A leading project by OLEON SAS (France) – Subcategory: Transition to safe and sustainable chemicals.
In response to the pressing need for businesses to address climate change, Oleon developed ECOLIBRA, a sustainability scoring tool designed to assess the environmental impact of new products from the early stages of development. This tool was created to integrate eco-design into the company鈥檚 innovation process, ensuring that their products are sustainable from the outset. ECOLIBRA evaluates new products based on five main impact categories: renewability, toxicity and risks, energetic efficiency, end of life, and use phase benefit. The tool is designed to be simple and quick, allowing project managers to complete the assessment with available data at the laboratory scale.
Development and implementation
The development of ECOLIBRA involved collaboration between the R&D, marketing, process, HSE and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) teams. The tool was first created as an Excel questionnaire and later integrated into the project management software. Each new molecule starts with 100 points and receives penalties for less sustainable options. The scoring is based on the 12 principles of green chemistry, and the tool was tested on industrial products to verify its relevance and robustness. Since January 2022, ECOLIBRA has been mandatory for any project phase change request.
Achievements and impact
After 2.5 years of use, 68 new projects have been evaluated with ECOLIBRA, with 65 projects highlighting sustainability benefits. The tool has raised awareness of sustainability issues and facilitated discussions on several projects. It has also helped the company communicate its commitment to sustainability to customers, encouraging them to develop innovative products with the lowest environmental impact. The tool is dynamic and continuously improved based on feedback and evolving criteria.
Future developments and aspirations
ECOLIBRA is a simple and quick assessment tool that helps develop sustainable solutions and is applied to any new development since January 2022. It is a living tool, that is continuously optimised. In 2024, an optimisation group was established to review and validate the robustness of the tool.
This group includes representatives from R&D, process, CSR, HSE and sales teams.
Several customers who have developed their own scoring tools were also invited to share experiences and insights. The objective is to have a new version of the tool, robust and validated by all departments, by the end of 2024.
The development of a management method is accessible to any company, whatever its size. This project also aims to inspire other companies to develop their own tools in order to drive innovation towards more sustainable products with a clearly reduced impact on the environment.
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