State of the Art Industrial Sustainability 2009

Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management, Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2/3, 2009 207

Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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

Marika Arena* and Natalia Duque Ciceri Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milano 20133, Italy E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author

Sergio Terzi Department of Industrial Engineering, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Viale Marconi 5, Dalmine 24044, Italy E-mail: [email protected]

Irene Bengo, Giovanni Azzone and Marco Garetti Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milano 20133, Italy E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: sustainability; definitions; tools; metrics.

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Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Arena, M., Duque Ciceri, N., Terzi, S., Bengo, I., Azzone, G. and Garetti, M. (2009) ‘A state-of-the-art of industrial sustainability: definitions, tools and metrics’, Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management, Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2/3, pp.207–251.

Biographical notes: Marika Arena is a Researcher at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. She received her PhD from Politecnico di Milano in 2007. Her research interests are in internal auditing and management accounting.

Natalia Duque Ciceri is a PhD candidate at the Politecnico di Milano, doing her research in collaboration with MIT at the Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Lab. She earned her Bachelor and Master degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2007. Her research interests focus on the development of products that close the material loops.

Sergio Terzi is a Researcher in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Bergamo. He received his PhD from Politecnico di Milano and University of Nancy in 2005. His research interests are in operations and product life cycle management.

Irene Bengo is a PhD Student in Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. She has graduated in environmental engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2006. Her research interests are in social enterprise and international cooperation.

Giovanni Azzone is a Full Professor of Management Control Systems at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His research interests include performance evaluation in public sectors, management accounting and strategic management and internal auditing.

Marco Garetti is a Full Professor of Industrial Technologies at Politecnico di Milano. His current research interests deals with maintenance management and engineering, product life cycle management and industrial technologies.

1 Introduction

The concept of sustainability was first formulated in the 1987 with the Brundtland Report stating that the goal of sustainability is to “meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1987). Later, in academic debates and business arenas, hundreds of definitions have been proposed referring to a more humane, more ethical and more transparent way of doing business (van Marrewijk, 2003). Several parties tried to foster sustainability proposing guidelines, theoretical models, standards, tools and monitoring instruments, tackling both private companies and public entities. They have been supported by a number of organisations including scholars, practitioners, public bodies, governmental and non-governmental agencies and consulting firms. However, this variety also led to some confusion regarding the linkages and the differences between the various tools, as well as, how to apply them.

To address this matter, the objective of this paper is to review the existing publicly available material ranging from definitions, guidelines, standards, to models dealing with

A state-of-the-art of industrial sustainability 209

different aspects of industrial sustainability, and providing a state-of-the-art on the subject. This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 proposes a theoretical reference framework for identifying the practical questions tackled within the review, adopted as a reading guide of the literature analysis; Sections 3–5 present the review of the relevant documentation based on the above framework; finally, Section 6 discusses some concluding comments, particularly taking into account the role of technology.

2 Reference framework

Though other authors have already carried out a literature review on issues related to sustainability, this paper proposes a different perspective. Most of researchers, that have performed literature reviews in the field, have focused on specific issues, providing an in depths analysis of a particular aspect of the problem such as sustainable supply chain (Seuring and Muller, 2008), performance indicators (Singh et al., 2009), sustainable energy management (Pohekar and Ramachandran, 2004), sustainable tourism (Butler, 1999), clean development mechanisms (Olsen, 2007), etc. Other authors have analysed more holistic aspects of sustainability such as sustainability terms and definitions (Glavi and Lukman, 2007), theoretical models to study sustainability (e.g. Garriga and Melé, 2004), broader research performed on this issue (Salzmann et al., 2005).

This paper, instead, tries to organise the literature on sustainability from an operational point of view, providing companies with an interpretative scheme to go through the plenty of existing contributions. Given the heterogeneity of references on this issue, this work does not enter the details of each model, tool or method proposed, but aims to support companies in understanding which are the available instruments, that could potentially help them to answer to a specific need. Hence, the proposed framework provides a guidance to go through the various references, moving from some basic questions. In authors’ opinion, if a company wants to become more ‘sustainable’, it must actually answer three questions (Figure 1), which represent the three main elements of the proposed framework:

What is sustainability? Which are the meanings, the goal and the scope of a sustainability-based strategy for a due company?

How can sustainability be achieved? Which are the current means of a sustainability-based strategy in the company? Which are the methods and tools that can be applied?

How can sustainability be measured? Which are the available indicators that can explicit to the stakeholders the actual result of a sustainability-based strategy?

The first element of the framework (What is sustainability?) includes contributions dealing with what is meant with sustainability. The proliferation of alternative definitions of sustainability, during the 1990s, has created a situation where this concept means many things to many constituencies (Johnston et al., 2007). Several documents have been issued by different entities to attempt to define sustainability in both theory and practice. Further, these definitions have often evolved over time reflecting the evolution of the concept itself. Even though it is true that sustainability can take on different definitions and dimensions, depending on its content, the aim of the authors here is to collect as many of the current different concepts, pertinent to industrial practices that evolve around sustainability.

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Figure 1 Reference framework, key reading guide of the state-of-the-art

What sustainability is?

How sustainability can

be achieved?

How sustainability can

be measured?Delta T

Stakeholders

The second element of the framework (How can sustainability be achieved?) deals with the plethora of existing tools, methods and instruments that a company can apply to ‘go towards sustainability’. In the last decade, a rising number of tools, methodologies, guidelines, etc. for pursuing and managing industrial sustainable practices have gained international acceptance. These include instruments such as ISO 14001, life cycle assessment (LCA) (e.g. Rebitzer et al., 2004; US EPA, 2006), cleaner production (e.g. UNEP, 2007), ecological footprinting (e.g. Wackernagel et al., 2002), factor X (e.g. Robèrt et al., 2002), green engineering (Anastas and Zimmerman, 2003), the natural step framework (e.g. Hawken, 1995), product stewardship (i.e. EPA-based tools) among others. These tools are very diversified in their scope: some of them cover a specific aspect of sustainability (e.g. ecological footprinting is a method for measuring human demand on bio-productivity and measuring the potential effect of remedial policies (Wackernagel et al., 2002)), while others entail a broader perspective dealing with how to improve sustainability in general (e.g. the reports developed by the United Nations Environment Programme – UNEP 2007 – covering topics of Life Cycle Management in practice within the various departments of a company).

