What You Should Know about CEC

CEC stakeholders and preferred service providers deliver solutions, products and services to customers worldwide. Our local chapters, teams of experts and working groups accelerate and enable transfer of technology and communication between individuals and organizations across industries and continents.  

We focus on critical issues, identify and assess the most relevant solutions, and suggest action companies can and should take and empower individuals with knowledge how to implement practical solutions. Ultimately, we deliver focused, simple, and affordable eco-innovations and tools, methods and practices, for sector- and industry- specific issues. CEC is a vital and invaluable resource to help the business and investment community, as well as policymakers to understand and address the growing risks and opportunities. 

We encourage greater corporate attention to resource efficiency, and industry and geographic locations specific to PPP's for efforts to address these issues. Business leaders and policymakers seeking expert advice, can join CEC local chapter and working groups to learn about eco-innovations and how they can implement new technology and solutions. We provide effective tools, solutions, training and contacts enabling companies, institutions and policymakers to take action to protect their companies, investors, communities, and ultimately the planet. 

Vision

We green supply chains, create new jobs, business models and practices,  enterprises, and produce goods and services with ever less use of resources, waste and pollution.

Purpose

We accelerate the use of technology; We make speed-to-market solutions easily available to businesses, government agencies and consumers;

Short Title 

CEC (Chamber of Eco Commerce)

General

We identify, promote and advance the use of new technologies, products and services in order to reduce freshwater use; to reduce the strain on infrastructure; to conserve energy and materials; and to preserve resources for future generations, through sales of products and services that meet the highest eco-efficiency and performance standards.

Duties

CEC chapters and working groups enable the transfer of new technology. They  deliver solutions, products and services to clientele as the Preferred Service Providers (PSP) and services for reducing water, energy and material use and ensuring product and service performance.

• We work to enhance public awareness of the eco-innovations and eco-efficiency through public collaboration, outreach, education, and other means.
• We establish and maintain performance standards so that products and services labeled as 'clean technology' and 'eco-efficient' perform as well or better than their 'traditional' counterparts.
• We communicate the importance of clean technology and eco-efficiency and products by a certified or, if certification guidelines do not exist, licensed vendor or contractor, and audit of a solution to ensure optimal performance.
• We preserve the integrity and transparency of eco-innovations, clean technologies, sustainability, and eco-efficiency, and branding for sustainability.
• We regularly review and, when appropriate, update technology, sustainability, and eco-efficiency criteria for categories of products and services, and industries.
• We regularly collect and make available to the public summary data on the relative market shares of cleantech, sustainability, and eco-efficiency labeled partner products and services.
• We regularly estimate and make available to the public the water, energy and material savings attributable to the use of technology and eco-efficient products and services.
• We solicit comments from our stakeholders and interested parties and the public prior to establishing or revising technology or eco-efficient category, specification, or criterion - or prior to effective dates for any such category, specification, or criterion.
• We provide reasonable notice to our stakeholders and the public of any changes (including effective dates), on the adoption of a new or revised category, specification, or other criterion, along with and an explanation of changes and as appropriate, responses to comments submitted by founding partners or interested parties.
• We provide appropriate lead time (as determined by the CEC Administrator) prior to the applicable effective date for a new or significant revision to a category, specification, or criterion, taking into account the timing requirements of the manufacturing, marketing, training, and distribution process for the specific product or service category addressed.
• We identify and, where appropriate, implement other voluntary approaches, such as labeling technologies, tools, devices, practices, methods, products and services that perform the same function as a more water, energy and material consuming product encouraging reuse, reclamation, and recycling technologies, in commercial, institutional, residential, municipal, and industrial sectors to improve resource efficiency or lower water, energy and material use while meeting the performance standards.

Business Rationale

Our business rationale is simple and straightforward: 'ECO' makes good business sense! Being eco-efficient is always a high priority for every company. But if it includes creating economic value and reducing environmental impact and resource use at the same time, the value added becomes even more significant.

The business case for eco-innovation, sustainability, resource efficiency, eco-efficiency and transparency applies to every area of activity within a company - from eliminating risks and finding additional savings through to identifying opportunities and realizing them in the marketplace.

