The conversation around the global brand and licensing industry’s relationship with sustainability is evolving with deeper questions being asked about collective impact and the sector’s global greenhouse gas emissions.
While brands and manufacturing partners across the global business landscape are taking encouraging steps to measure, track, and reduce their scope 1 and 2 emissions, a process for addressing the industry’s scope 3 remains to be determined.
Which is why, over the last year, Products of Change has been engaging in conversation with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to start drawing up the blueprints on a Scope 3 methodology tailored exactly for the brand and licensing industry.
And, at Las Vegas Licensing Expo this year, Products of Change is – for the first time – bringing this critical topic to an open discussion forum.
On Tuesday, May 21st, Products of Change will host an industry-first Carbon roundtable at the POC booth S226 to enable POC members, its extended community, and licensing industry executives to delve into the newest research on developing those crucial methodologies.
Scope 3 emissions are recognised as the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to a company or brand’s overall environmental impact but which are largely outside of its immediate control. These are often emissions tied up within a company, brand, or product supply chain.
Getting a grasp on the basics of scope 3 emissions will therefore require collaboration across the whole of the stakeholder or value chain.
“Collaborating with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, we – alongside a cohort of brand owners, licensed manufacturers, and retailers – will engage in an open dialogue around industry GHG emissions and how to start measuring them,” said Helena Mansell-Stopher, ceo of Products of Change.
“Together, we’ll explore strategies for effectively tracking carbon emissions within our industry and discuss actionable steps towards reduction.”
The Products of Change Licensing Expo special Carbon Roundtable will take place at 3.00pm local time at the Products of Change booth, S226 on Tuesday, 21 May.
Register your interest to attend this special event here.
Brands new for Licensing Expo
This year, Products of Change is determined to move the industry’s conversation around sustainable development and environmental impact to the next level. To deliver on this ambition, the educational platform will be bringing a host of pioneering industry innovators to its booth (S226) later this month, representing both the brand owners, licensing partners, and the service providers acting to propel the industry’s sustainability narrative forwards.
The LEGO Group, the Natural History Museum, and Smiley’s Future Positive will be repping the brand owners leading the conversation in supply chain sustainability right now, showcasing how each are using their brand status to influence a value chain of stakeholders, whether that’s in packaging design and material use (the LEGO Group’s packaging transformation); working closely with retailers to develop conscientious collections in line with the retail sector’s strive for better sustainability (Natural History Museum and Dunelm); or shaping a new model for licensing partners to adhere to by setting sustainability criteria for each to hit along their supply chains (as is the mission of Smiley’s Future Positive campaign).
Meanwhile, new conversations around industry transparency will be placed front and centre of the Products of Change booth this month when both Fabacus and Dayrize showcase their own pioneering technologies enabling brands, manufacturing partners, and consumers to access deeper product knowledge to enable better and more responsible production methods and shopping habits.
Fabacus’ pioneering Digital Product Passport capabilities will be on display this Licensing Expo as the team presents its data collection technology devised to arm shoppers and end consumers with a deep understanding of the entire manufacturing process behind each individual product. Data stored on these QR codes will tell shoppers where each product’s material is sourced from, where it has been manufactured and by whom, where they distributed from and the distance the products have travelled to get to the end consumer.
Fabacus’ Digital Product Passport technology made its debut with the ethical fashion brand Nobody’s Child and its official Fearne Cotton Happy Place clothing collection. The technology then made its licensing industry debut through a deal with Peanuts and Chinti & Parker.
The consumer product impact scoring platform, Dayrize will also be on the Products of Change booth later this month, to showcase it innovative technology with a series of visual call out and info boards to offer show attendees a snapshot of the tools and resources that the B Corp tech platform can provide manufacturing partners and brands as they pursue their own journey of sustainable development.
Dayrize’s technology allows manufacturing partners and brand owners to assess the environmental impact of each individual product they make by collecting data to process into one final ‘Impact Score’ relative to the scale of the environmental impact the product has along the production process – from land and water use to the distance travelled throughout the course of its production.
By offering brand owners this level of detail on each product in their portfolio, Dayrize can arm the consumer products sector with the information needed to keep levels of consumption and resource use within the planetary boundaries.
Dayrize’s platform will be showcased on POC’s booth S226 at Las Vegas Licensing Expo later this month. Be sure to drop by and catch a glimpse of the future of product manufacturing.
