BIM-enabled sustainability assessment of material supply decisions

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 668-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Ahmadian F.F. ◽  
Taha H. Rashidi ◽  
Ali Akbarnezhad ◽  
S. Travis Waller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Life Cycle Thinking ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Material Supply ◽  
Trade Offs

Purpose Enhancing sustainability of the supply process of construction materials is challenging and requires accounting for a variety of environmental and social impacts on top of the traditional, mostly economic, impacts associated with a particular decision involved in the management of the supply chain. The economic, environmental, and social impacts associated with various components of a typical supply chain are highly sensitive to project and market specific conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide decision makers with a methodology to account for the systematic trade-offs between economic, environmental, and social impacts of supply decisions. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a novel framework for sustainability assessment of construction material supply chain decisions by taking advantage of the information made available by customized building information models (BIM) and a number of different databases required for assessment of life cycle impacts. Findings The framework addresses the hierarchy of decisions in the material supply process, which consists of four levels including material type, source of supply, supply chain structure, and mode of transport. The application is illustrated using a case study. Practical implications The proposed framework provides users with a decision-making method to select the most sustainable material alternative available for a building component and, thus, may be of great value to different parties involved in design and construction of a building. The multi-dimensional approach in selection process based on various economic, environmental, and social indicators as well as the life cycle perspective implemented through the proposed methodology advocates the life cycle thinking and the triple bottom line approach in sustainability. The familiarity of the new generation of engineers, architects, and contractors with this approach and its applications is essential to achieve sustainability in construction. Originality/value A decision-making model for supply of materials is proposed by integrating the BIM-enabled life cycle assessment into supply chain and project constraints management. The integration is achieved through addition of a series of attributes to typical BIM. The framework is supplemented by a multi-attribute decision-making module based on the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution to account for the trade-offs between different economic and environmental impacts associated with the supply decisions.

Multi-Criterion Decision-Making Analysis for Sustainable Bio-Fuel Supply Chain

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-201
Author(s):  
Thangaraja J. ◽  
Vijayakumar M. ◽  
Yatharth Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Statistical Assessment ◽  
Sustainability Analysis ◽  
Fuel Demand ◽  
Biofuels Supply Chain

Present estimates indicate India's bio-fuel demand as 0.5 billion gallons in 2012 which will grow to 6.8 billion gallons by 2022. While fossil fuel science and technology is well established, the scientific understanding and technological implications of biofuels are not clearly laid out. In recent years, a large number of assessments have been conducted to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of biofuels. However, contradicting results were noted in the published articles. The current chapter attempts to understand the importance of triple bottom line (TBL) aspects for the life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) over the conventional life cycle analysis (LCA) of biofuels-based supply chain. Along with energy and environmental indicators, LCSA also evaluates the economic and social factors. Hence, a statistical assessment with multi-criterion decision-making (MCDM) analysis has been implemented to highlight and achieve coherence in conducting the sustainability analysis of biofuels supply chain.

Sustainability assessment in manufacturing organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 994-1027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuldip Singh Sangwan ◽  
Vikrant Bhakar ◽  
Abhijeet K. Digalwar
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Readiness Assessment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Manufacturing Organizations ◽  
Manufacturing Organization ◽  
Integrated Supply Chain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a sustainability readiness assessment model and a sustainability assessment model for manufacturing organizations. Design/methodology/approach The proposed models have been developed using resource-based theory along the integrated supply chain. The models are based on resources sustainability (people, money, material, energy, infrastructure, water, and air), critical factors of sustainability (product, process and policies), sustainability dimensions (environment, economic, and social), and life cycle sustainability (integrated supply chain). Findings The paper presents an integrated assessment system which includes: product life cycle, resources, critical factors (product, process, and policy), key performance indicators, and their interrelationship with sustainability dimensions. The three critical factors and all the important resources required by a manufacturing organization along the integrated supply chain are identified. The readiness assessment model is user friendly and effective to guide the managers to identify the weak areas of sustainability. Research limitations/implications The proposed model for readiness assessment is tested and in an automotive manufacturing organization but the sustainability assessment model is conceptual and it requires validation by implementing the same in an organization to understand its effectiveness. Practical implications The readiness assessment model can help the top management to decide whether the organizational orientation is correct to improve sustainability. The easy to use models can be used by the decision/policy makers and independent bodies to assess, compare and benchmark the products, processes or organizations and thus affect public policies and attitudes. Originality/value This study has developed, for the first time, a sustainability readiness assessment model. The resource-based theory has been applied along the integrated supply chain.

