Eco-design improvement for the diaphragm forming process

This paper proposes an eco-design method to suggest improvements over an existing diaphragm forming process (DFP). In the proposed method, a systematic procedure is developed to provide eco-design guidance to engineers, and it includes four steps. In Step 1, design functions are analysed through functional diagrams to provide the information of sub-functions and functional flows. In Step 2, the eco-design requirements are captured via quality functional deployment (QFD) and then translated to design functions via functional analysis (FA). Then, the design functions are prioritized according to the eco-design requirements in considerations. In Step 3, the prioritized design functions are used to generate possible design concepts through the morphological chart. In Step 4, the generated concepts are assessed based on the energy use and process time of DFP. The utility of the proposed method is to adapt quality tools for continual improvements in the context of eco-design. An existing DFP is used for this work to demonstrate and validate the method’s applicability. The result of this research shows that the integration of QFD and FA can systematically guide the generation of new eco-design concepts for DFP with less dependence of design intuitions.     

Treating design uncertainty in the application of Eco-indicator 99 with Monte Carlo simulation and fuzzy intervals

In incremental eco-design improvements, design engineers attempt to modify an existing product via some eco-design measures to reduce the product’s environmental impacts (e.g. reduction of material usage and energy consumption). In this process, several design concepts can be proposed, and concept selection is required to allocate resources sensibly to promising design concepts only. In this context, the research purpose is to estimate the environmental impacts of each concept given the uncertainty of design information. In the proposed methodology, the fuzzy interval arithmetic is used to specify and propagate imprecise design information. Then, the centroid concept is applied to model different views of imprecision (i.e. pessimistic, balanced and optimistic) associated with fuzzy impact assessment. Accordingly, a decision scheme is developed to support concept selection and suggest the potential areas for further eco-design improvements. A coffee maker is used as an example to demonstrate the proposed methodology. Also, the Monte Carlo Simulation is applied for the same example to compare the numerical outcomes by the fuzzy interval approach.     

Environmental impact of two electrical products with reference to the energy-using products directive

High energy consumption is one of the major factors that contributes to global warming. Connected to this, a directive has been approved by the European Union for establishing a legal framework to govern eco-design of energy-using products. This technical note reveals life cycle analysis of two electrical products, which rely on the same rechargeable battery system (i.e. the same energy source) for operations, with respect to the requirements of the aforementioned directive. Results concur with the argument that energy consumption of this sort of product plays a dominant role in terms of a variety of environmental impacts (like emission to air). Based on the results of this study, eco-design alternatives can be derived accordingly so that energy consumption and the existing solution can be benchmarked, as required by the directive.     

Eco-design practices towards sustainable supply chain management: interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach

Due to increasing emphasis on sustainable practices, many organisations have attempted to leverage their supply chain performance towards balancing triple bottom line dimensions (economic, environmental and social perspectives). This paper, therefore, determines the priorities of sustainable supply chain management focusing on eco-design. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and Matriced’ Impacts Croise’s Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (MIMAC) are used to identify the hierarchical structure of the relationships among eco-design dimensions, and to analyse characteristics power of each dimension on supporting eco-design practices. The relationships and characteristics power of each dimension are used to determine indicators that are effective in enhancement of eco-design practice, evaluated through sustainable supply chain performance. Results indicate that product deployment is an important approach for improving eco-design practice towards sustainable supply chain management. This emphasises the purpose and impact of eco-design on sequential supply chain activities at deployment phase. Further research is required to make an overall assessment of eco-design practices across range of manufacturing industries, given the current research is based on inputs from a limited number of experts of selected organisations.     