The third element (How can sustainability be measured?) deals with how to measure sustainability, in order to monitor the state of a system and evaluate its progress towards or away from the stated goal. This is a relevant issue as measurement systems often represent the primary channel through which the results of public and private constituencies can be communicated to stakeholders.

It is clear that there are linkages among the three elements of the framework. In particular, there is a hierarchical dependency among them: a company must

1 first understand on which meanings and dimensions of sustainability can act defining its strategy

2 then it has to take the most appropriate actions to implement such a strategy

3 finally, measure the results achieved.


Furthermore, in the framework there is a relationship of mutual influence between ‘tools’ for implementing sustainable-oriented strategies and ‘systems’ for measuring its performance. On the one hand, the choice of the measurement system may derive from the specific tool implemented; on the other hand – at least in some cases – the identification of a certain set of sustainability indicators can foster the adoption of certain operational tools.

This paper reviews the literature according to this framework as follows: contributions analysed are presented in a functional way, in order to help companies to understand the contributions that can support them to implement a correct strategy for sustainability. This is necessary to:

1 identify the dimensions of a strategy for sustainability

2 identify the tools available to implement each strategy

3 define the set of indicators to measure and to monitor results.

In doing this, also the specificities of the context in which the company operates might be taken into account.

3 What is sustainability? The dimensions of a sustainability-based strategy

This section outlines contributions that can help companies to understand what the meanings of sustainability are and then identify the objectives of their strategy for pursuing it. Usually, literature refers to three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social and economic. However, this classification is very broad and therefore could not be sufficient to operationally support companies in selecting a specific strategy. Therefore, this view might be further specified with a more detailed analysis of the relevant dimensions concerning environmental, social and economic sustainability. This would enable companies to identify more specific issues they can act on; for example, a company interested in energy efficiency, as part of the broader issue of environmental sustainability.

To this scope, the literature review is organised on two levels:

1 a macro level, including the contributions addressing the issue of sustainability in a broad sense, distinguishing between environmental, social and economical sustainability

2 a micro level, highlighting the contributions that tackle more specifically how companies can act on the different dimensions.

Thus, defining the three-questions framework in Figure 1, as the first level of our analysis, the two above-mentioned categorisations correspond to its second (Section 3.1) and third levels (Section 3.2).

3.1 Broad definitions of sustainability

Table 1 presents contributions tackling general definitions of sustainability, with reference to the environmental, social and economic dimensions. This review includes contributions, which provide operative inputs to companies, therefore broad discussions

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on sustainability or pure philosophical perspectives have not been included. The references included in Table 1 can be classified into three categories:

1 conceptual papers

2 empirical papers

3 regulatory and normative references. Table 1 References including broad definitions of sustainability

References Environment Social Economical

ACBE (1997) Amnesty International (2004) Ayres et al. (1998) Azzone and Noci (1996) Azzone et al. (1996) Blair et al. (2004) Bansal and Roth (2000) Barreto et al. (2007) Baud (2008) Bianchi and Noci (1998) Cramer (2002) Dias-Sardinha et al. (2002) Emerson (2003) Epstein (1996) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Fiksel (2003) Fowler and Hope (2006) GEMI (2004) Glavi and Lukman (2007) Gutowski et al. (2005) Hawken (1995) Hubbard (2006) Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005) ICHRP (2002) IPCC (2007) ISO 14001 (2004) Jørgensen et al. (2008) Kloepffer (2008) Korhonen and Seager (2008) Leipziger (2003) Maon et al. (2008) Martel et al. (2003)


Table 1 References including broad definitions of sustainability (continued)

References Environment Social Economical

Maxwell et al. (1997) Miles and Covin (2000) Noci and Verganti (1999) OECD (2000) Preston (2001) Ramos and Melo (2006) Rao and Holt (2005) Rao et al. (2006) Rebitzer et al. (2004) Robèrt et al. (2002) SA 8000 (2008) Searcy et al. (2005) Searcy et al. (2008) Seliger et al. (2008) Sharma and Henriques (2005) Sharma and Ruud (2003) SIGMA Project (2003e) SIGMA Project (2003f) SIGMA Project (2003i) Simpson et al. (2004) Taplin et al. (2006) UN (2000) UNCTAD (2008) Waggoner and Ausubel (2002) Walton et al. (1998) Welford et al. (1998) Yongvanich and Guthrie (2006)

Conceptual papers attempt to define the concept of sustainability from a theoretical point of view, without any empirical application. They differentiate from general discussion of sustainability because they are centred on a definition that is, though at a different extent, operationalised. Among these references, we included papers such as the one by Ayres et al. (1998) that proposes an overview of the concept of weak and strong sustainable development, and Baud (2008) that presents a definition of sustainability in its different components (environmental, social, economical and technological). Other are conceptual references such as the paper by Glavi and Lukman (2007) that proposes a framework to classify and define different concepts, tools, strategies and systems related to sustainability, and Hawken (1995) that moves from sustainability definitions and describes a method of reaching consensus about different aspects of sustainability.

Empirical papers move from the definition of sustainability to discuss some practical cases and/or analyse the diffusion of sustainability practices. For instance, Barreto et al.

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(2007) refer to green manufacturing and analyse examples from six different companies, defining the methodology to identify manufacturing approaches that minimise waste and pollution in product design and production. Maxwell et al. (1997) move from sustainability definition to stress the advantages related to environmental strategies. This paper focuses in particular on the implementation phase, describing the environmental strategies implemented at Sweden’s Volvo Group and at the US’s Polaroid Corporation. In a similar way, Gutowski et al. (2005) explore the significant differences which exist in behaviours of firms in Japan, the USA and the EU in response to sustainability, in particular to environmental regulations. This panel report finds that sustainability is emerging as a significant competitive dimension between companies. In spite of differing views on future developments, companies, especially large international companies, have been positioning themselves to take advantage of emerging environmental trends. There are also some empirical papers focusing on specific aspects. For instance, Fowler and Hope (2006) examine three-related strategies of pollution prevention, product stewardship and sustainable development; or Martel et al. (2003) focus on chemical products and processes that eliminate or reduce the use and generation of hazardous substances. Seliger et al. (2008) have dedicated attention to the specific focus of sustainability in manufacturing, defining the concept of sustainable manufacturing.