scholarly journals A Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment-Based Decision-Analysis Framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marwa Hannouf ◽  
Getachew Assefa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Decision Analysis ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Analysis Framework ◽  
Product Systems ◽  
Trade Offs

One of the main challenges in using life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is the difficulty of integrating the interrelationships between the three dimensions (environmental, economic and social dimensions) of LCSA results in decision-making toward proposing sustainability improvements for existing product systems. This paper is addressing this challenge by presenting an LCSA-based decision-analysis framework, which is a systematic and structured framework that appraises the pool of potential actions determined based on LCSA results and evaluates their trade-offs to propose potential sustainability solutions. The framework is composed of two parts: (a) LCSA application; (b) decision-analysis approach. The decision analysis part of the framework is built based on some features from previous decision-making approaches and considering the characteristics of LCSA results. The decision-analysis part of the framework, which is the main focus of this study, is divided into five phases to propose and select some recommendations to improve the sustainability performance of product systems. The framework developed is illustrated using results from a previous LCSA case study. The framework can handle the complexity in understanding the interrelationships between the three dimensions of LCSA results, through a structured way of dividing the process into manageable steps. Further work is still needed to apply this framework to a real case study.

scholarly journals Principles for the application of life cycle sustainability assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 1900-1905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Valdivia ◽  
Jana Gerta Backes ◽  
Marzia Traverso ◽  
Guido Sonnemann ◽  
Stefano Cucurachi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Life Cycle Initiative ◽  
Iso 14040 ◽  
Trade Offs

Abstract Purpose and context This paper aims to establish principles for the increased application and use of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). Sustainable development (SD) encompassing resilient economies and social stability of the global system is growingly important for decision-makers from business and governments. The “17 SDGs” emerge as a high-level shared blueprint for peace, abundance, and prosperity for people and the planet, and “sustainability” for supporting improvements of products and organizations. A “sustainability” interpretation—successful in aligning stakeholders’ understanding—subdivides the impacts according to a triple bottom line or three pillars: economic, social, and environmental impacts. These context and urgent needs inspired the LCSA framework. This entails a sustainability assessment of products and organizations in accordance with the three pillars, while adopting a life cycle perspective. Methods The Life Cycle Initiative promotes since 2011 a pragmatic LCSA framework based on the three techniques: LCSA = environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) + life cycle costing (LCC) + social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). This is the focus of the paper, while acknowledging previous developments. Identified and reviewed literature shows challenges of addressing the three pillars in the LCSA framework implementation like considering only two pillars; not being fully aligned with ISO 14040; lacking interconnectedness among the three pillars; not having clear criteria for results’ weighting nor clear results’ interpretation; and not following cause-effect chains and mechanisms leading to an endpoint. Agreement building among LCSA experts and reviewing processes strengthened the consensus on this paper. Broad support and outreach are ensured by publishing this as position paper. Results For harmonizing practical LCSA applications, easing interpretation, and increasing usefulness, consensed ten LCSA principles (10P) are established: understanding the areas of protection, alignment with ISO 14040, completeness, stakeholders’ and product utility considerations, materiality of system boundaries, transparency, consistency, explicit trade-offs’ communication, and caution when compensating impacts. Examples were provided based on a fictional plastic water bottle Conclusions In spite of increasing needs for and interest in SD and sustainability supporting tools, LCSA is at an early application stage of application. The 10P aim to promote more and better LCSA applications by ensuring alignment with ISO 14040, completeness and clear interpretation of integrated results, among others. For consolidating its use, however, more consensus-building is needed (e.g., on value-laden ethical aspects of LCSA, interdependencies and interconnectedness among the three dimensions, and harmonization and integration of the three techniques) and technical and policy recommendations for application.