Exploring the relationship between unethical practices,buyer–supplier relationships and green design for sustainability

Sustainable procurement practices have gained popularity amongst both researchers and supply chain practitioners. However, ethical practices in sustainable procurement have been the topic of discussion in the recent years. The goal of the study is to scientifically build a green procurement framework by exploring relationship between buyer–supplier relationships, unethical practices and green design for sustainability. The study was conducted considering samples from South African steel and engineering sector. Data show high rate of wastages and losses occurring at various stages of steel and engineering supply chains. Every steel and engineering company aims to reduce such losses for improving their profitability and achieve sustainability. The empirical findings show that such wastage and losses can be minimised through efficient eco-design and involvement of key suppliers at the design stage so that disassembly, recycling and reuse options not only prove successful but as well cost-effective for the organisation. Also we find that buyer deceitful practices are a strong determinant of green design for sustainability. Buyers making up a second source of supply for green components and preferring green suppliers being approved by top management is helpful for mitigation of supply risks under green procurement process. The present study is distinctive in terms of coverage and its contribution to supply chain theory.     

Implementation of a software platform to support an eco-design methodology within a manufacturing firm

The paper aims to explore the implementation of an eco-design methodology and the related software platform (G.EN.ESI – Green ENgineering dESIgn) within technical departments of a manufacturing firm. The G.EN.ESI eco-design methodology is based on the life cycle thinking concept and the software platform is conceived as a set of inter-operable software tools able to efficiently exchange data among them and with the traditional design systems (i.e. CAD, PDM and PLM). A multinational company, designing and producing household appliances, adopted the proposed methodology and related software platform for redesigning two cooker hood models with the aim to improve their environmental performances. Design and engineering departments evaluated the methodology and platform impact on the product development process, as well as the platform inter-operability with traditional design tools. The results indicate that methodology and software platform satisfy the requirements of the enterprise in terms of: (i) degree of expertise and training requirement on this subject, (ii) low impact in a consolidated design process and, (ii) good level of inter-operability among heterogeneous tools. However, the testing results highlight the necessity of a further platform optimisations in terms of software integration (single workbench made by integrated software tools with the same graphical user interface).     

The elaboration process – an approach for sustainable product development: a case study

Environmentally conscious product development, eco-design or design for environment is the methodology trying to introduce environmental requirements into product design. The first step of this process is the gathering of customer requirements for a structured product development procedure, such as quality function deployment (QFD). The problem is that environmental requirements are usually unspoken by the customers. This paper describes a methodology for uncovering such requirements by using environmental default questions in an elaboration process. This leads to an increased customer environmental awareness, and it generates a comprehensive list of requirements suitable for use in a subsequent QFD process. The effects of the elaboration process are demonstrated in one case study.     

Analysis of building environment assessment frameworks and their implications for sustainability indicators

Green construction is gaining increasing attention in the global context. However, the construction of sustainable green buildings and environments involves different tools and systems and diverse perspectives. Therefore, the development of environmental assessment tools is an important task for managing green housing and green building projects. In this paper, we discuss the benefits, limitations, and future directions of the assessment framework. There are four characteristics of building environmental assessment, i.e., comprehensiveness, design guideline, signaling, and communication tools, which afford both benefits and limitations. We illustrate the role of the assessment framework as a hub promoting integration of diverse knowledge, as a design guideline encouraging better design and action, as signaling environmentally friendly design and action, and as a communication tool. On the other hand, there are limitations, such as the use of a mixture of quantitative and qualitative measures, ambiguity of weighing, lack of financial evaluation, and lack of involvement of diverse disciplines and stakeholders. To develop an effective assessment framework, the following three factors must be considered: knowledge, power, and implementation. We propose that knowledge innovation, a credible approach for a salient solution, and collective action represent the future challenges of the assessment framework.     

