Dr Matt Fulton Ph.D, MSc(Eng), Beng(Hons)

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and research institutes engaged on eco-innovative research projects are often required to account for environmental benefits of new products, processes or services for funding bodies or supply chains. There is, however, little guidance available for generating auditable results from small-scale research projects. Existing methodologies such as ISO life-cycle assessments, BS8555 or PAS 2050 require expertise and resource that is often not available within SMEs or internal research groups. This lack of accessible methodologies can lead to spurious environmental claims, which has led to regulatory bodies such as the European Commission and Defra in the UK publishing guidelines and criteria for companies making such claims.

For this reason I have designed and employed an environmental claims assessment (ECA) methodology for calculating auditable environmental benefits for the Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory and Centre for Global Eco-Innovation programmes. The methodology has been successfully applied to 70 industry-led PhD projects across a wide variety of sectors and subjects plus over 150 smaller scale internships and dissertation projects.