Exploring the feasibility of blockchain technology as an infrastructure for improving built asset sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Shojaei ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Andriel Fenner
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Current State ◽  
Design Build

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the feasibility of blockchain technology to perform as an infrastructure for improving built asset sustainability by providing all the necessary information for better decision making at all the stages of its life cycle. Design/methodology/approach Blockchain technology can be used as a tool to build a reliable and secure decentralized information system to capture and disseminate all the data required for different sustainability assessment models. A model is designed and tested through a synthetic scenario to substantiate the research objective with empirical work. Findings It is shown that blockchain can revolutionize the current state of knowledge for long-term sustainability thinking and provide necessary information in different stages of the life cycle of a built asset. With the proposed decentralized, transparent and comprehensive database using blockchain, the life cycle assessment methods can become much more inclusive and reliable. The new holistic analysis of the built asset sustainability enables better decision making in design, build, operation and demolition of each asset. Originality/value This paper proposes and tests a model for using blockchain as an infrastructure to support built asset sustainability. Practitioners from different backgrounds at different stages of a built asset life cycle can use such a network to make better decisions and better assess the sustainability of their built assets.

scholarly journals The hidden side of sustainable operations and supply chain management: unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs and tensions

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 1749-1770
Author(s):  
Stelvia V. Matos ◽  
Martin C. Schleper ◽  
Stefan Gold ◽  
Jeremy K. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Management ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sustainable Operations ◽  
Chain Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Crucial Effect

PurposeThe research is based on a critically analyzed literature review focused on the unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs and tensions of sustainable operations and supply chain management (OSCM), including the articles selected for this special issue.Design/methodology/approachThe authors introduce the key concepts, issues and theoretical foundations of this special issue on “The hidden side of sustainable operations and supply chain management (OSCM): Unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs and tensions”. The authors explore these issues within this context, and how they may hinder the authors' transition to more sustainable practices.FindingsThe authors present an overview of unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs, tensions and influencing factors from the literature, and identify how such problems may emerge. The model addresses these problems by highlighting the crucial effect of the underlying state of knowledge on sustainable OSCM decision-making.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors limited the literature review to journals that ranked 2 and above as defined by the Chartered Association of Business Schools Academic Journal Guide. The main implication for research is a call to focus attention on unanticipated outcomes as a starting point rather than only an afterthought. For practitioners, good intentions such as sustainability initiatives need careful consideration for potential unanticipated outcomes.Originality/valueThe study provides the first critical review of unanticipated outcomes, trade-offs and tensions in the sustainable OSCM discourse. While the literature review (including papers in this special issue) significantly contributes toward describing these issues, it is still unclear how such problems emerge. The model developed in this paper addresses this gap by highlighting the crucial effect of the underlying state of knowledge concerned with sustainable OSCM decision-making.

BEYOND THE PILLARS: SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT AS A FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN SIGNIFICANT DECISION-MAKING

2006 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. 259-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT B. GIBSON
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Design Assessment ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Government Mandates ◽  
Integrative Process ◽  
Integrative Concept ◽  
Context Specific

Sustainability is an essentially integrative concept. It seems reasonable, then, to design sustainability assessment as an essentially integrative process and framework for decision-making on undertakings that may have lasting effects. The realm of sustainability has often been depicted as the intersection of social, economic and ecological interests and initiatives. Accordingly, many approaches to sustainability oriented assessments — at the project as well as strategic level — have begun by addressing the social, economic and ecological considerations separately and have then struggled with how to integrate the separate findings. The problem is exacerbated by the generally separate training of experts in the three fields, the habitual collection of data separately under the three categories and the common division of government mandates into separate social, economic and ecological bodies. The combined effect is not merely an absence of integrative expertise, data and authority but an entrenched tendency to neglect the interdependence of these factors. The three pillars or triple bottom line approach also appears to encourage an emphasis on balancing and making trade-offs, which may often be necessary but which should always be the last resort, not the assumed task, in sustainability assessment. There are, however, important concerns underlying advocacy and application of some three pillar, limited integration approaches. Most significant are well-grounded fears that integrated, sustainability-based assessments may facilitate continued or even renewed neglect of traditionally under valued considerations, especially the protection of ecological systems and functions. This problem needs to be addressed thoughtfully in judgements about how integration is to be done. One possible solution is to take sustainability as an essentially integrative concept and to design sustainability assessment more aggressively as an integrative process. This would entail a package of regime and process design features, centred on ones that. • build sustainability assessment into a larger overall governance regime that is designed to respect interconnections among issues, objectives, actions and effects, though the full interrelated set of activities from broad agenda setting to results monitoring and response;. • design assessment processes with an iterative conception-to-resurrection agenda, aiming to maximise multiple, reinforcing net benefits through selection, design and adaptive implementation of the most desirable option for every significant strategic or project level undertaking;. • redefine the driving objectives and consequent evaluation and decision criteria to avoid the three conventional categories, to ensure attention to usually neglected sustainability requirements and to focus attention on the achievement of multiple, mutually reinforcing gains;. • establish explicit basic rules that discourage trade-offs to the extent possible while guiding the decision-making on those that are unavoidable;. • provide means of combining, specifying and complementing these generic criteria and trade-off rules with attention to case- and context-specific concerns, objectives, priorities and possibilities;. • provide integrative, sustainability-centred guidance, methods and tools to help meet the key practical demands of assessment work, including identifying key cross-cutting issues and linkages among factors, judging the significance of predicted effects, and weighing overall options and implications; and. • ensure that the decision-making process facilitates public scrutiny and encourages effective public participation.

