Summit 2025 27th March: From Insight to Impact: Leveraging LCA for Business Success
Thursday 27, March 2025
LCANZ Summit 2025
Join us for the 2025 LCANZ Summit at GridAKL in the Wynyard Quarter, Auckland on 27th of March 2025 from 1pm to 6pm. Click here to register.
The theme for the Summit is From Insight to Impact: Leveraging LCA for Business Success.
Our speakers will discuss their journeys utilising Life Cycle Thinking, Management & Assessments as tools to gain meaningful business insights and to leverage success in the ever changing economic-sustainability landscape.
Coming from a variety of sectors and stages in their sustainability journeys, we will gain insight into how businesses are using LCA to navigate current and future challenges such as mandatory disclosures, organisational reporting, and strategic governance to make feasible and actionable change within their businesses and their operations.
Our speakers will discuss how approaches such as Life Cycle Thinking, Life Cycle Management, and Life Cycle Assessment support and guide their sustainability journey, both at a strategic and operational levels. They will give insights on national and international trends, as well as current examples of what is already happening in New Zealand…
We have speakers from Auckland Transport in conjunction with Edge Impact, Concrete NZ, New Zealand Steel, Eco Choice Aotearoa and more!
Venue
The Summit will be on the ground floor of the John Lysaght Building, GridAKL 101 Pakenham Street, Auckland. See the GridAKL’s advice for getting there. Please do use public transport if possible. For those that do need to drive, the Wynyard carpark on the corner of Halsey and Pakenham St West is best placed for the venue.
Agenda
13:00 Opening
Registration & networking
13:30 Welcome
Keynote from Barbara Nebel
13:50 Session One
Auckland Transport & Edge Impact
Dr. Andrea Edwards – Eco Choice Aotearoa
Tim Kleier – Concrete New Zealand – speaker profile here
Andrew MacKay – NZ Steel – speaker profile here
14:50 Speedy Spotlights
Sachini Weerasinghe – Massey University
Eduardo Penna – University of Waikato
Amanda Bryan – Mott MacDonald
15:05 – Break
Afternoon tea & networking
15:30 – Session Two
Best Practice Working Group Update
Membership Workshop
Update on Comparative Claims
16:30 Q&A session for speakers
17:00 Closing
Closing remarks
Drinks and networking
18:00 Day ends
Meet our Speakers:
Caitlin Mowatt (Auckland Transport) & Pasindu Samarakkody (Edge Impact)
Use of LCA to compare the whole of life environmental impacts of Auckland Transport’s ferry procurement options
As a Decarbonisation Specialist, Caitlin’s role spans across both fleet, and infrastructure and facilities decarbonisation for Auckland Transport. With a background in environmental science, Caitlin brings world-class innovation to Auckland Transport, helping to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and implement plans to protect the environment for future generations. Her work includes developing Low Emission Roadmaps for buses and ferries, managing new technology trials, and advising on strategies for future decarbonisation implementation. She is also responsible for achieving broader improved environmental outcomes, evaluating how Auckland Transport operates and adapting to a more sustainable and resilient way forward.
In addition to her technical expertise, Caitlin is passionate about fostering stronger connections within the transport industry and has been an active member of various committees and working groups. She collaborates with the wider industry, private businesses, and research facilities to maximise knowledge sharing and synergies in achieving improved environmental outcomes.
Pasindu has over 10 years of experience in sustainability, innovation, engineering, and project management. He has a background in engineering and materials science, and in-depth industry knowledge in several sectors.
He brings extensive expertise in Life Cycle Assessment, EPD development, and development of verified LCA calculators for clients, with one of his most recent projects being the development and a product emissions calculator for one of Australia’s largest telecommunications providers.
Auckland Transport (AT) is transitioning a historically diesel-powered ferry fleet to low emission options. To support a deeper understanding of ferry construction and procurement decisions, AT and Edge Impact used LCA to compare the whole of life environmental impacts of 3 models of Ferries: conventional diesel, electric-hybrid and full electric. We will present the key outputs of this work and discuss how AT is using the insights gained to inform future fleet planning.
Andrea Edwards (Eco Choice Aotearoa)
Unlocking Your Competitive Advantage
You’re doing the mahi—but how do you prove it? This session, led by Eco Choice Aotearoa, delves into how its life cycle approach to certification enhances credibility, ensures compliance, and sets businesses apart.
Dr. Andrea Edwards, Head of Standards at Eco Choice, will explore how third-party ecolabels:
- Validate genuine sustainability beyond single-issue claims.
- Embed life cycle thinking for long-term impact.
- Strengthen trust and competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Dr. Andrea Edwards, Head of Standards at Eco Choice Aotearoa, is a dedicated environmental scientist and educator. She has a MS in Environmental Policy and Management from the American Public University System, and holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Auckland. She is also a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow investigating the impact of environmental racism on ethnic communities in New Zealand. Dr. Edwards is committed to advancing knowledge and practice in environmental science and policy.
Tim Kleier (Concrete New Zealand)
Balancing Speed and Credibility: Delivering On-Demand Environmental Data with Integrity
Worldwide, about 120,000 EPDs have been published for construction products. More than half of these EPDs are for concrete (products), not even beginning to capture the complexity of all potential project- and site-specific mixes. For industries where product characteristics vary significantly with each specification—such as concrete—traditional third-party verified (“Type III”) Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) present significant challenges. The time and cost required to generate product-specific Type III EPDs make them impractical at scale, while outdated EPD data can lead to misleading comparisons, penalising early adopters as seen in New Zealand’s concrete sector.
This presentation will explore the critical role of ad-hoc self-declared Environmental Declarations and how industry-led verification tools, such as Concrete NZ’s Plant Assessment Scheme, can provide a robust and transparent framework for sampling and validating LCA data. By enabling faster, more adaptable, and credible environmental impact reporting, such an approach ensures that businesses can respond dynamically to sustainability demands while maintaining confidence in data integrity.
Tim’s background is in large-scale industrial decarbonisation. In his previous role as Global Head of Green Steel with a leading European plant engineering company, he was involved in many of the largest decarbonisation projects in the iron and steel industry worldwide throughout the early 2020s. Today, he serves as Sustainability and Policy Director at Concrete NZ.
Andrew Mackay (New Zealand Steel)
Electrifying steelmaking: NZ’s largest decarbonisation project
Local steelmaking is going through it’s most significant improvement through the installation of an electric arc furnace (EAF) at the Glenbrook steel mill in south Auckland. This step change will reduce site emissions by up to 1,000,000t of CO2-eq annually once it is fully operational early 2026, becoming NZ’s single largest decarbonisation project reducing national emissions by ~1%. This talk will cover what is involved in this change, the impact it will have on the built environment through the numerous steel products, and how lifecycle analysis and EPD’s are helping unlock the full potential of this fundamental change in local steelmaking.
Andrew is a self-confessed steel nerd with 20 years at New Zealand Steel. Taking his experience across metallurgy, innovation and combined with customer management is now supporting the evolution of the NZ Steel LCA ahead of the Electric Arc Furnace commissioning.
