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The Industrial Green Game: Overview and Perspectives
Pages 1-34

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From page 1...
... The green game values environmental quality across the board in production and consumption activities and integrates environment as a strategic element in the design and management of economic enterprises. The rules of the green game recognize that the entire system of production and consumption determines environmental quality.
From page 2...
... Industrial ecology2 represents such an approach. In the noisy market of environmental terms and buzzwords, industrial ecology has become a short phrase for many ideas related to improving environmental quality with economic concerns in mind.
From page 3...
... Many environmental impacts result from the accumulation in the biosphere of man-made and extracted raw materials. Therefore, materials management for the industrial green game can utilize systems that use waste as useful materials and substitute materials that improve environmental quality; systems for multiproduct cycles; and systems based on service or functionality.
From page 4...
... • How will changes in technology, economics, information, organiza tions, rules, and laws meet environmental quality and econmic goals? • What are new and different approaches to meeting those goals, and where are the opportunities to try them first?
From page 5...
... that will generate the "ideal" level of pollution, without knowing the costs of pollution damages. It is because this type of information is absent or difficult to determine that the industrial green game is so difficult to play.
From page 6...
... More recently, incentives have been added to the "toolset" used to improve environmental quality. In a shift from its traditional enforcement programs, the
From page 7...
... Under this scenario, the firm that sells the permits reduces its pollution level and still makes a profit from the sale of the permit. In addition to regulation and market-based initiatives, environmental costs can be further internalized by efforts to encourage recycling or reuse.
From page 8...
... Companies today can be found anywhere on the learning curve shown in Figure 2. Companies that value environmental quality -- whether by force of regulation, because they see an economic opportunity in preventing pollution, or because they recognize the strategic importance of environmental factors or want to be "responsible" companies -- are among those that are assessing the value of taking actions beyond basic compliance that will lead to less regulation, decreased liability, and better integration of environmental concerns with business practices.
From page 9...
... Learning Design for sustainability Integrated management systems Environmental cost accounting Product stewardship/Design for environment/Life cycle assessment Environmental management systems OVERVIEW AND PERSPECTIVES Pollution prevention Pollution control/Compliance 0 Noncompliance/Waste/ Pollution 1980s 1990s 2000s Corporate Unprepared Reactive Anticipatory High integration response IMMATURE MATURE Industry None Regulatory "Cost" avoidance Explicit mainstreaming of goals standards Emissions reduction environmental goals Pre-empt regulations • Design for environment Image • Life cycle assessment Leadership • Environmental cost Legitimacy protection management Competitive edge • Recycling targets • Alternative products FIGURE 2 Industry's Environmental Design and Management Learning Curve. SOURCE: Adapted from Wever, 1995, and Ehrenfeld, 1995.
From page 10...
... In Kalundborg, refinery wastewater is used for power plant cooling; excess refinery gas and sulfur recovered by the refinery are used to manufacture plaster board; biological sludge from the pharmaceutical plant is used by farmers; steam from the power plant is used by the pharmaceutical plant; fly ash from the power plant is use by cement manufacturers in a different town; and waste heat from the power plant is used in fish farming and by the municipality as part of its heating distribution system. The Kalundborg situation has been presented as an elegant model of what can happen when symbiotic relationships among industrial players are encouraged (National Science and Technology Council, 1995)
From page 11...
... PICKLING urban & toxic SOLUTION limestone wastes .... sand energy units shale CEMENT PLANT CEMENT clay iron oxide FIGURE 3 Potential synergies among various materials production plants.
From page 12...
... DESIGNING SYSTEMS FOR MULTIPLE-PRODUCT CYCLES The industrial green game requires that concerns about environmental quality include not only production and product use but also useful materials or potential energy embedded in products. In this strategy, products are used in several systems or product cycles, either as parts, materials, or embedded energy, as shown in Figure 5.
From page 13...
... . As environmental objectives are introduced in product design, manufacturers are reexamining their approaches to a wide range of concerns, such as product and packaging design, materials selection, production processes selection, energy consumption, environmental market research, environmental labeling, and marketing.
From page 15...
... molded into future plastic valve covers, perhaps eternally. 7 IS: Luggage compartment liner made of recycled (not 2 ARE: Toxic fluids -- coolants, various brake, engine and standard issue)
From page 16...
... . to make sure that customer requirements are met without undue delays or increased costs on the final product.6 Industrial green game objectives become part of the hierarchy of product requirements, related to such things as manufacturability, reliability, and safety that product designers must meet.
From page 17...
... maintenance, Production and design asset management Design and management elements Order Materials fulfillment management Supplier chain management FIGURE 7 Business processes involved in managing the life cycle impacts of products.
From page 18...