scholarly journals Design of global sustainable supply chains

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Dian Trihastuti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
National Level ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Economic Dimension ◽  
Sustainable Supply Chains ◽  
Industrial Sectors

Increasing concern about the sustainability of supply chain operations is motivating companies and organizations to pursue strategies to reduce their contribution to global environmental and social negative impacts. While most papers in the field of sustainable supply chains have focused on economic and environmental performance at the firm level, recently some studies have considered the problem at the national level. However, there still exists a gap in quantitatively modeling social impacts, together with environmental and economic impacts, at the global level. To fill this gap, this research presents a multi-objective mathematical model for the design and planning of a supply chain, integrating the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). In this research, the economic dimension of sustainability is addressed by considering the costs of the supply chain. Then MRIO, a national input-output table that describes the interdependencies between countries and economic sectors, is integrated with national environmental and social impacts to construct a triple bottom line (3BL) approach by industrial sectors. This model supports decision making by including both direct impacts, as well as indirect impacts, associated with upstream supply chain paths. This expands the range of impact considered in sustainable performance measurement both within and beyond the supply chain boundary. The integrated model can improve a company's ability to select supply chain partners based on a wider range of criteria, rather than being based on economics alone. A case study is conducted that considers three tiers of the transportation and equipment supply chain, which consists of six industrial sectors that are part of a larger system of fourteen industrial sectors operating across seventeen of the largest manufacturing countries in the world. The model is solved using a [epsilon]-constraint method; and the resulting Pareto optimal curves show the tradeoffs between the economic, environmental and social dimensions. The results reveal that indirect economic activities dominate when contributing to the environmental and social impact of the whole system. Expanding the scope of sustainability changes supply chain configuration decisions. Therefore, the primary result from this research is that firms and industry sectors need to change their focus from solely on economic aspects and include environmental and social aspects in supply chain decision making at operational and/or strategic levels of decisions.

scholarly journals Life cycle sustainability assessment of geothermal heating and cooling system: UIC case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 205 ◽  
pp. 07003
Author(s):  
Krishna R. Reddy ◽  
Sanjeeta N. Ghimire ◽  
Emmanuelle Wemeyi ◽  
Roya Zanjani ◽  
Liang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Indirect Costs ◽  
Social Impacts ◽  
Conventional Heating ◽  
Conventional System ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Geothermal Heating ◽  
Heating And Cooling

This study presents a sustainability assessment of geothermal heating and cooling system of three buildings at the University of Illinois at Chicago - Grant, Lincoln, and Douglas Halls based upon the triple bottom line sustainability framework and presents a comparison between geothermal and conventional heating and cooling systems. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate and quantify the environmental impacts for both geothermal and conventional systems. Similarly, economic impacts were evaluated by making a comparison between direct and indirect costs of both systems. Indirect costs were calculated using Stepwise 2006 incorporated in monetized LCA and compared that cost with social cost of carbon. Social impacts were quantified using Social Sustainability Evaluation Matrix (SSEM) which covers four major dimensions of society: social-individual, socio-institutional, socio-economic, and socio-environmental. An overall sustainability index for geothermal system and conventional system was calculated by evaluating environmental, economic, and social impacts using Integrated Value Model for Sustainability Assessment (MIVES) methodology. The results show that the geothermal heating and cooling system is more sustainable and environmentally friendly than the conventional system.

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