximum economic, social and environmental benefit from the new Product Stewardship Legislation. Our knowledge of the new Product Stewardship Act (2011) is unmatched, as is our commitment to delivering value to clients and project partners.

Whether you are a local council, social enterprise, retailer, recycler or ‘liable party’ under the Product Stewardship Act (2011) and National TV and Computer Product Stewardship Scheme, WSP can provide informed independent advice. Talk to us about our services across the supply chain and across sectors. More specifically, WSP has experienced practitioners covering:

• Identification and development of business opportunities resulting from the Product Stewardship Act
• Compliance support under the Product Stewardship Act and associated ewaste regulations for TVs and computers
• Government and industry advocacy
• Compliance support and auditing for the Interim Industry Standard for ewaste
• Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) management system development and review in accordance with ISO14001 and OHSAS18001
• EHS management, auditing and implementation
• Waste management strategy and auditing
• Energy efficiency, climate change and sustainability services
• Contaminated land and site remediation management
• Sustainable product development and eco-efficient design
• Digital and online tool development, including mobile applications to support consumers, auditors and demand-side educational requirements.

Connecting the management of product life cycles with innovation and corporate foresight underpins successful Product Stewardship strategies. Managing manufactured goods from cradle to grave is now a major imperative across product categories and waste streams.

WSP understands the benefits of managing product life cycles and has the ability to create real-world strategies. Our Product Stewardship expertise and consulting services for the electronics industry in Australia, have achieved unprecedented outcomes at a policy and corporate level.

Tell us about your product life cycle management priorities, and see how WSP can help you create take-back and recycling initiatives based on commercially sensible resource recovery and waste avoidance principles.

2. Sustainability Communications and Stakeholder Engagement

The key to effective communication is research and ensuring clarity of intent and purpose. This enables informed strategy design and astute implementation. Whether it is about articulating the environmental credentials of a product, service or organisation, or building positive relationship with stakeholders, WSP can advise on the most appropriate solution.

We know how to cut through mixed messages and competing information sources when it comes to environmental issues and sustainability.

Given our multidisciplinary strengths, WSP Digital can also design and deploy online communications tools and outcomes that exceed the expectations of our clients and their customers or stakeholders. And when it comes to social media, we’re at the forefront of maximizing our clients’ profile in the marketplace.

If you need to communicate with the market or stakeholders, talk to us about designing the most appropriate and effective strategy – online or offline.

3. Life Cycle Thinking and Product Footprinting

The environmental impact of a company’s products or services, and consumers’ use of them, is usually responsible for the vast majority of an organisation’s impact. It normally far outweighs an organisation’s direct impacts. It is for this reason that product-based life cycle assessments and footprints are such a valuable tool in the product design and management process. They can be used to identify, quantify and track the areas of greatest impact.

WSP’s web-based Product Ecology tool plays a key role in supporting designers and business to identify and analyse a product’s life cycle environmental impacts.

Talk to us about how Life Cycle Thinking and quantitative Product Footprinting can help your organisation minimise impacts and maximise competitiveness.

4. EcoDesign Strategy and Sustainable Product Development

Integrating environmental factors into the product design process can deliver environmental quality and commercial benefit. Product sustainability requires that we integrate form and function with social, economic and environmental considerations.

EcoDesign or SPD represents a major area of applied research and consulting at WSP, and is reflect through our designer-friendly Product Ecology software tools. We can run a low cost eco-diagnostic or review preliminary design concepts as a way of guiding the design and redesign of products and services. Targeted materials research as well as supplier evaluation underpins our EcoDesign advisory services.

See how WSP can support your product development process and add value with environmental advice that is practical and cost effective.

More information:

John Gertsakis – Senior Sustainability Associate
WSP Environment & Energy
john.gertsakis@wspgroup.com
Telephone:  (03) 9412 5113