... . Reuse and recyclability are increasing concerns in materials selection, and there are several examples of how materials that facilitate reuse and recycling can result in green game gains by improving environmental quality and reducing cost.
From page 19...
... They generally consist of three distinct but interrelated components: • Life cycle inventory, an input-output accounting that quantifies the inputs of energy and raw materials and outputs of products, air emissions, water borne effluent, solid waste, and other environmental releases associated with the entire life cycle of the product, process, or activity. • Life cycle impact analysis, a characterization of the effects of the environ mental loadings identified in the life cycle inventory and an assessment of the loadings in terms of ecological and human health impacts.
From page 20...
... Technology partnerships, reuse or recycling relationships, and supplier evaluation have all been used to manage supplier chains for environmental quality. Technology partnerships can involve a parent manufacturing company developing a technology for use by suppliers on a proprietary or fee basis.
From page 21...
... These manufacturers have developed and continue to engineer plastic resins to meet new requirements, eliminating ingredients that inhibit cost-effective recycling and establishing business relationships that will lead to the cost-effective recovery of resins in order to meet recycled-content requirements. The importance of evaluating the environmental quality of supplier chains is critical to playing the industrial green game well, partly because of transnational differences in standards and practices.
From page 22...
... Postal Service or private companies like United Parcel Service. The changing nature of production and distribution will likely raise difficult questions about such issues as location, transportation, and logistics, which impact both cost and environmental quality concerns.
From page 23...
... The service sector, which currently accounts for 75 percent of jobs and 75 percent of GDP in the United States, includes operations such as hospitals, hotels, restaurants, photocopying services, real estate management, transportation and distribution companies, retail outlets, entertainment parks, cinemas, rental car agencies, and airlines. These types of businesses use many different products, and the decisions they make about environmental quality are related to functionality.
From page 24...
... The discussion above covered a wide range of information uses, from simple inventorying to establishing a baseline of material and energy inputs, product outputs, and waste emissions; helping to select materials and evaluate the use of chemicals; providing details for managing the supplier chains; improving logistics and inventory controls; and facilitating maintenance in leasing operations for a functionality economy. There are three other areas where information aids the green game: accounting for environmental costs, measuring environmental performance, and gauging consumer attitudes about the environment.
From page 25...
... OVERVIEW AND PERSPECTIVES 25 BOX 2 Traditional and "Enlightened" Cost Accounting Labor Materials Labor Materials A A B B Widget A Widget B Overhead Supervisors' Toxic Paint Rent Salaries Waste Traditional Cost Accounting (TCA) Widget A Widget B Overhead Other Toxic Overhead Waste B Misallocation UnderTCA Labor Materials Labor Materials A A B B Widget A Widget B Overhead Supervisors' Toxic Paint Rent A Salaries Waste B Environmentally "Enlightened" Cost Accounting SOURCE: Todd, 1994.
From page 26...
... Measuring Environmental Performance The measurement of environmental performance is an effective tool when accounting for environmental costs is linked to incentives for managers to play the industrial green game well. What is measured is driven by policies a company may adopt, and a range of measures may be devised to gauge achievement against a set of objectives.
From page 27...
... The essence of measuring performance in the industrial green game requires first identifying the information to be gathered. Progress is gauged by comparing these data with baseline information, and periodic audits are then used to evaluate progress in meeting environmental quality goals as well as identify areas for improvement.
From page 28...
... These trends present companies with the challenge of providing environmental quality as an added value to customers at little or no additional cost. Yet, there is growing evidence that simple waste reduction and energy-efficiency improvements can reduce costs, primarily by reducing the use of raw materials.
From page 29...
... This requires analyzing and continually improving environmental quality by mapping the metabo lism of materials and the use of energy to provide policymakers with bet ter contextual and historical snapshots against which national policies and alternative strategies may be assessed. It also requires benchmarking sys tem efficiencies against "best-in-class" systems to identify potential im provements in the metabolism.
From page 30...
... The primary need is to create the incentives and techniques for companies to use technology and knowledge to improve environmental quality. The main barrier in this regard is the corporate manager, who sees dealing with environmental impacts only in terms of its costs or as a difficult trade-off between design and management.
From page 31...
... ; design and management of production and consumption systems for environmental quality (The Industrial Green Game: Implications for Environmental Design and Management, 1997) ; the diffusion patterns of environmentally critical technologies and their effect on the changing habitability of the planet (Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment, 1997)
From page 32...
... The basic concept is to address existing and potential environmental quality concerns from the initial conceptualization of the product, facility, or service and to continually review and address potential concerns throughout development, op eration, and retirement or end of product life.
From page 33...
... 1991. Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry.
From page 34...
... In The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, B


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