Finally, regulative and normative references deal mainly with regulative and normative aspects of sustainability. At the UN level, many guidelines and reference documents have been proposed with their relative vision on sustainability, mainly oriented to social and environmental aspects (e.g. UNEP, 2004, 2007), pushing the development of normative and regulations. For instance, the European regulation 1907/2006 presents the normative setting related to chemicals and their safe use (EU Directive, 2006), while many other documents regulate other issues (e.g. EU Directive, 2000, 2002a, 2002b, 2005). International organisations have defined reference standards and procedures with a particular focus on some of the dimensions of sustainability, such as ISO 14001 (2004), mainly dedicated to environmental aspects, or SA (2008), focused on the social dimensions.

To avoid redundancies, papers that present a more disaggregated perspective are included solely in the third level of analysis (Section 3.2).

3.2 Dimensions of sustainability

Among the three traditional dimensions of sustainability, the environmental one has been widely investigated. From the analysis of the literature, it is possible to identity nine main sub-dimensions of environmental sustainability:

1 materials

2 energy

3 water

4 biodiversity

5 emissions

6 waste

7 product and services


8 compliance

9 transport.

The relevant existing contributions are, hereafter, classified according to such sub-dimensions (Table 2). Table 2 References dealing with sub-dimensions of environmental sustainability

References Mat

eria

ls

Ener

gy

Wat

er

Biod

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s

Was

te

Prod

uct a

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ervi

ces

Com

plia

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spor

t

Anastas and Zimmerman (2003)

Ashby (2009) Ball et al. (2006) Chertow (2000) Dahmus and Gutowski (2007)

DEFRA (2006) De Simone and Popoff (2000) EU Directive (2006) Environment Australia (2000) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Facility Reporting Project (2005) FEEM (1995) GEMI (1998) Graedel and Allenby (2003) GRI (2002) GRI (2006) Gutowski et al. (2009) Hauser and Lund (2008) Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005) ICCR (2003) IPCC (2007) Jovane et al. (2008) Jung et al. (2001)

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Table 2 References dealing with sub-dimensions of environmental sustainability (continued)

References Mat

eria

ls

Ener

gy

Wat

er

Biod

iver

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Emis

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s

Was

te

Prod

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nd s

ervi

ces

Com

plia

nce

Tran

spor

t

Knopf et al. (2007) Kolk et al. (2008) Martel et al. (2003) Rao et al. (2006) Rebitzer et al. (2004) Seliger et al. (2008) SIGMA Project (2003a) SIGMA Project (2003b) SIGMA Project (2003h) Smil (2008) Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2004)

UNCTAD (1999) UNCTAD (2004) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) Wackernagel et al. (2002) WBCSD (2000) Weinhofer and Hoffmann (2008)

Many contributions investigated the environmental dimension in terms of resources (water, materials and energy) consumption and depletion and pollution (biodiversity, emission and waste). Also, dimensions concerning human behaviour and activities (e.g. product and service, compliance and transport) have been considered by many authors.

Moving to social sustainability (Table 3), it is possible to underline six main sub-dimensions of analysis: 1 work practices and adequate working conditions 2 diversity and equal opportunities 3 relations with the community 4 social policy compliance 5 consumer health and safety 6 human rights.


Table 3 References dealing with sub-dimensions of social sustainability

References Wor

k pr

actic

es a

nd

adeq

uate

wor

king

co

nditi

ons

Div

ersi

ty a

nd e

qual

op

port

uniti

es

Rela

tions

with

the

com

mun

ity

Soci

al P

olic

y co

mpl

ianc

e

Con

sum

er h

ealth

and

sa

fety

Hum

an r

ight

s

Amnesty International (2004) BLIHR (2003) CCOHS (2008) CEFIC (2006) De Simone and Popoff (2000) EU Directive (2006) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Ethical Trading Initiative (2009) Facility Reporting Project (2005) FEEM (1995) GEMI (1998) GRI (2002) GRI (2006) Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005) ICCR (2003) ICHRP (2002) ILO (1977) Investors in People (2004) Jovane et al. (2008) Jung et al. (2001) Kolk et al. (2008) Martel et al. (2003) Rebitzer et al. (2004) SA 8000 (2008) Seliger et al. (2008) SIGMA Project (2003h) Smil (2008) Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2004)

UN (2000) UNCTAD (2008) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001)

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Table 4 References dealing with sub-dimensions of economical sustainability

References Economic

performance Market presence

Indirect economic impacts

De Simone and Popoff (2000) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Facility Reporting Project (2005) FEEM (1995) GRI (2002) GRI (2006) IPCC (2007) Jovane et al. (2008) Rao et al. (2006) Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2004) UNCTAD (2008) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) WBCSD (2000)

‘Adequate working conditions’ is the most quoted sub-dimension, showing the relevance of industry in sustainability.

Finally (Table 4), contributions dealing with economic sustainability have been classified according to three main issues:

1 economic performance

2 market presence

3 indirect economic impacts.

It is important to note that only those contributions, which consider the economic performance as one of the dimensions of companies’ sustainability, have been reviewed in this paper, while contributions that focus solely on the economic dimension were not considered, since, in this field, some literature reviews already exist (e.g. Erickson and Gowdy, 2007).

