On Thursday, April 18, ISRI will host the session “Taking Sustainability to the Next Level: Data, Emissions and Report” during the ISRI2024 Convention & Exposition in Las Vegas.
Featuring Stan Chen, CEO at United Metal Recycling, Corinna Kester, manager at Ramboll, and Susan Robinson, principle at Susan K Robinson Consulting, the session will explore environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting and emissions calculations for recycling companies. It will dive into the latest reporting requirements on ESG, including new laws in the U.S. and Europe, what customers are expecting in terms of carbon emissions transparency and other important data analyses like lifecycle analysis.
ISRI News had the opportunity to chat with Chen about the upcoming session at ISRI2024 and some of the experiences he’s planning to share with attendees.
What can attendees look forward to learning during the session?
Shifting our industry’s messaging around and increasing our visibility within the framework of sustainability requires that we as the primary stakeholders understand what sustainability means, as well as what constitutes metrics in sustainability measurements.
An understanding of emissions and our industry’s contributions to lowering emissions in critical supply chains is the key to understanding our role in this changing environment. I will be sharing what scope 1 and 2 emissions are, how they are calculated within a recycling organization, their contributions to the embedded carbon footprint of raw materials, as well as the carbon savings when compared to primary raw materials.
Can you tell me about your expertise/background?
I am a second-generation 20+ year veteran of the recycled materials industry, growing up in recycling yard parking lots while my dad was loading containers to ship to Taiwan to process.
I have an educational background in medical science and information technology, and I have been integrating aspects of both in terms of helping people/society and tech, first by building a blockchain platform to track recycling, and trying to integrate the recycled materials industry within the broader conversation of sustainability.
I sit on the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board and am part of the Carbon Emissions Token taskforce for the Global Blockchain Business Council. I am part of the New York City hub of Oceanic Global, which is a UN-observer nongovernmental organization (NGO) focused on ocean advocacy, as well as a member of the New York Climate Reality Leadership group.
What are some highlights you plan to share during the session? How do you hope your experiences impact attendees?
We contribute to lower emission supply chains for raw materials, and I will use data to calculate the emissions savings that we produce in our materials. I hope attendees learn why emissions matter and how we can understand our value to the U.S. manufacturing industry.