Financial markets have look at technology, sustainability, resource efficiency, eco-efficiency and risk aspects of business performance. Forward-looking analysts are selecting the sustainability pioneers and leaders because they know that the companies that have developed a sustainability strategy and have implemented technology and sustainability as a business concept outperform their competitors significantly.

We make resource-efficiency excellence and the value of technology measurable and visible for our clientele and stakeholders.

Our customers achieve more value from lower inputs of water, materials and energy and with reduced emissions; this applies throughout a company, to marketing and product development as much as to manufacturing or distribution. The key elements that we use to improve Efficiency:

• Reduce water intensity
• Reduce material intensity
• Reduce energy intensity
• Reduce dispersion of toxic substances
• Enhance recyclability
• Maximize use of renewables
• Extend product durability
• Increase service intensity

Broad Objectives

To reduce the consumption of resources: This includes minimizing the use of water, energy, materials and land, enhancing recyclability and product durability, and closing material loops.

To reduce the impact on nature: This includes minimizing water discharges, air emissions, waste disposal and the dispersion of toxic substances, as well as fostering the sustainable use of renewable resources.

To increase product or service value: This means providing more benefits to customers through product functionality, flexibility and modularity, providing additional services (such as maintenance, upgrading and exchange services) and focusing on selling the functional needs that customers actually want. Selling a service instead of the product itself raises the possibility of the customer receiving the same functional need with fewer materials and less resources. It also improves the prospects of closing material loops because responsibility and ownership, and therefore concern for efficient use, remain with the service provider.

To implement Management Systems that are integrated with existing business management systems in order to drive the sustainability approach: A Management System ensures that all the risks and opportunities relating to sustainability are properly identified and efficiently managed.

To develop and implement common composite indicators that are relevant: Eco-efficiency brings together the two eco-dimensions of economy and ecology to relate product or service value to environmental influence.

To focus on the development of Composite Indicators (CI), Resource Efficiency Indicators (REI), and Sustainability Indicators, due to the absence of global standards that specifically address impact of eco-efficiency: Currently companies and organizations gain their information thru formal and informal means without standards which leads to a lack of agreement and collaboration of critical issues. Business leaders and policymakers must quickly learn about critical issues and risks through reliable indicators and we must reach them in a way that they respond, through technology.

To help companies and organizations develop their own composite indicators and implement monitoring and measuring platforms that measure and report overall performance of a green process, plant or company: The framework is flexible enough to be widely used and easily interpreted across industries, businesses, organizations and countries while providing a common set of definitions, principles and indicators.

To customize indicators and management platforms that will meet specific requirements of each business or organization to keep their reporting system flexible: This permits more efficient decision-making internally and fulfills stakeholder requirements.

To develop new composite indicators that are widely relevant to a common measurement approach; related to environmental concerns or business value; relevant and meaningful to virtually all businesses; and use methods for measurement definitions accepted globally.

Contributions and Benefits to the Private Sector and the Public Sector:

CEC is the path business and industry can take towards the goal of ecologically sustainable development - one of the greatest challenges facing governments, business, industry and the community. 

Ecologically sustainable development aims to meet the needs of companies and communities today while conserving water, energy, materials and other natural resources for the benefit of future generations.

We go beyond simply preventing pollution and limiting the use of resources in manufacturing and production. We provide for the competitive needs of business by enabling increases in the value of goods and services.

Our concept as waste minimization, cleaner production and pollution prevention, can continue to contribute to environmental improvement while also building up economic viability.

We recognize that the private sector must play a leading role in working towards sustainability and eco-efficiency, because their day-to-day decisions have significant impacts on water sources and the environment.

For business and industry, CEC means 'doing more with less' - increasing efficiency in using energy, water and other resources and in reducing waste and pollution, leading to lower business costs as well as fewer adverse effects on the environment.

The concept of  'efficiency' is supported by our business community because it does not focus exclusively on environmental outcomes.

We challenge the belief that economic objectives and environmental concerns are in conflict, and recognize the simultaneous and complementary benefits of combining environmental and economic objectives.

