The Drivers for a Sustainable Chemical Manufacturing Industry

2012 ◽  
pp. 1659-1679
Author(s):  
George M. Hall ◽  
Joe Howe

This chapter describes the current situation of the chemical manufacturing industry and looks to the future demands on the sector such as: for sustainability, the advent of new bio-based feedstocks for improved energy management and the implications of these demands on the sector. These implications include definitions of sustainability criteria for the chemical manufacturing industry and the need for transparent reporting following the Triple Bottom Line approach. The important role of chemical (or more generally, process) engineers in delivering bio-based sustainable solutions is emphasised, but this also suggests that a new way of thinking about the discipline is required. Indeed, there are arguments that the demand for a sustainable chemical manufacturing sector could bring about the next paradigm shift in the discipline with concomitant education implications.

Author(s):  
George M. Hall ◽  
Joe Howe

This chapter describes the current situation of the chemical manufacturing industry and looks to the future demands on the sector such as: for sustainability, the advent of new bio-based feedstocks for improved energy management and the implications of these demands on the sector. These implications include definitions of sustainability criteria for the chemical manufacturing industry and the need for transparent reporting following the Triple Bottom Line approach. The important role of chemical (or more generally, process) engineers in delivering bio-based sustainable solutions is emphasised, but this also suggests that a new way of thinking about the discipline is required. Indeed, there are arguments that the demand for a sustainable chemical manufacturing sector could bring about the next paradigm shift in the discipline with concomitant education implications.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 3162-3179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamraiz Ahmad ◽  
Kuan Yew Wong

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze the recent sustainability assessment studies in the manufacturing industry from the triple-bottom-line (TBL) perspective. This paper aims to depict the status quo of practical sustainability assessment, summarize the different levels and boundaries of evaluation, and highlight the difficulties and further improvements needed to make the assessment more effective in the manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach Four keywords, namely, sustainability assessment, sustainable manufacturing, TBL and green production, were used to explore and find the relevant articles. First, this paper systematically reviewed the studies and analyzed the different levels and boundaries of sustainability assessment. Following this, the reviewed studies were critically discussed along with their merits and shortcomings. Findings The review showed that most of the sustainability assessment studies were conducted on product, company and process levels in the manufacturing industry. Nevertheless, there is still a need to focus more on plant and process level assessments to achieve the TBL objectives. Environmental assessment is comparatively matured in manufacturing industries. However, from the economic and social viewpoints, only cost analysis and workers’ safety, respectively, were considered in most of the studies. The economic and social indicators need to be more inclusive and should be validated and standardized for manufacturing industries. Originality/value Unlike previous sustainability assessment reviews in manufacturing industries which were mostly based on life cycle assessment, this paper has included environmental, social and economic aspects in one comprehensive review and focused on recent studies published from 2010 to 2017. This paper has explored the recent sustainability assessment trends and provided insights into the development of sustainability assessment in the manufacturing sector.


Author(s):  
Lin Jia ◽  
Barry Cumbie ◽  
Chetan S. Sankar ◽  
Jian Yu

This article develops a Sustainability Informatics Framework, a framework that connects Information Technology with sustainability and is based on the Belief-Action-Outcome and Energy Informatics frameworks. The triple-bottom line (People, Planet, and Profit) is adopted as a criterion for measuring sustainability and three sustainability indices are first formulated and then visualized using Sustainability Dashboards. This framework is then used to analyze transportation systems. This leads to the development of research propositions that can expand the role of the Information Systems discipline to research on areas of sustainable nation building.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Abubakr ◽  
Adel T. Abbas ◽  
Italo Tomaz ◽  
Mahmoud S. Soliman ◽  
Monis Luqman ◽  
...  

The necessity for decreasing the negative impact of the manufacturing industry has recently increased. This is getting recognized as a global challenge due to the rapid increase in life quality standards, demand, and the decrease in available resources. Thus, manufacturing, as a core of the product provision system and a fundamental pillar of civilized existence, is significantly influenced by sustainability issues. Furthermore, current manufacturing modeling and assessment criteria require intensive revisions and upgrades to keep up with these new challenges. Nearly all current manufacturing models are based on the old paradigm, which was proven to be inadequate. Therefore, manufacturing technology, along with culture and economy, are held responsible for providing new tools and opportunities for building novel resolutions towards a sustainable manufacturing concept. One of such tools is sustainability assessment measures. Revising and updating such tools is a core responsibility of the manufacturing sector to efficiently evaluate and enhance sustainable manufacturing performance. These measures should be adequate to respond to the growing sustainability concerns in pursuit of an integrated sustainability concept. The triple bottom line (TBL) that includes environment, economic, and social dimensions has usually been used to evaluate sustainability. However, there is a lack of standard sets of sustainable manufacturing performance measures. In addition to the sustainability concept, a new concept of smart manufacturing is emerging. The smart manufacturing concept takes advantage of the recent technological leap in Artificial Intelligent (AI), Cloud Computing (CC), and the Internet of Things (IoT). Although this concept offers an important step to boost the current production capabilities to meet the growing need, it is still not clear whether the two concepts of smart manufacturing and sustainability will constructively or destructively interact. Therefore, the current study aims to integrate the sustainable smart manufacturing performance by incorporating sustainable manufacturing measures and discussing current and future challenges that are faced by the manufacturing sector. In addition, the opportunities for future research incorporating sustainable smart manufacturing are also presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.35) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
Maryam Jamilah Asha’ari ◽  
Salina Daud

Sustainability has been seen as a crucial issue that is being faced by many sectors in Malaysia which involves manufacturing sector. The Malaysian government has enhanced manufacturing organizations to apply green practices in the working environment to achieve corporate sustainability performance. In order for an organization to achieve corporate sustainability performance, the practices of the organization in using green technology such as sustainable transport is very important. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of sustainable transport on corporate sustainability performance with the moderating role of organization age. Drawing data from 130 Malaysia chemical manufacturing organizations, the model studies the moderating role of organization age on the sustainable transport and the corporate sustainable performance of the organizations. Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis is used in this study in order to analyze the data and the multistage sampling technique has also been used in this study. The results show that there is a positive relationship between sustainable transport and corporate sustainability performance. The results also suggest that organization age do not moderates the effect of sustainable transport and corporate sustainability performance. In achieving corporate sustainability performance, this study is important as it will guide employees in the manufacturing sector especially in chemical manufacturing organizations to practice the appropriate green practices such as sustainable transport.


2011 ◽  
Vol 361-363 ◽  
pp. 1740-1744
Author(s):  
Zhao Hui Li ◽  
Jun Feng Li

This paper focuses on the compiling and the role of the socially responsible index. Socially responsible investment originated from ethically investing teachings and developed on growing social awareness. Social responsibility indexes are products of the development of social responsibility investment. The Domini 400 Social Index, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the Calvert Social Index are typical cases of international social responsibility indexes. They are compiled on the base of consistency, flexibility and transparency and their component stocks are selected according to triple bottom line. Compared with international experiences, China’s social responsibility indexes have a shorter history and some problems.


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