Analysis

CLF Ventures is expert at analyzing barriers and opportunities across a broad spectrum of business enterprises. As a non-profit affiliate of the Conservation Law Foundation, we have a perspective and expertise that most traditional consulting firms lack. CLF Ventures was created to work with the business community, and we bring to the table a unique set of business management skills and environmental understanding that many mission-oriented organizations lack. Sitting comfortably at the intersection of public mission and private enterprise, CLF Ventures combines critical social and environmental insight with robust environmental, economic and business analysis to provide our clients with a truly complete assessment.

Our tools include screening-level risk-based assessment as well as life cycle thinking to analyze the potential risks of new product development or to assess sustainability hot spots for an entire facility or company.

Specific services include:

• Nano LCRA
  The unique properties of nanoscale materials make them both valuable, and a challenge to regulate. Regulatory uncertainty about the environmental, health and safety risks from novel nanoscale materials is slowing the growth of innovations in this field. In response, CLF Ventures pioneered an innovative streamlined approach to assessing and managing the potential risks of nanomaterials throughout the product life cycle. Nano Life Cycle Risk Assessment (LCRA) is an iterative and adaptive streamlined life cycle risk assessment framework ideally suited for making production and business decisions in the absence of regulatory certainty. The approach broadly considers manufacturing, consumer and environmental aspects of nanotechnology and allows manufacturers to address potential concerns at the R&D stage, when it is easier to redesign the production process. CLF Ventures’ proactive and streamlined approach incorporates sustainability into product design from an early stage. Performed as a screening-level analysis, LCRA provides feedback at different production stages, taking advantage of data and knowledge as it becomes available, and allowing for sound decisions in the face of considerable uncertainty. CLF Ventures specializes in employing LCRA for nanoparticle-based product development and assessing the potential risks of existing products that may contain nanomaterials. By examining potential risk at each production stage, we help clients develop safer products.

• Life Cycle Scanning™ (LC Scan™)
  LC Scan™ is a high-level strategic screening tool founded on the principles of life cycle analysis to help businesses determine which parts of their operations are most critical for improvement of environmental, economic, and social performance. The process identifies risks that should be mitigated or strategic opportunities that should be taken to improve environmental impacts of product production or facility operations. The assessment leads to two primary outcomes: it identifies and justifies immediate action to correct problems or take advantage of opportunities, and it provides context and justification for deeper analysis in certain production or facility areas. LC Scan™ can be formulated as a comparative analysis, to assess alternative technologies and products, or facilities.

• Technical Assessment
  CLF Ventures provides clients with technical assessments of sustainability indicators, including the environmental and economic impacts of greenhouse gas mitigation measures, the revenue potential of selling discarded material into new reuse or recycling markets, environmental and social site assessment for potential development projects, and much more.