MIT Researchers launch revolutionary fast footprint tool

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct. 18, 2012 - On September 26th at the LCA XII Conference, MIT graduate and co-founder of a start-up in the promising new field of "big data," publicly unveiled an innovative approach at product sustainability analysis, saying that it will "literally turn the current approach upside down."  The innovation and algorithms were developed by a team of MIT researchers looking for a way to put environmental impact data into the hands of companies large and small, so that they can obtain rapid and accurate guidance for dramatically reducing energy costs and simultaneously become more sustainable.

"I heard Alex speak and I thought to myself, the next wave of innovation in this field is coming," said Yann Risz, the Vice President of Strategy and Environmental Finance of leading corporate energy management company Enviance.

This year's theme for the conference was "Life Cycle Thinking, Life Cycle Living," making the perfect venue for the product's launch, because of the focus on being a practical and more rapid solution to product footprinting. The primary focus of their "Footprinter" product is overcoming a barrier that has frustrated sustainability analysts and made the cost prohibitively high for most companies: large amounts of detailed data collection.

By giving companies instant and accurate insight into their product footprints at the corporate or facility level, they can focus on environmental impacts that have a direct impact on their bottom line: energy costs, water costs, waste, and carbon dioxide emissions. The tool gives them the ability to manage these costs by breaking them down into each production line, without having to conduct an energy audit or install expensive submeters. This enables a company to understand their impacts for each product, identify hot spots in order to then reduce them, and report on impacts of their products to their customers and public agencies.

LinkCycle is currently looking for companies to participate in their beta testing phase, to ensure their patent-pending algorithms stand up to a variety of industries and products.  You can learn more about the innovation by watching a recording of the video at this link:  http://vimeo.com/linkcycle/footprinter




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