Sustainability is and will be a crucial issue for the present and future generations. The current assumption that natural resources are infinite and that the regenerative capacity of the environment is able to compensate for all human action is no longer acceptable. Hence, sustainability issues will influence all organisational aspects of the human life, from the economical, political, social and environmental points of view. The reason is simple: until now, all human activities have been based on the paradigm of unlimited resources and unlimited world's capacity for regeneration; from now on, the awareness of the termination of this assumption means that all related behavioural models must be changed. This is a very impressive objective embracing all fields of culture, economy, technology and much more. A continuing effort, together with a reasonable time span, will be required to pursue this goal. Fortunately, nature and the environment are capable of self-regulation and will give man a chance to recove...

Sustainable manufacturing: trends and research challenges

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world's energy needs over the next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale. Although no element is a credible candidate for doing the entire job (or even half the job) by itself, the portfolio as a whole is large enough that not every element has to be used.

“Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies” from science magazine (2004)

Sustainable manufacturing-greening processes using specific Lean Production tools: an empirical observation from European motorcycle component manufacturers

Response surface methodology application in optimization of cadmium adsorption by shoe waste: A good option of waste mitigation by waste

Over the past 20 years, the issue of performance measurement in Social Enterprises (SEs) has gained increasing relevance among researchers and practitioners. From an academic perspective, there has been an explosion in methodologies and tools for assessing social performance and impact, but with little systematic analysis and comparison across different approaches. From a practitioner perspective, SEs need to start measuring their performances in a systemic way, in order to support decision making and ensure accountability towards their stakeholders. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the state of the art literature by developing an approach that could be applied to/by SEs to measure their results with respect to social, environmental and economic impacts. The proposed approach consists of a “general” PMS model for SEs—i.e., the performance dimensions that should be measured—and a stepwise method to be used by SEs to develop their own PMS. For sake of clarification, the proposed approach is applied to the case of an Italian SE competing in the energy sector to develop a set of key performance indicators.

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Performance Measurement for Social Enterprises

At present, a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, regulators, shareholders and public bodies are demanding that companies address sustainability in a more comprehensive way. However, even if a company actually wishes to innovate its processes for improving the way to account for sustainability, it will face relevant difficulties to deal with different guidelines, tools and methods currently addressing the matter from various points of view. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesise literature on sustainability from an operational point of view with the objective to help companies to answer to three main questions: What is sustainability? (How it has been defined), How can sustainability of processes and products be achieved and measured? (What are the different existing means and indicators) and How can they be improved? In such a context, this paper investigates and debates the role of technological development, as an enabling factor of sustainability within the companies.

A state-of-the-art of industrial sustainability: definitions, tools and metrics

Manufacturing-focused emissions reductions in footwear production

Better understanding of the current product End-of-life sustainable practices leads to important feedback for the design of more “sustainable” so called eco-products, by identifying the design improvements that reduce the impact of manufactured goods on the environment and society. In this paper, we propose a way to assess the impact on product design that ultimately helps on deciding the product characteristics required for a desired End-of-life (EOL) practice (i.e. reuse, recycle, remanufacture, etc). Categories and criticality scales of impacts of these practices on the product design stages are proposed. Then, a framework is proposed to provide designers with guidance on how to proceed towards taking into account the impact of the sustainable requirements.

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From Product End-of-Life Sustainable Considerations to Design Management

What is the burden upon your feet? With sales of running and jogging shoes in the world averaging a nontrivial 25 billion shoes per year, or 34 million per day, the impact of the footwear industry represents a significant portion of the apparel sector’s environmental burden. This study analyzed the carbon footprint of a familiar consumer product, a pair of running shoes. A single shoe can contain 65 discrete parts that require 360 processing steps for assembly. While brand name companies dictate product design and material specifications, the actual manufacturing of footwear is typically contracted to manufacturers based in emerging economies. Using life cycle assessment methodology, this effort quantified the global warming potential burden of a pair of shoes and mitigation strategies were proposed focusing on high leverage aspects of the life cycle. Using this approach, it was estimated that the carbon footprint of a typical pair of running shoes made of synthetic materials is 14 ± 2.7 kg CO2‐equivalent. The vast majority of this impact is incurred during the materials processing and manufacturing stages, which make up around 29% and 68% of the total impact, respectively. By comparison, a person emits the equivalent amount of carbon by using a 100‐watt light bulb for a week. For consumer products not requiring electricity during use, the intensity of emissions in the manufacturing phase is atypical; most commonly, materials make up the biggest percentage of impact. This distinction highlighted the importance of identifying mitigation strategies within the manufacturing process, and the need to evaluate the emissions reduction efficacy of each potential strategy. By postulating the causes of manufacturing dominance in the global warming potential assessment of this product, this study described the characteristics of a product that would lead to high manufacturing impact. Thereby, the work explored how relying solely on the bill of materials information for product life cycle assessment may underestimate life cycle burden and ignore potentially high impact mitigation strategies.

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Natalia Duque Ciceri

Papers

A state-of-the-art of industrial sustainability: definitions, tools and metrics

Manufacturing-focused emissions reductions in footwear production

From Product End-of-Life Sustainable Considerations to Design Management

Manufacturing‐Focused Emissions Reductions in Footwear Production

Designing Sorting Facilities in Reverse Logistics Systems