4 How can sustainability be achieved? The tools of a sustainability-based strategy

Once understood what sustainability is and what the relevant dimensions are, a company needs to identify which tools can be used to follow a way of operation at a strategic level and along the product life cycle, from design through end of life practices (i.e. to implement the strategy). Academia, governments and business consultants have already proposed many tools, methods, incentives and programmes in the attempt to help firms to follow a more sustainable path in one or through the different life cycle phases. However, the adoption and implementation of such practices are not simple – as the reality


demonstrates – especially because there is a perceived trade-off of adaptation and financial feasibility. Many different aspects have to be taken into account. However, the first thing to consider is to identify the different aspects in which the industry impacts the most, each of the levels of sustainability, as described by many of the authors cited in this paper. For instance, in the case of manufacturing, the identification of energy, materials, waste and regulations to comply with allows practitioners to establish their baselines. Then, the individual tools/methods that will be referenced in this section can provide some starting points and methodologies to support companies tackling each issue (e.g. cradle-to-cradle design by McDonough and Braungart (2002); eco-design specifications by Jeswiet and Hauschild (2008); environmentally conscious manufacturing practices by Knopf et al. (2007)). It is also important to note that practitioners should be aware of the system perspective in which these methodologies have to be introduced. Robèrt et al. (2002) – an article authored by many of these tools’ pioneers – shows that tools like LCA, for instance, rarely influence final business decisions. Even regardless of the emergent understanding of the concept of sustainability, a comprehensive adoption of the existing tools is barely realised within the companies. One reason for this inconsistency is due to the lack of the systems perspective: the existing tools are generally applied as separate solutions, while they might be integrated in a coherent system, given the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of sustainability as a whole.

The analysis of the tools is built on two levels, as it was done for sustainability definitions

1 distinguishing between instruments of general validity (second level of analysis)

2 tools that act on specific dimensions of sustainability (third level of analysis).

Table 5 illustrates the references proposing methods, methodologies, instruments (generally ‘tools’) that deal with how to go towards sustainability, and adopting a broad perspective. As mentioned, a plethora of ‘sustainability tools’ exists: this paper aims at presenting how they address the diverse dimensions of sustainable development, rather than the details about them. The environmental-oriented tools constitute the predominant sub-dimension, compared to the social and economical ones. Furthermore, many contributions propose comprehensive tools (‘overall’ column in Table 5) to be implemented within the companies. To avoid redundancies, references that present a more disaggregated perspective are discussed solely in the third level of analysis (Section 4.2). Table 5 References presenting overall tools of a sustainability-based strategy

References Overall Environmental Social Economic

AccountAbility (2005) Armstrong and Kerr (2004) Barreto et al. (2007) Carlson and Rafinejad (2008) CCOHS (2008) Chertow (2000) Dahmus and Gutowski (2008) EU Directive (2006)

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Table 5 References presenting overall tools of a sustainability-based strategy (continued)

References Overall Environmental Social Economic

EPA (2006) Fiksel (2003) Glavi and Lukman (2007) Hawken (1995) Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005) IPCC (2007) Jørgensen et al. (2008) Pacala and Socolow (2004) SA 8000 (2008) Seliger et al. (2008) SIGMA Project (2003c) SIGMA Project (2003d) SIGMA Project (2003g) SIGMA Project (2003l) Wackernagel et al. (2002) Waggoner and Ausubel (2002)

4.1 Tools to tackle specific dimension of a sustainability-based strategy

Tables 6–8 outline tools addressing more specific issues. Segmental in-depth analysis of the existing contributions focuses on the environmental dimensions more than the social and economic dimensions of sustainability; the economic dimension was not considered separately since the analysis of the literature on managerial tools to improve economic and financial results is not in line with the objectives of this paper.

Many tools for environmental sustainability exist; the most of them deals with resource (materials and energy) consumption. Supporting agencies such as European Environmental Agency (EEA, 2009) in Europe and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the USA are good sources to find different methodologies, tools and data available to support sustainable practices. For instance, to call on some of the tools available in the EPA website, the Toxic Releases Query (EPA, 2009) allows retrieving data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database in envirofacts: the query returns facility information and chemical reports, which tabulate air emissions, surface water discharges, releases to land, underground injections and transfers to off-site locations. Similarly, eGRIDweb is an application that allows the user to select, view and export the latest two years of the Emissions and Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) source of data on the environmental characteristics of almost all electric power generated in the USA. Other supporting tools such as software packages for LCA application are also available; for instance, in the Appendix of the US EPA (EPA, 2006) report, there is a comprehensive list of the LCA software available such as SimaPro, GaBi or other databases created to provide life cycle inventory (LCI) data for commonly used materials, products and processes, such as ecoinvent (Swiss Centre for LCI) or the US LCI database. For companies interested in performing these studies, depending on the needs,


descriptions on each of the capabilities and data requirements for each package are also provided. Also at an international level, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), along with the many supporting UN agencies (e.g. the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, 2007), provide similar contributions to companies and organisations. Table 6 References presenting tools to tackle environmental-based strategy

References Mat

eria

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Armstrong and Kerr (2004) Anastas and Zimmerman (2003) Ashby (2009) Barreto et al. (2007) Carlson and Rafinejad (2008) Chertow (2000) Dahmus and Gutowski (2007) Dahmus and Gutowski (2008) De Simone and Popoff (2000) EMAS (2008) EPA (2006) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Esty et al. (2008) EU Directive (2000) EU Directive (2002a) EU Directive (2002b) EU Directive (2005) EU Directive (2006) Goedkoop and Spriensma (1999) Graedel and Allenby (2003) Gutowski et al. (2009) Hauser and Lund (2008) Hendrickson et al. (2006) IPCC (2007) ISO 14001 (2004) Jeswiet and Hauschild (2008) Kloepffer (2008) Knopf et al. (2007) Martel et al. (2003) Pacala and Socolow (2004) Patlitzianas et al. (2008)

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Table 6 References presenting tools to tackle environmental-based strategy (continued)

References Mat

eria

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Rebitzer et al. 2004 Robèrt et al. (2002) Rusinko (2007) Seliger et al. (2008) SIGMA Project (2003b) Smil (2008) Socolow et al. (2004) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) Wackernagel et al. (2002) Waggoner and Ausubel (2002)

Table 7 Papers presenting tools to tackle social-based strategy

References

Work practices

and adequate working

conditions

Diversity and equal

opportunities

Relations with the

communitySocial policy compliance

Consumer health and

safety

Armstrong and Kerr (2004) BLIHR (2004) CCOHS (2008) Esty et al. (2008) EU Directive (2000) EU Directive (2002a) EU Directive (2002b) EU Directive (2005) EU Directive (2006) Goedkoop and Spriensma (1999) Kloepffer (2008) Martel et al. (2003) Robèrt et al. (2002) Rusinko (2007) SA 8000 (2008) SIGMA Project (2003b) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001)