建设项目的社会成本研究

随着大型建设项目的增多和人们环保意识与可持续发展意识的逐渐增强,关注建设项目对社会、环境等的影响已势在必行。基于这一认识,首先在分析建设项目对交通、经济、环境以及社会等方面造成负面影响的基础上,尝试构建建设项目社会成本体系,进而详细分析该体系中每个单项成本的内涵。然后。改变现有建设项目成本估算中只考虑建造成本的现状。将社会成本纳入到建设项目总成本之中,使建设项目总成本的内容更加科学、完善。最后,研究建设项目社会成本以及总成本的估算方法,并给出每种估算方法的适用范圈。为建设项目的社会成本评估提供一个相对完整、具体的框架,也为建设项目的发展提供了一个全新的思路。     

Towards implementation and achievement of sustainable biofuel development in Africa

Although sustainable bioenergy development in Africa is critically debated, if projects are developed within a credible framework, opportunities for sustainability arguably can arise. This paper presents research on the characteristics of sustainable biofuel projects as provided in the literature and according to expert opinions obtained by way of a survey involving thirty-eight international experts. Participants were selected for their expertise in the fields of environmental, social and economic sustainability relating to biofuels in Africa. The survey results suggest that projects which display a high degree of transparency, incorporate local stakeholder involvement, and ideally include local villagers as partners are more likely to achieve sustainable biofuel production. Experts also indicated that reconciling diverse stakeholder objectives alongside the principles of sustainable development remains an ongoing challenge. A process is recommended for sustainable biofuel development, which attempts to harmonise efficiency, stakeholder interaction and the integration of diverse stakeholder perspectives. To support the process, it is recommended that an advisory/mediating body that acts according to best practice principles would be of great assistance. Such an advisory/mediating body would be conversant with local land, social, economic and environmental conditions, project sustainability and administration, and also advise on biofuel framework educational needs.     

Towards an integrated framework for sustainable innovation

Sustainable innovation represents a current challenge for companies, as firms need to change the way they design, develop, produce and distribute products and services. Therefore, this paper proposes a new framework to be used as a reference guideline for organisations to define a roadmap, specific actions and projects to achieve sustainable innovation, integrating four key enablers. The first enabler is mass customisation (MC), which targets the identification and compliance with customers' specific needs and requirements in order to achieve customer‐driven design. At the same time, the sustainable development (SD) paradigm is taken into consideration, where for any new product or service, companies analyse the benefits, risks and impacts of not only economic factors, but also social and environmental implications. The third enabler is linked to the value network (VN), where innovations happen owing to the active collaboration and distributed knowledge of partners inside and outside the company. Finally, the fourth and last considers the complete product and service life cycle (PSLC), where the three sustainable elements are identified and analysed in each single business process. Two case studies, (footwear sector and water treatment plants) are described to show the validity and successful deployment of the proposed framework in real industrial scenarios.     

Life cycle assessment tool of electricity generation in Portugal

This paper investigates multi-stakeholder arrangements initiated by businesses and NGOs from the North that aim to enhance a more sustainable agricultural production at specific localities in Southern countries. We aim to better understand the search for concerted action in multi-actor arrangements. Therefore, this paper presents a diagnostic framework with three strategic challenges the partnership projects are facing: linking global economic objectives to local needs, values and interests; bridging public and private interests and responsibilities; and seeking trade-offs between social, environmental and economic values. Starting from the partnerships’ Theory of Change, this diagnostic framework is applied to comparative case studies of partnership projects in the cocoa sector in Indonesia, which are part of a Northern-based public–private partnership to improve farmers’ prospective. It is concluded that the economic reality faced by the farmers differs from that of the Northern actors; collaboration with governments is difficult because of different organizational cultures; and the partnership projects underestimate the strength of vested social relations the smallholders are part of. Overall, the initiators of the partnerships seem to work with a too restricted economic interpretation of the local reality.     

Using the Framework for Integrated Sustainability Assessment (FISA) to expand the Multiregional Input–Output analysis to account for the three pillars of sustainability

Decision makers interested in promoting sustainable development must simultaneously consider the environmental, economic and social implications of any action. This article proposes the Framework for Integrated Sustainability Assessment (FISA), a methodological framework for conducting a sustainability impact assessment of any investment project. Based on a Multiregional Input–Output (MRIO) framework, FISA links the extended MRIO results with social risk data from the Social Hotspots Database (SHDB) in order to integrate the social with the environmental and economic pillars. Resulting impacts are simultaneously considered and reported by means of FISA charts, making it possible to assess the different impacts within the three sustainability pillars across countries involved in the whole supply chain of investment projects. This methodological framework can be applied not only to compare the sustainability impacts of two alternative projects, but also to derive specific recommendations aimed at minimizing the harmful social, environmental and economic effects along the whole project supply chain.     