Opportunity

We market innovations and provide end-users of technology a fast and easy access to eco-innovations and solutions;

• We assist companies transform their business and re-engineer their processes to reduce the consumption of resources, reduce pollution and avoid risks, while at the same time saving costs. Experience shows there are manifold possibilities, some straightforward, some less obvious. Invariably, the whole workforce has to be involved in identifying opportunities and in making the changes necessary to seize them. Process changes may be related to delivery or to supplier operations, as well as to distribution, customer use or disposal.

• We create new creative ways to re-valorize byproducts. In striving for zero-waste or 100%-product targets, companies may find that the so-called waste from their processes can have value for another company. Sometimes by-products have become a real cash-generating product of a production process. Zero waste targets and by-product synergies lead to the more effective use of the resources in a process and create an additional cash benefit. In short, they are eco-efficient because they allow creating more value with fewer resources.

• Our experts and designers and procurement managers play a key role. Their influence is not only crucial to product functionality and price but also has a big effect on costs and the environmental impact in production, product maintenance and disposal.

• We can help companies redesign their products and manufacturing processes. Products designed to ecological design rules are frequently cheaper to produce and use. They are smaller and simpler in their design. They include a smaller variety of materials and are easier to disassemble for recycling. Often, too, they encompass higher functionality, better serviceability and easier upgrade ability. Because they can provide a higher value for their users, while the environmental influence related to their use is minimized, they are eco-efficient products.

• We just not only re-design a product, we find new ways of meeting customer needs. We work with customers or other stakeholder groups to re-think their markets and re-shape demand and supply completely. Too many customer needs today are met in a water, energy and material- intensive way. There are different, and better, ways of satisfying those needs. For example, it is possible that by providing a service instead of selling the product, the overall water, material or energy intensity may be reduced. This also opens up opportunities for new economic growth and higher profitability.

• We contribute to increasing sustainable innovation in operations, procurement, R&D, sales, marketing and management. Many companies, recognizing this, have made clean tech, sustainability and eco-efficiency part of their overall business strategy. We realize that key opportunities lie not just in manufacturing but also along the entire supply chain as well as in the use of their product and services. Eco-efficiency for us has become a major driver of innovation and green progress, a vehicle that helps us meet the economic and environmental targets we have set.

• We believe that it is of vital importance that top management buys into the concept of  'sustainability and efficiency'. Those corporations where efficiency has entered into the CEO s agenda become able to make real progress. Their performance path is not limited to some incremental improvements in specified aspects. Instead, they begin to leapfrog efficiency with innovative green products, new services and a changed business strategy toward sustainability.

Definitions

• The term 'CEC' has the meaning given that name 'Chamber of Eco Commerce' 
• Eco-efficient product or service - the term 'Eco-efficient product or service' means a product or service that is rated for eco-efficiency under the CEC program. 
• The term 'CEC program' means the program established by CEC.
• The term 'CEC product or service' means a product that is developed and delivered by independent CEC stakeholder company or companies.
• The term 'Administrator' means the management team and advisory board of the CEC.
• The term 'eligible entity' means a company, organization, state government, local or county government, tribal government, wastewater or sewage utility, municipal water authority, energy utility, water utility, or nonprofit organization that meets the requirements of CEC.
• The term 'incentive program' means a program for administering financial incentives for CEC partners or purchases of CEC partner products and services. 
• The term 'eco-efficiency' means creating more goods and services with ever less use of resources, waste and pollution.
• The term 'eco-efficient product or service' means a product or service for an industry, company, organization or its supply chain that is rated for eco-efficiency and performance by the CEC partner; or by an incentive program and approved by the CEC Administrator.
• Categories of eco-innovation, eco-efficient products and services: These may include clean and green technology solutions, products and services. 
• The term 'CEC program' means the program established by CEC.
• The terms sustainability, eco-efficiency, resource efficiency, are new approaches to widespread challenges. Utilizing innovative management practices and new technologies, efficiency aims to reduce the demand and the costs for water, energy, and materials. The results are monetary savings which benefit the local economy, reduced environmental impact, and conservation of resources.
• The terms 'efficiency and conservation' are often used interchangeably, but in fact they have different meanings. Efficiency means getting the same or better service while using less resources. Conservation means simply using less and reducing waste; without efficiency, conservation generally implies a reduction in the level of service.