Table 8 References presenting tools to tackle economical-based strategy

References Economic

performance Market presence Indirect economic

impacts

Armstrong and Kerr (2004) Carlson and Rafinejad (2008) De Simone and Popoff (2000) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Hauser and Lund (2008) Jeswiet and Hauschild (2008) Kloepffer (2008) Pacala and Socolow (2004) Robèrt et al. (2002) Rusinko (2007) Smil (2008) Socolow et al. (2004) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) Wackernagel et al. (2002)

In terms of social and economic sustainability, while Table 3 (Section 3.2) on the social dimension definition revealed how the field is well considered in literature, Table 7 shows how fewer efforts have been placed in term of developed tools and how much room for exploration there still exit on this area. Similar insight relates to the smaller amount of tools tackling sustainable economic strategies assisting companies with the achievement of their financial business objectives, while meeting the constraint requirements from the environmental and social points of view of a general sustainable framework. A worthwhile observation is among the sub-dimensions of social sustainability, in which the most part of the presented tools deal with the social policy compliance and the costumer health and safety. Furthermore, these tools mainly relate to regulations and legislations for the well-being of society – European Directives and regulations such as ELV, WEEE, RoHS, EuP and REACH (EU Directive, 2000, 2002a,b, 2005, 2006).

5 How can sustainability be measured? The indicators of a sustainability-based strategy

Finally, a company should understand how to measure the results achieved. The identification of appropriate performance measurement indicators is critical with respect to two objectives:

1 decision making

2 external accountability.

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If the company has decided to pursue a sustainability-based strategy, the definition of an appropriate system of indicators is useful to help managers to understand the achievement of the objectives and implement corrective actions, if needed. Furthermore, the definition of a proper set of indicators is essential to communicate company’s performances to external stakeholders. Sustainability reporting, also referred to as environmental reporting or social reporting, is one of the main tools through which companies can implement proactive sustainability strategies (i.e. achieving a higher market share or obtaining a premium price thanks to more sustainable products and services). In this case, the company has to provide potential customers with accurate information about its sustainability performances.

To measure sustainability, companies should answer two fundamental questions:

1 what sustainability performance indicators should be measured

2 how information should be collected and reported.

References dealing with sustainability indicators are classified (Table 9) according to the type of measure they propose, distinguishing between

1 qualitative indicators

2 quantitative non-financial indicators

3 quantitative financial indicators (e.g. Azzone et al., 1996). Table 9 Indicators of a sustainability-based strategy

Indicators to be measured How information should be collected and disclose

References Qualitative

Quantitative non-

financial Quantitative

financial Reporting process

Indicators requirement

ACBE (1997) AccountAbility (2008a) AccountAbility (2008b) Anastas and Zimmerman (2003) Armstrong and Kerr (2004) Ashby (2009) Atkisson and Hatcher (2001) Ayres et al. (1998) Azapagic (2004) Azzone et al. (1996) Azzone et al. (1997) Ball et al. (2006) Barreto et al. (2007) BLIHR (2007) Borga et al. (2008) Carlson and Rafinejad (2008) Castro and Chousa (2006)


Table 9 Indicators of a sustainability-based strategy (continued)



Quantitative non-




CCOHS (2008) CEFIC (2006) Chertow (2000) Dahmus and Gutowski (2007) Dahmus and Gutowski (2008) DEFRA (2006) Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (2006)

De Simone and Popoff (2000) Dias-Sardinha and Reijnders (2001) Dias-Sardinha et al. (2002) Eckel and Fisher (1992) EMAS (2008) Environment Australia (2000) EPA (2006) Erickson and Gowdy (2007) Esty et al. (2008) EU Directive (2000) EU Directive (2002a) EU Directive (2002b) EU Directive (2005) EU Directive (2006) Facility Reporting Project (2005) FEEM (1995) Fiksel (2003) GEMI (1994) GEMI (1998) Glavi and Lukman (2007) Goedkoop and Spriensma (1999) Graedel and Allenby (2003) GRI (2002) GRI (2006) Gutowski et al. (2005) Gutowski et al. (2009) Hauser and Lund (2008)

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Quantitative non-




Hawken (1995) Hendrickson et al. (2006) Hubbard (2006) Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005) Hussey et al. (2001) INEM (2003) IAEA (2002) IAEA (2005) IISD (2005a) IISD (2005b) IPCC (2007) ISO 14001 (2004) Jeswiet and Hauschild (2008) Johnston and Smith (2001) Jørgensen et al. (2008) Jovane et al. (2008) Kloepffer (2008) Knopf et al. (2007) Kolk (1999) Kolk (2003) Kolk (2004) Kolk et al. (2008) Llena et al. (2007) Martel et al. (2003) Morhardt et al. (2002) O’Dwyer and Owen (2005) OECD (2000) Olsthoorn et al. (2001) Owen (2006) Pacala and Socolow (2004) Patlitzianas et al. (2008) Perrini and Tencati (2006) Ramos and Melo (2005) Ramos and Melo (2006) Rebitzer et al. (2004)





Quantitative non-




Robèrt et al. (2002) Rusinko (2007) SA 8000 (2008) Searcy et al. (2005) Searcy et al. (2008) Seliger et al. (2008) SIGMA Project (2003a) SIGMA Project (2003b) SIGMA Project (2003c) SIGMA Project (2003d) SIGMA Project (2003g) SIGMA Project (2003i) Singh et al. (2009) SIRAN (2004) Skillius and Wennberg (1998) Smil (2008) Socolow et al. (2004) Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2004)

Tyteca et al. (1996) Tyteca et al. (2002) UNCTAD (1999) UNCTAD (2004) UNEP (2004) UNEP (2007) Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001) Wackernagel et al. (2002) Waggoner and Ausubel (2002) WBCSD (2000) Weinhofer and Hoffmann (2008) Wells et al. (1992) Xie and Hayase (2007) Yongvanich and Guthrie (2006)

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It is clear that this part of the review has strong synergies with the first element of the framework: the link between these two issues is very narrow since, in practice, sustainability and its dimensions are often defined by what is measured. For a deeper understanding, in Table A1 in the Appendix, a detailed version of the same Table 9 summarises the main indicators presented in the documents and papers.

References dealing with data collection and reporting are classified based on the specific issue they tackle, namely the requirements with which a sustainability report should comply and the articulation of the reporting process. At this level, the various dimensions (i.e. environmental, social and economic) of sustainability are not defined, since they are not always clearly stated in these kinds of documents.