循环经济促进法律责任研究

循环经济促进法律责任是主体共同而有区别的责任,主要体现为清洁生产、能源节约、生态设计、可持续的消费和环境友好的废物管理等方面的义务要求.环境外部性理论和环境法基本原则为循环经济促进法律责任设计提供了理论依据.国家的循环经济促进法律责任的主要内容是制定并监督实施符合循环经济要求的基本法律、政策、标准和要求等.企业的循环经济促进法律责任主要是采用无毒、易降解、资源和能源消耗少、耐用、便于回收和再生利用的环境友好产品设计和生产技术等.消费者的循环经济法律赍任是:通过支付价格为产品的环境影响承担经济责任.同时对责任配置的规则、延伸生产者责任的合理性与限度进行了探讨,主张我国循环经济促进法律责任设计应重视成本收益分析、考虑具体国情,实行强制与经济激励并重.     

Exploring regional futures,tools and methodologies

The new English regional governance framework presents fresh opportunities to direct regional development in a more sustainable direction. However, for the North West region it is yet to be seen how these aspirations can be reconciled with the strong 'pro-growth' aims of the regional economic strategy. Within this context, the nature and findings of two interlinked projects which aimed to investigate and model regional development processes are presented. The first, 4-sight, is a resource flow audit for the promotion of sustainable resource management. Focusing on mineral flows, a mass balance methodology is used to facilitate a clearer connection between the use of resources and the generation of waste. Findings from 4-sight were then used in a second project, Atlas^NW, involving the development of a digital atlas and future scenario model. Both projects make a useful contribution to the regional sustainability agenda through providing data and tools to underpin decision-making. Electronic Publication     

Modelling microbial health risk of wastewater reuse: A systems perspective

There is a widespread need for the use of quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) to determine reclaimed water quality for specific uses, however neither faecal indicator levels nor pathogen concentrations alone are adequate for assessing exposure health risk. The aim of this study was to build a conceptual model representing factors contributing to the microbiological health risks of reusing water treated in maturation ponds. This paper describes the development of an unparameterised model that provides a visual representation of theoretical constructs and variables of interest. Information was collected from the peer-reviewed literature and through consultation with experts from regulatory authorities and academic disciplines. In this paper we explore how, considering microbial risk as a modular system, following the QMRA framework enables incorporation of the many factors influencing human exposure and dose response, to better characterise likely human health impacts. By using and expanding upon the QMRA framework we deliver new insights into this important field of environmental exposures. We present a conceptual model of health risk of microbial exposure which can be used for maturation ponds and, more importantly, as a generic tool to assess health risk in diverse wastewater reuse scenarios.     

Specifying information needs: improving the working methodology

Specification of information needs is an important step in the design of monitoring networks. Within the framework of Monitoring Strategy 2000+, a programme of the Dutch Directorate General of Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) which seeks to provide innovation in the monitoring sector, a method has been developed to link water management policy to monitoring through specification of information needs. Over the past 2 years, this method has been applied in several projects within the Rijkswaterstaat organisation. Use of this method has led to improvements in the monitoring practice and was judged very positively by the people involved. Nevertheless, the main obstacle to employing the method was the actual translation of policy matters into information products. A special study is carried out, focusing on this aspect within the method, to provide the participants of a project with a mental framework that enables them to clearly specify their information needs. The major requirements for this mental framework are that all participants have a clear view of the process (system), and that they are able to relate their contribution to this process and to the contributions of others (transparency). The first step of the process is to focus the attention of stakeholders on the information they will actually need for decision-making. The next step is to confront the different expressed opinions through the method of the 'devil's advocate', which implies criticising the results of the first step by finding as many as possible arguments against these opinions. This should force the stakeholders to better specify their arguments. The method, its improvements and the results of one pilot project will be discussed in this paper. Electronic Publication     

