Raefton Technology Inc. (Raefton) and Diva International Inc. (Diva) completed a beta project to digitize Diva’s internal processes and measure emissions to the product level for an identified supply chain segment. The purpose of the project was to validate Raefton’s value proposition, implement Raefton’s technology and deliver a rapid return on investment to Diva.
Diva is a manufacturer within the Consumer-Packaged Goods (medical classification) industry. Diva supplies sustainable period care products to an international market, with Corporate and manufacturing facilities located in Ontario, Canada.
Diva’s product positioning is focused on sustainability differentiation as it is a replacement for disposable product currently offered within the period care market. Diva identified an opportunity to be a first mover with more granular supply chain sustainability data to position themselves as the industry leader, tracking carbon emissions and waste throughout their extended supply chain.
The application of Raefton’s SaaS platform provided the capability for Diva to digitalize supply chain operations and capture emissions data to the product level for all product through the identified supply chain segments.
Diva developed and brought to market an innovative product solution to address shortcomings with existing period care products: the Diva Cup. Designed and manufactured in Canada, Diva has been focused on educating the existing market on the benefits of adopting the Diva Cup. As Diva has grown, the supporting supply chain has grown more complex. Historical processes that supported Diva at a smaller size, can not be efficiently scaled to support increased throughput in existing supply chains. Diva has consistently differentiated their organization (and products) as sustainable, having identified this strategic positioning as a significant source of competitive advantage when compared to existing disposable products. With new entrants coming into market with a similar product offering and similar positioning, Diva has identified innovation in the area of sustainability as a source of competitive differentiation.
The opportunity within Diva was twofold:
Diva has embarked on a digital transformation to support an increased speed of innovation, better positioning to more rapidly adapt to their customers, and to support future innovation to more rapidly exploit market potential. The adoption of the Raefton platform supports this transition through creating digital twins of product, assets and supply chains; automating processes to support more effective real-time decision making.
Diva has also identified measuring sustainability and identifying areas for improvement as a key differentiator. Key supply chain nodes (major retailers) and Consumers are starting to demand more granular, validated data that supports manufacturer sustainability claims. The Raefton platform measures carbon emissions and waste to the product level as it moves through extended supply chains, providing the opportunity for Diva to influence/reduce Scope 3 emissions as they are measured in real time.
Raefton approached Diva as it recognized Diva’s current positioning as the leader in the sustainable period care industry. Diva has developed a brand with sustainability as one of the key pillars of product offering to market. Diva has further supported sustainability initiatives by accreditation by BCorp, participating in Renewable Energy Certificates, establishing a recycling partnership with TerraCycle for hard to recycle products, and other internal initiatives. What Diva lacked was the formal carbon accounting process that included items such as an established base year, identified emissions boundaries, reduction targets and a standardized GHG report. The beta Raefton platform brought immediate return on investment by digitizing the information flow between Diva and its value chain partners, as outlined in Diva’s second strategic pillar. Raefton also provided guidance on the steps required to implement a sustainability process that conforms to ISO standards and, utilizing data from internal Diva sources and the Raefton platform, provided a draft GHG report.
As part of Raefton’s beta program, an unobtrusive discovery process was designed to gather information on Diva’s existing process. A primary internal business process was identified – Transfer Orders - with discovery of secondary processes – Customer specific Order Fulfillment initiated as required. The results of the discovery process were than mapped against Raefton’s platform, a gap analysis completed and evaluation for a good fit to move forward.
Discovery deliverables:
Results from the discovery process:
Implementation:
Post discovery, Raefton identified areas for improvement that could be realized with the adoption of Raefton’s SaaS platform:
Identified Next Steps:
During the beta project, further developments in industry have provided indications that validated carbon emission data will be required for Consumer-Packaged Goods. The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed (March 2022) rules changes for risk disclosure, requiring Fortune 500 organizations to disclose Scope 3 carbon emissions that are generated as a result of upstream and downstream supply chains. This will require organizations such as Diva that utilize the distribution networks of organizations such as Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens (non-exhaustive list) to provide validated emissions data that conform to ISO standards.
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