Table 9 clearly shows that several researchers, practitioners and international organisations have sought to promote the diffusion of sustainability reporting at different levels. Many authors have suggested the indicators to measure and the sets of indicators proposed are widely diversified, with a growing focus on quantitative non-financial measures. Few contributions have even provided a review of the existing assessment methodologies (e.g. Singh et al., 2009).

The reporting process and the quality requirements for such indicators have also been discussed by a number of authors (e.g. ACCA, 2004; Adams, 2004; Azzone et al., 1996; Valeva and Ellenbecker, 2001). In general, there is a common agreement that sustainability indicators should:

Represent the full set of problems affecting the company and the industry. If the set is incomplete, readers may become skeptical and assume the company is reporting only their most favourable performance metrics, whilst concealing less flattering figures.

Consistent with the information needs of different stakeholders. The contents should not be redundant or overly technical, to ensure that the widest possible range of readers can use it to inform in their purchasing decisions. To this end, consumers should be able to compare the same data for different companies.

Reliable, that is, based on data and information whose sources and measurement procedures are known and verifiable.

Despite the fact that there is theoretical agreement on what is required from sustainability reporting, recent analyses show corporate behaviour to be far from satisfactory in practice. Firstly, corporate sustainability reports often give only a partial picture that fails to cover the full set of problems relevant to the company and the industry (e.g. Milne and Gray, 2007; Vormedal and Ruud, 2006). Furthermore, in many cases sustainability reporting focuses chiefly on environmental issues, with less emphasis on social performance, and thus do not meet the requirements for ‘true social sustainability’ (Ehrenfeld, 2005). Companies may thus fail to include information of key relevance to stakeholders, resulting in reports that are often not aligned with the stakeholders’ needs (Sinclair and Walton, 2003; Stittle et al., 1997). Secondly, narrative information about environmental and social performance is more common than quantitative indicators (e.g. Vormedal and Ruud, 2006), which limits the ability to compare different companies’ performance (Milne and Gray, 2007). Finally, recent research has also called into question the reliability of sustainability reporting, showing that companies tend to mainly present their ‘good’ performance (e.g. Hubbard, 2006; Jones et al., 2005;


O’Dwyer and Owen, 2005). This situation suggests that there is room for further research in this area, with the specific scope of enhancing the quality of how indicators are monitored and what is reported.

6 Achieving sustainability: the role of technology

Many authors (e.g. Jovane et al., 2008; McDonough and Braungart, 2002; Seliger et al., 2008; Socolow et al., 2004; Waggoner and Ausbel, 2002) have considered in their contributions the relevant role that technology development has towards sustainability. For many of these authors, technology is a pertinent element of the sustainability concept: the modern industrialised world cannot survive without a continuous technology development and evolution and technology itself is part of the sustainable development. In detail, the question on whether technology can solve the catastrophic environmental and social threats have been formulated and explored in many ways by different scientists. For example, Chertow (2000) underscored that technology, although associated with both disease and cure for environmental harms, is a critical factor in environmental preservation (and is therefore included in the environmental dimension). The IPAT equation, formulated over 30 years ago, explicitly includes technology as a determinant of the environmental impact (I), which is actually function of population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T). The various forms the equation has taken over these years are an evidence of a shift towards a more accepted view of the role that technology can play in sustainable development. Even though the equation was originally thought to determine which of the three elements has a greater environmental impact, it can also be seen from a different perspective. The equation, indeed, may be used to highlight the need to find a balance to face the population increase and affluence with the technology innovations that could provide new solutions to the problem.

By its nature, sustainability has a global dimension and most of the major challenges cannot be solved in one isolated region of the world. The so-called ‘civilised’ world is largely relying on the sale-of-goods model, which has led industrial competition within the capitalistic system for decades. This way-of-life is based on products (e.g. for living, for transportation, for dressing, for eating, etc.), which need to be designed, manufactured, used, maintained, recycled and/or finally dismissed. Till now, although this model has achieved high efficiency in the production of goods, it did not consider the associated consumption of global resources, thus consuming a large amount of them. As global sustainability indicators show clearly (e.g. Seliger et al., 2008), current patterns of mass production of cheap goods and over consumption of products with a short use, cannot be indefinitely sustained for the future. However, as some foreseeing authors have already shown (e.g. Jovane et al., 2008; Lovins et al., 1999; McDonough and Braungart, 2002), some major shifts in business practices could help in moving towards a more sustainable approach to industrial production. These shifts are mainly related to technology-based improvements, such as (Lovins et al., 1999):

Increasing the productivity of natural resources: for instance, adoption of energy efficient manufacturing practices, improvements in the use of raw materials, new production processes and all other measures that may reduce the impact of the manufacturing activity on the environment, by substantially decreasing the amount of natural resources needed for a given level in the output of manufactured products.

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Shifting from overconsumption based to biologically inspired production models:that is, investment in all techniques and organisational models that pursue a ‘biological style’ into the management of products during their life cycle (to maintain, repair, re-use, retrofit products during their active life phase and to disassemble, re-manufacture, recycle products during their end-of life phase, etc.), thus allowing an optimised use of products during their active life and henceforth of involved materials/resources, which are re-routed to a new life or to the natural environment when the end of life cycle is reached.

Moving from an ownership based to a solution-based business model: this approach may have a strong impact on the current business model for manufacturing, which is based on the sale-of-goods principle (where value is given to the customer through a physical product). Value can be instead delivered through a flow of services and a shift is suggested (wherever possible) from an owner approach in product use to a ‘user’ one (i.e. products are not sold but are offered in a pay per use way).

Reinvesting in natural capital: it means to restore, sustain and to expand the health of the natural ecosystem as a way to guarantee future support of the nature to the human life and to production of goods as an activity of the human being.

According to this view, technology – in its wider definition – can support sustainability, which can be physically achieved through the optimisation of the use of resources along the whole product life cycle, while retaining the same quality of products and services. Evidently, technology development can support all the humanity to reach a more sustainable live, avoiding to resign from the reached standard of living and go back in times and live like ancestors. In fact, while it is true that there existed past civilisations with great levels of development which disappeared, it should mean that the current civilisation can learn the lesson and use the great advances in technology and transfer systematically for positive purposes. The concept of appropriate technology helps promoting a positive relation between human (social and economical) needs and environmental constrains.