Sustainable management of construction site big visual data

Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operation and Ownership (AECOO) team up in a multi-disciplinary collaborative system to create buildings and infrastructure. The participating disciplines have reached a state in which traditional methods and forms of input data introduce entropy that compromises sustainable construction in larger projects. It became difficult to reach planned optimum project duration and costs this way. New approaches based on the systematic digitalization of the building lifecycle, from design to demolition, can solve the problem by involving the concepts of building information modeling (BIM) systems and big data. Previous research on BIM and big data only studied the potential for construction performance. In addition to extending research into systems’ thinking and technical sustainability of big visual data, this paper extends our previous work in the area by introducing a new conceptual and technical framework for sustainable management of construction site big visual data.     

THE Clean Development Mechanism: Making it Operational

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a facility for trading `certified emission reductions (CERs) between developing and developed countries, thus saving non-renewable carbon emissions by promoting renewable energy, energy efficiency and/or carbon sequestration projects in LDC's. The purpose of the CDM is to help these latter countries meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol while at the same time promoting “sustainable” development in the former countries, thereby reducing the build-up of greenhouse gases (GHG). This paper examines the progress in achieving a workable CDM in time for the first commitment period (2008–2012), and the kinds of initiatives that can be pursued in the agricultural, land-use and forestry sector in tropical countries. The critical element for the success of the CDM is the participation of a broad cross-section of buyers (ultimately from developed countries) and sellers (from developing countries) of CERs. Trading is the final step, which starts with project formulation, through successful implementation and then certification. This paper lays out a market-based framework for promoting CDM transactions between private sector project developers and traders and public sector policy makers, with regulators, governed by CDM rules, overseeing the smooth running of the CDM. However, as there are numerous players; it is proposed that trial CDM projects be demonstrated with the support of National/International bodies to iron out the problems and come up with practical solutions so that carbon trading can become a reality. Most rules for the CDM were clarified at the 7th Conference of Parties (CP) in October/November of 2001 in Marrakesh. An executive Board (EB) was appointed and this EB is in charge of proposing workable ground rules to promote the CDM. These have to be submitted for approval by the 8th CP in late 2002. Three broad kinds of projects qualify for the CDM, these are: renewable energy projects that will be alternatives to fossil fuel projects; sequestration projects that offset GHG emissions; and energy efficient projects that will decrease the emissions of GHG. It is possible to have a combination of these initiatives. A fourth type covering GHG reduction is omitted. As elaborated in the text, in order to qualify for the CDM, the proposed projects may have to have additional costs when compared to the alternative(s). Two time frames have been agreed for CDM projects to qualify for the first commitment period, namely 7 years (with an option of two 7-year renewals) and 10 years. Also, for land-use, land-use change and forestry projects only afforestation/reforestation initiatives are recognized as being permissible for the first commitment period. These rules seem rather shortsighted, as forestry and/or renewable energy projects usually require more than 21 years to be fully effective. Also, the major cause of deforestation is clearing land for agriculture, not harvesting wood. Therefore, improving agricultural productivity may be the best way to reduce deforestation and its subsequent release of GHGs. These conditionalities should be re-examined when rules for the second commitment period are decided. However, various agricultural and land-use projects are discussed under the existing guidelines which could qualify as CDM projects in the first period.     

武汉市工程地貌条件综合评价

结合武汉市的具体情况，在综合分析的基础上选取了２１个工程地貌条件评价因子，采用层次分析法确定权重和主导因子，将各评判因子模糊量化后，对武汉市城市工程地貌条件进行综合评价，作出武汉市工程地貌条件等级评价图。