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Sustainability is an increasingly common theme in the business and trade press, at conferences, and in everyday conversation. This white paper encourages manufacturers to integrate sustainability into their corporate strategy to drive economic value add. It reviews the top environmental issues affecting the manufacturing sector and explains how taking action on sustainability can help mitigate perennial business challenges.
HCL Technologies, (HCL) has designed and developed a comprehensive sustainability framework that caters to the specific needs of manufacturing industries. Our vision is to transform organizations through compliance into economic value add for sustainability. This approach focuses on building carbon footprints of all GHG emissions across the entire manufacturing value chain, energy, waste and water management which will help build better internal control, make reporting easier, accurate and timely, thus, enabling the organizations to achieve their business goals.
In recent decades, the expansion of economic activity has been accompanied by growing global environmental concerns, such as climate change, energy security and increasing scarcity of resources. In response, manufacturing industries have recently shown more interest in sustainable production and have adopted certain corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Nevertheless, such efforts fall far short of meeting these pressing challenges. Moreover, improved efficiency in some regions has been offset by increases in consumption and growth in others.
The reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been a top priority for governments, and many have adopted long-term frameworks and targets alongside the Kyoto Protocol to tackle global warming. Interestingly, the current economic crisis facing countries has raised public expectations for greater industry efforts to achieve sustainable development.
Traditionally sustainability is understood 'Triple Bottom Line' approach encompassing economic, social and environmental dimensions.
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The economic dimension of the Sustainability challenge lies in enhancing profitability, increasing shareholder value and creating wealth whilst aggressively pursuing opportunities for growth. The social dimension of the Sustainability challenge is in achieving high rates of economic growth in order to enable all sections of society enhance their quality of life and live with dignity. |
Figure 1: The Triple Bottom Line
The sustainability of a manufacturer is measured by the effect of its operations and its products throughout their lifecycle.
"Sustainable manufacturing processes deploy the optimal use of material and human resources for the long term to produce the desired product."
This would imply designing products that:
consume a minimum of energy in their manufacture and end-use
have minimal carbon footprints in their manufacture and end-use
have prolonged useful lives, and modular parts to extend the useful lives of components
are composed of parts that are recyclable and reusable to the greatest extent possible
consume a minimum of water in their manufacture
are composed of materials that have minimum possible impact on biodiversity
produce minimal, air, water and other pollutants in their manufacture and end-use
IT's role in addressing sustainability objectives is limited to Green IT, or reducing the use of energy in data centers. While the savings can be substantial, the fact is that only 2% of all carbon emissions can be traced to this source. The use of IT lies in addressing the remaining 98% of carbon emissions!
One idea in particular the triple bottom line shown in Fig. 1 emerged as the business case for sustainability. This philosophy suggests a more holistic approach that relies on the principles of economic prosperity, environmental stewardship and corporate responsibility. Without metrics to define the achievement of sustainability, success in this arena cannot be measured.
The industrial sector (including mining, agriculture, fishing, and manufacturing) accounts for 31 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, the largest share of any sector including transportation (28 percent), residential (22 percent), and commercial (19 percent). 33 Manufacturing accounts for two-thirds of the industrial sectors energy consumption. Natural gas and traditional electricity accounts for most of the manufacturing sectors energy sources. While 47 percent of manufacturers reported average progress or better towards world-class green and sustainability measurement benchmarks in a recent survey, only 13 percent described their green measurement systems reviews as including regular monitoring or transparency. Only one-third of the manufacturers surveyed report having more than three-quarters of their sales volume from products that are recyclable and/or reusable
Likewise, they are responsible for 36% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (IEA, 2007). Manufacturing industries nevertheless have the potential to become a driving force for the creation of a sustainable society. They can design and implement integrated sustainable practices and develop products and services that contribute to better environmental performance. This requires a shift in the perception and understanding of industrial production and the adoption of a more holistic approach to conducting business.
The environmental impact of industrial production has historically been dealt with by dispersing pollution in less harmful or less apparent ways. Driven in part by stricter environmental regulations, industry has used various control and treatment measures toreduce the amount of emissions and effluents. More recently, its efforts to improve environmental performance have moved towards thinking in terms of lifecycles and integrated environmental strategies and management systems, and companies have also begun to accept larger environmental responsibilities throughout their value chains.
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Synergise |
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Revitalze
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Expand
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Manage
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Prevent
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Treat
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Industrial ecology
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Integrate systems of production; Environmental partnerships; Eco-industrial parks
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Closed-loop production
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Restructuring of production methods; Minimising or eliminating virgin materials
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Life-cycle thinking
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Extending environmental responsibility; Green supply chain management; Corporate social responsibility
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Eco-efficiency
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Systematic environmental management; Environmental strategies and monitoring; Environmental management systems
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