Appropriate technology promotes the vision of a science at the service of global society for positive purposes since it fosters the transformation of natural resources into products by pursing a progressive reduction of costs, a lower environmental impact and a higher social benefit (Jovane et al., 2008). For instance, according to a number of experts in the field, humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century (e.g. Pacala and Socolow, 2004). For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) has already claimed that “technologies that exist in operation or pilot stage today” are sufficient to follow a less-than doubling trajectory “over the next hundred years or more”. Similarly, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can provide a relevant contribution for achieving a more sustainable way of work and life, a more sustainable development, manufacturing and product use. ICTs can become the foundation of new business models compliant with sustainability requirements, can create infrastructures and systems to store and manage relevant information regarding resources and materials (e.g. energy, ground, water, hazardous substances, waste, recycling, etc) and can contribute to enhance the optimisation of resources consumption.


Figure 2 Role of technology in the sustainability concept

Clearly, no single component in this possible ‘portfolio of technologies’ is mutually exclusive for solving the entire problem. Nonetheless, these efforts should be coupled with proper policies, such as laws and regulations, stated by governments and with a new human consciousness starting from the individual and social responsibility.

Given this, the authors would like to further stress and clarify the role of technology within the overall sustainability picture. We should consider that the current way of living of our civilisation (from food to leisure, from transportation to health, from production to culture, etc.) is based on technology, which already encompasses all other involved dimensions (social, environmental and economical). Thus, technology cannot be seen only as a mere tool to help in achieving a more sustainable world, instead technology should be seen as an unavoidable component of the world we live in and, as such, it could be considered as a fourth dimension of the same concept of sustainability (Figure 2).

In this view, technology influences and interacts with the economic dimension (e.g. it allows new business solutions), with the environment (e.g. providing solutions to nature and resource conservation) and with the society (e.g. it supports new living models), besides acting as a powerful tool to give resources for ‘meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987). In other words, it is not possible to look for real solutions to the sustainability issue without considering technology as an integral component of the problem, in fact:

1 technology can act as a tool, but it is also a constraint

2 different technological levels can radically modify the overall picture of the three remaining dimensions.

7 Discussions and conclusions

In the last decades, many authors proposed guidelines, theoretical models, standards, methods, tools and monitoring instruments dealing with different facets of sustainability. The huge amount of documents produced by institutions, scholars and practitioners asks for some guideline concerning the linkages and the differences between these instruments

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and their application. To answer this need, this paper presents a literature analysis addressing sustainability from an industrial operational point of view, trying to provide companies with an interpretative key for reading the different contributions. According to the authors, a company aiming to implement sustainability-based strategies should answer to three questions:

1 what sustainability is

2 how can sustainability be achieved

3 how can sustainability be measured.

The existing literature was classified accordingly to this framework and the analysis of the state-of-the-art lead to the identification of a few open issues, which are discussed as follows.

The first issue that is worth mentioning is the impact of certain context variables. Indeed factors such as the industry and business type could have a relevant impact on the design and implementation of any sustainability-based strategy. The present work was not tailored on specific companies’ characteristics; however the following remarks can be done:

Sub-dimensions of sustainability are influenced, at least partially, by these factors. For example, related to environmental sustainability, biodiversity appear not relevant for a company operating in the financial sector, but the same specific issue is highly relevant for a mining company. At the same level, issues related to waste are more relevant for a manufacturing firm than for a knowledge-based service company.

Also, the tools for implementing sustainable strategies are related to the specific area of concern for the company. For example, tools that can be implemented by a procurement function are necessarily different from tools that can be implemented by a production unit or a design department.

Finally, the adoption of certain measurement systems can be influenced by both the industry and the corporate function. For example, in the environmental dimension, the quantity of pollutant emissions to air (per product unit or per day) is largely determined by the type of production process and the adopted technology; therefore, the indicator is strictly linked with the industrial sector to which the company belongs. Similarly, in the economic dimension, performance indicators for administrative units are fundamentally different from performance indicators for production units.

Based on these considerations, the authors suggest a further investigation for future works that could focus on the proposal of managerial tools to enact the framework proposed. Figure 3 provides a practical example of the conceptual steps that represent the underpinning of the framework as well as the relations between different elements. A company may decide for a short-term strategy to stress one dimension (e.g. the environmental one) more than the other, even if it should be kept in mind that nowadays the urgency to include the three dimensions of sustainability in any long-term industrial strategy is becoming more and more imperative to stay in business. In this sense, tools and measures may be affected by this short-term decision.


Figure 3 Example of the conceptual steps for the application of the proposed framework

Though this framework represents a key to read the literature, it appears enough detailed to guide even an un-informed reader in interpreting different types of contribution. However, it is clear that the enactment of such a framework would require much more details; and this paper may be just a first step in this direction, only providing guidance about the instruments a company can use to address these issues.

In providing frameworks and models for fostering the diffusion of sustainability-based strategies, these specificities should be taken into account, considering that many of the existing tools and models have a still limited usage among the companies (e.g. Knopf et al., 2007; Morhardt et al., 2002; Trebucq, 2008).

A second issue to be discussed is the dynamic nature of the framework proposed. Except the basic definition of sustainability and its main dimensions, each further element of the framework from sub-dimension to tools and measures, may be time dependent: a certain meaning valid at a certain time can change because of external factors. Such factors can reflect the availability of new technology, the enactment of a new law, as well as, the depletion of resources or accumulation of undesirable products. In particular, as introduced in the previous paragraph, technology development plays a relevant – and perhaps unique – role: the introduction of a new technology can change the definition of ‘what is sustainable’. For instance, a certain level of emissions, previously accepted as aligned with the so-called ‘Best Available Techniques’’(BAT, meaning “the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicate the practical suitability of particular techniques for providing in principle the basis for emission limit values designed to prevent and, where that is not practicable, generally to reduce emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole”, as stated in EU Directive, 2008), can be considered as undesirable due to the

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availability of new, cleaner production technologies. The new threshold may also change the tools for implementing it and the performance measurement system should change accordingly. This is the comprehensive, multiplayer and multidimensional challenge defining the road ahead and the options, to be seen as opportunities, for a sustainable future development.

