Briggs & Stratton Corporation unveils its first life cycle assessment
Briggs & Stratton Corporation unveiled its first detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) March 27, showing an interesting progression of the company’s new 500e Series gasoline engine in a walk-behind lawn mower. The assessment further outlines Briggs & Stratton’s commitment to sustainability efforts and initiatives, which build on its 103-year legacy of environmental stewardship, community involvement, social responsibility, and economic performance. From reducing the emissions in its products by 75 percent since 1995, to the launch of its Life Cycle Assessment, Briggs & Stratton is committed to continuous improvements in all aspects of its business, including environmental performance.
“We are pleased to showcase this fully transparent look at one of our best engines,” said Todd Teske, chairman, president and CEO of Briggs & Stratton. “We now better understand the environmental impacts of our products.”
The LCA process was broken down into three steps:
1) Understanding impacts: “Very little quantitative information in the Outdoor Power Equipment industry existed before conducting the assessment,” said Jennifer Misiewicz, environmental manager at Briggs & Stratton, who led the LCA process. “While there was an intuitive understanding that the use phase of a mower likely held the largest impact, it was unknown how much other life cycle phases, such as raw materials extraction and processing, product manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life recycling/disposal, contributed to the whole.”
2) Identify improvement opportunities: Thanks to the LCA process, Briggs & Stratton is now able to better identify opportunities for improvement of its processes, designs, and use of engines and other products. Moving forward, the company will evaluate the environmental impacts from new products being developed using LCA as a tool.
3) Engage consumers: “We feel that transparency, leadership and value are key elements that our retail customers and consumers look for when they make decisions about our products,” Misiewicz said. The company is using the LCA results to work with retail customers and consumers to drive a sustainability-minded decision-making process.
Additional details on the LCA process, including detailed results of the assessment, can be found on the Briggs & Stratton corporate website at www.basco.com/sustainability.
