Materials selection for environmentally conscious design via a proposed life cycle environmental performance index

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 1073-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haihong Huang ◽  
Zhifeng Liu ◽  
Lei Zhang ◽  
John W. Sutherland
Author(s):  
C-y Tung ◽  
M H Wang

Increasing awareness of environmental burdens has led companies and designers to initiate design for the environment (DFE) programmes, which consider the design of products from the ‘cradle to grave’ and is also known as ‘life-cycle design’. In this paper, the use of a novel environmental performance technique to be used at the early stage of product design is presented. This technique, which is to be used as a framework for green product design, is demonstrated in this paper by evaluating the environmental performance between plastic and steel fuel tanks. The fuel tank comparison can be divided into five steps. In the first four steps, a modified house of quality (HOQ) is used to analyse the performance of fuel tanks in terms of requirements of environmentally conscious design. The final step is an overall assessment that synthesizes the results from the previous four analyses. As a result, the comprehensive environmental effects in the whole life cycle of fuel tanks are captured in the early stage of design.


Author(s):  
Cassandra Telenko ◽  
Carolyn Seepersad

Environmentally conscious design is focused on reducing the environmental impact of engineered systems, but common practice in life cycle analysis overlooks the relationship between a product’s usage-context and its environmental performance. Existing studies rarely consider operational variability or the correlation between performance, design, and usage variables. Probabilistic graphical models (PGMs) provide the capability of not only evaluating uncertainty and variability of product use, but also correlating the results with the product’s features and usage context. This discussion explores the use of PGMs as a tool for evaluating operational variability in products and including the results in life cycle inventories. The tool is illustrated for environmentally conscious product design through an example study of an electric kettle.


Author(s):  
C Mbohwa ◽  
J Agwa-Ejon

There is a growing need for environmental performance measures that can be used by all stakeholders like surrounding communities, customers, suppliers and shareholders to gauge the environmental performance of organizations. The environmental performance measures that are used worldwide are normally not suitable for benchmarking organizations. This paper develops an environmental performance index using indicator and weight matrices of the full life cycle phases of an organization’s energy use for environmental management system activities. This work is transdisciplinary in nature and applies mathematical matrices and environmental productivity approaches, and borrows from the development of quality indices to consider a variety of impacts that cut across various phases of a product life cycle and different functions within an organization. The focus is on information and communication technology use in these systems. The model is applied to the Japanese automotive industry and the findings show that it is feasible and effective for comparing the environmental performance of companies in the same sector using the same weight matrices and indicators agreed to. The work informs decision making on the development of environmental performance measures that have worldwide applications, across many disciplines, in situations where suitable data are recorded. It also contributes to efforts on economic and social sustainability. Research efforts in similar areas in Southern Africa can benefit from the development and improvement of the proposed methodology.Keywords: Environmental performance index, indicator and weight matrices, benchmarkingDisciplines: Information and Communications Technology Studies (ICT), Environmental Studies, Economics, Sustainability Studies


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 02003
Author(s):  
Sergey Bereznev ◽  
Olga Zonova ◽  
Evdokiya Kulpina

The methodology of calculation of environmental performance index is considered in the article. The necessity of assessing the environmental efficiency index at the regional level in connection with which the authors attempted to adapt the indicators is proved; the recommendations on improving the national system of environmental indicators for the purpose of maximum correlation with the indicators of the environmental performance index are given.


2021 ◽  
pp. 83-89
Author(s):  
Abeer Ali Khan

As the high demand of energy of the developing countries is met by importing energy and different energy technology, it has become increasingly necessary to discuss the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of those technologies and make better decisions. Developed in the late 1960s, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become a wide-ranging tool used to determine impacts of products or systems over several environmental and resource issues. The LCA approach has become more prevalent in research, industry and policy with growing concern for the environment. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to introduce the use of LCA in the decision-making process while selecting an energy technology. In this way, more environmentally conscious decisions will be made as LCAs can provide a better basis for this process.


Author(s):  
Z. H. Jiang ◽  
L. H. Shu ◽  
B. Benhabib

Abstract This paper approaches environmentally conscious design by further developing a reliability model that facilitates design for reuse. Many reliability models are not suitable for describing systems that undergo repairs performed during remanufacture and maintenance because the models do not allow the possibility of system reconfiguration. In this paper, expressions of reliability indices of a model that allows system reconfiguration are developed to enable life-cycle cost estimation for repairable systems. These reliability indices of a population of repairable systems are proven theoretically to reach steady state. The expressions of these indices at steady state are obtained to gain insight into the model behavior, and to facilitate life-cycle cost estimation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (59) ◽  

With the awareness of their environmental performance, countries can provide strategies and policies to improve their environmental performance. Thus, countries can contribute to their own economic development by increasing their environmental performance. Therefore, measuring the environmental performance of countries is of great importance. Environmental performance of countries can be measured by the Environmental Performance Index (EPI). EPI consists of two factors, environmental health and ecosystem vitality. Its factors are environmental protection components, and environmental protection components are environmental protection variables. In this context, the research has two purposes. The first of these,To measure the latest and up-to-date environmental performances of the G7 group countries for 2018, using CODAS and TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) over the values of EPI components. The second is to determine which MCDM method can be used to explain the EPI values of countries the most. According to the findings, the ranking of countries' environmental performance with the CODAS method was determined as England, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, Italy and the USA. According to the TOPSIS method, this ranking was determined as England, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy and the USA. According to another finding, it has been observed that there is a significant, positive and very high relationship between the EPI values of the countries and the values measured by the CODAS and TOPSIS methods. According to this result, it was evaluated that EPI can be explained by both methods. In addition, it has been concluded that the correlation value between TOPSIS values of EPI within the scope of the research is higher than the CODAS method, so it can be explained better with the TOPSIS method compared to the EPI CODAS method. In the literature, in order not to find a study measuring the environmental performance of countries with CODAS and TOPSIS methods, it was evaluated that the study in question contributed to the literature, since the findings obtained as a result of the research became a data set for future studies. Keywords: Environmental Performance, Environmental Performance Index, CODAS, TOPSIS


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetyana Pimonenko ◽  
Oleksii Lyulyov ◽  
Olena Chygryn ◽  
Maksim Palienko

The paper deals with the analysis of methodology of Environmental Performance Index. The authors analyzed and systematized the main existing integrated indices, which were used for evaluation of environmental, social and economic situation in the countries. The authors allocated the environmental performance index as a basis for analyzing the environmental policy of the country. In this direction, the authors analysed the main features, structure and indicators of environmental performance index. The authors allocated the world-leader countries with huge level of CO2 emissions. According to the results, the authors aproved that these countries should improve their environmental policy. Accordingly, they occupied less position in environmental performance index. For the purpose to analyze the relation between ecological, social and economic welfare, the authors analyzed score of sustainable development goal index, social progress index and gross domestic product per capita. The comparison analysis of findings showed that countries with good position on environmental performance index have the strong position on sustainable development goal index and social progress index. The authors suggested that Ukraine should orient to the EU countries with purpose to improve the environmental policy.


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