enlighten blog - Word Cloud

If there's too much text for you to read on this blog, have a look at this and you should be able to get the drift.

enlighten - a new approach to sustainability

It has become commonplace for various organisations and companies to report on the carbon footprints of their products, services and day-to-day activities. Carbon and energy footprinting can be a really useful exercise in understanding the sustainability of a supply chain. Not only does it help influence choices between alternative options, it helps identify environmental hotspots. This helps users understand what is actually going on in a supply chain and identify where best to focus their efforts.

But it isn't always easy to understand what they mean and compare them to one another. The different ways in which people approach and understand carbon footprinting brings confusion to those wishing to make informed decisions on sustainability.

And then there are those who do not really know where to start. Indeed, analysing the environmental performance of a product or service can be a daunting prospect, especially when trying to consider impacts across an entire lifecycle. Even knowing what materials an item is made of just isn't enough - among other points, you have to factor in how those materials were processed, where they came from, what packaging was used, how were they transported, distributed and sold, how will they be used and how they will be disposed of. It is easy to see why it can quickly become confusing.

And that's where enlighten comes in - enlighten is an innovative, web-based application providing designers, engineers and supply chain professionals with the necessary tools to rapidly identify environmental ‘hotspots’ over product lifecycle, either retrospectively or long before a product is ever brought to market.



By using enlighten you will be able to;

• rapidly build, maintain and interrogate your supply chain sustainability; 
• discover key information about your energy usage and CO2 footprint; 
• evaluate product design and material changes in real time; 
• share your findings with a network of colleagues, suppliers and customers; and 
• be safe in knowledge that you’re using a secure, accessible and up-to-date web based solution for your sustainability needs. 

We're really proud of the progress we have made in developing enlighten. We have it at a number of exhibitions and events, including the Euromold exhibition held in Germany and TCT Live staged at the Ricoh Arena here in the UK, and the response has been tremendously positive. We have gladly realised that participants seem only too happy to contribute to the improvement of enlighten offering a vast array of inspired ideas, suggestions and proposals.

Therefore we have decided to enter a beta testing period where we can garner feedback from a whole host of potential users. To apply to become a beta tester please visit us @ http://www.enlighten-toolkit.com and register your interest.

All registered users will be given early access to a cut-down ‘beta-text’ version of the enlighten toolkit and given the opportunity to participate in online focus group and feedback sessions. Registered users will also be given the opportunity to participate in on-line surveys and polls, which we will be running to address critical future business and user issues such as pricing and user tariff rates, user access rights, data security consideration and data sharing.

We hope that your user feedback will help enlighten to become ‘Your’ sustainability toolkit.

2010 enlighten Site Launch

You may have noticed the new enlighten website, but if you haven't why not take a look at www.enlighten-toolkt.com.

Our new site is not just a showcase for the new enlighten web based sustainability toolkit,but it has been developed to allow users to register interest now and have the opportunity to work with us in shaping the future of enlighten. enlighten is due to be launched commercially in mid-2011.