The Green House
Industrial Engineer in Cape Town

The Green House is a niche consultancy which provides tailored services that cover strategy, Carbon Footprinting, using tools including Life Cycle Assessment, technology and capacity building for sustainability, Systems Modelling and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.

Companies, industries and governments are operating in an increasingly resource-and carbon-constrained world. Sustainability is the end goal, but the challenge is getting there. The Green House has built up a detailed technical understanding of all sectors of the South African economy in terms of activities and structure, technologies employed, energy and material flows, emissions to air and water, waste generation and resulting environmental impacts. Previous work has resulted in technical reports, literature reviews, position papers, book chapters, handbooks and new methods we apply in our work. We achieve results by applying systems thinking, an approach to problem solving that unpacks the various elements of any system and seeks to understand how they relate to each other and their environment. Where relevant, we build quantitative systems models for enumerating these relationships. Building system models is an extremely powerful way of framing, understanding and articulating complex issues and problems. We also draw on the philosophies encapsulated in the meta-disciplines of life cycle thinking, industrial ecology, cleaner production and sustainable production and consumption to guide our work. We recognise that technical models can often be intimidating to stakeholders. We therefore encourage our clients to have ownership of their models, and our service offering includes mediated/collaborative modelling, multi-criteria decision analysis, training and facilitation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) reveals and quantifies environmental impacts and resource use along the complete supply chain of a product or service, that is, from the mining or production of its raw materials, through manufacturing, distribution and use of products, right on to the end of life. The Green House is one of the leading LCA practitioners in South Africa, having been involved in both the development and application of the methodology for over fifteen years. The crux of an LCA study is the quality of the data that underpins it. We work with the leading global database, ecoinvent, which together with our local knowledge and process engineering background ensures high quality, relevant assessments. In our footprint studies we place particular emphasis in providing results in a transparent and accessible way. Also essential in our South African context is to recognise the socio-economic impact of products. We offer sales, support and training in this leading life cycle assessment software. Sustainability challenges require the engagement of multiple stakeholders; to obtain their input, expert knowledge and buy-in, and to ensure a common understanding of both baseline data and visions for the future. Facilitating such technical and multi-disciplinary discussions requires not only experience in group facilitation techniques, but also a rich technical understanding of the subject area. As a complement to our facilitation services, we are also able to offer training on a range of topics related to our core business offering.