Permanent Technical Committee meets at LIFE Institute headquarters in Curitiba

13 April 2019

On April 12, it was held the 13th meeting of our Permanent Technical Committee, in Curitiba, Brazil. Since its establishment in 2012, the LIFE Institute’s Permanent Technical Committee (PTC) meets to discuss technical and scientific issues related to LIFE Methodology and Certification.

The Committee has representatives from companies, civil society, academia and government, ensuring that all different perspectives are taken into consideration. They meet twice a year and their contribution allows the continued improvement of LIFE Methodology.

The discussion involved:

  • Current LIFE projects;
  • Matrix of impacts and dependencies that organizations have on ecosystem services;
  • Review of LIFE Policy on Environmental Accidents;
  • Possibility of developing a specific certification for micro and small businesses.

Current Projects

Development of International Standard for Territorial Sustainable Management, executed in partnership with Itaipu Binacional and PTI Foundation

The International Benchmarking of territorial planning for sustainability was presented. This study concluded the project innovation that there is no complete and systematized territorial management standard that encompasses the whole concept of Sustainable Territory Management including the economic, environmental, social and cultural dimensions. Also, this study assisted in defining the topics that will be considered by the project and members had the opportunity to suggested additional topics.

JTI Biodiversity Management project

The Biodiversity Management project carried out with JTI includes the evaluation of 8 processing units and more than 13,000 tobacco leaf producers in southern Brazil. Graphs and impact values ​​were presented showing the functionality of LIFE Methodology for the identification and future management of their impacts on biodiversity. These results will help the company in preventing risks to ecosystems and also in directing investments in environmental actions to mitigate these risks.

New module on LIFE Key

Another issue discussed was a new module, within the LIFE Key system, which will address the impacts and dependencies that organizations have on ecosystem services. This new module will be tested by companies, before being validated by the Committee and incorporated into the software.

LIFE Policy on Environmental Accidents

Due to the impact of recent environmental accidents in Brazil, the Committee has contributed to reinforce the LIFE Policy on environmental accidents. These changes include the insertion of minimum items for an accident plan and the prevention of risks to biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as issues related to the reporting of accidents and recovery plans.

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