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Appendix

Table A1 Details of the indicators of a sustainability-based strategy

Indicators to be measured

References Qualitative indicators Quantitative non-financial indicators

Quantitative financial indicators

ACBE (1997) Environmental performances

Environmental expenditures, economical

Armstrong and Kerr (2004)

Occupational health and safety, recyclability

Materials, energy, emissions and waste, compliance, work practices and adequate working conditions

Economic and financial performances, cost savings, life cycle cost (LCC) comparison, costs (waste disposal, regulations, labels)

Ashby (2009) Streamlined LCA, human development index plots,

Material attributes and embodied energy recycle fractions, CO2 footprints, transportation figures (e.g. CO2 emissions vs. weight, carbon rating g km 1 vs. energy km 1)

Material values: price per kg of engineered materials, manufactured products, energy price sensitivity cost of ownership

Azapagic (2004) Energy, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, social policy compliance, relations with the society, human rights

Materials, Energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities

Relations with the community, economic performances

Azzone et al. (1996)

Indicators for commitment

Materials, energy, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, compliance, social policy compliance

Amount of monetary resources, environmental fines, liabilities, costs

Ball et al. (2006)

Waste Waste

Barreto et al. (2007)

Energy/CO2


Table A1 Details of the indicators of a sustainability-based strategy (continued)




Borga et al. (2008)

Energy, water, noise, emissions and waste, product and services, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, social policy compliance, relations with the society

Materials, energy, emissions and waste, water, noise

Economic and financial performances

Carlson and Rafinejad (2008)

Environmental health index, non-renewable resource depletion

Resource utilisation, EES (environmental-sink stock)

Normative resource-cost scenarios, profitability index and return on investment, market share, cost/benefit, financial performance of the product

Castro and Chousa (2006)

Materials, energy, emissions, waste, fines

CEFIC (2006) Energy, water, emissions, waste, product and services, work practices and adequate working conditions, social policy compliance

Environmental protection

Chertow (2000) Level of pollution, emissions, population

Affluence

Dahmus and Gutowski (2007)

Material concentrations and recycle rate, materials mixing (bits), design trends (products material value vs. material mixing over the years)

Recycled materials value ($/kg)

Dahmus and Gutowski (2008)

Environmental impacts Resource consumption, efficiency

Price pressures

DEFRA (2006) Product and services, supply chain

Materials, energy, water, emissions and waste, compliance

Environmental fines and expenditures

De Simone and Popoff (2000)

Materials used, waste Efficiency, materials, energy, emissions and waste, compliance

Financial performance of the product, cost/benefit, market performance

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Dias-Sardinha and Reijnders (2001)

Pollution, eco-innovation, eco-ethical, compliance

Eco-efficiency, pollution

Eckel and Fisher (1992)

EMAS (2008) Eco-labels, materials used, compliance, biodiversity

Materials, energy, water, emissions and waste, compliance, transportation


Environment Australia (2000)

Relationship with stakeholders, product and services, supply chain, policy and systems

Materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation

Environmental expenditures, environmental fees, environmental liabilities, benefits and opportunities

EPA (2006) LCA related (materials, energy, water, emissions and waste, compliance, transportation)

LCA related (materials, energy, water, emissions and waste, compliance, transportation)

Erickson and Gowdy (2007)

Energy quality, environmental impacts

Emissions, energy Economic and financial performances

Esty et al. (2008)

Water and air quality, habitat protection, environmental impacts

DALYs/CO2/conservation index

EU Directive (2000)

Reusability, recyclability and recoverability

End-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycle and recovery rates, spare parts

Environmental fees, environmental liabilities, fines

EU Directive (2002a)

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) collection targets


EU Directive (2002b)

Ban of heavy metals and flame retardants, restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS)

Environmental fees, liabilities and fines

EU Directive (2005)

Eco-design of energy-using product (EuP) specs

Eco-design specs (e.g. energy consumption, waste generation, water consumption, extension of lifetime)

Environmental fees, liabilities and fines






EU Directive (2006)

Safe use of chemicals, registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemical substances (REACH), materials, compliance, social policy compliance, consumer health and safety

Emissions and waste, compliance


Facility Reporting Project (2005)

Biodiversity, compliance, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, community involvement, social policy compliance, consumer health and safety, human rights

Materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, social policy compliance

Economic performances, fines

FEEM (1995) Environmental policy and systems, product and service, compliance, training, risk management, energy, water, stakeholder involvement

Materials, energy, water, emissions and waste

Environmental expenditure, economic performance

Glavi and Lukman (2007)

LCA related LCA related

Goedkoop and Spriensma (1999)

Damages to human health, ecosystem quality and resources

Eco-indicator

Graedel and Allenby (2003)

LCA related LCA related Financial performance of the product

GRI (2002) Energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, community involvement, consumer health and safety, human rights, social policy compliance

Materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, consumer health and safety, human rights

Environmental expenditures, environmental fees

248 M. Arena et al.





GRI (2006) Energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, community involvement, consumer health and safety, human rights, social policy compliance

Materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions and waste, product and services, compliance, transportation, work practices and adequate working conditions, diversity and equal opportunities, consumer health and safety, human rights

Environmental expenditures, environmental fees

Gutowski et al. (2005)

Environmental trends and awareness

Global warming, energy efficiency, product take back

Gutowski et al. (2009)

Intensity of materials and energy used per unit of mass of material processed (specific energy or energy) in 20 different manufacturing process

Hauser and Lund (2008)

Materials, compliance, transportation

Energy, emissions, waste Environmental impacts, environmental fees, environmental liabilities, fines, product economic and financial performances

Hawken (1995) Sustainable systems framework

Hendrickson et al. (2006)

All environmental related


Hubbard (2006) Materials, energy, water, emissions and waste, work practices and adequate working conditions, supply chain, relation with the community

Market performance

Hunkeler and Rebitzer (2005)

Social related (work conditions, safety, equity, etc.)

LCA related

IAEA (2002) Radioactive waste Radioactive waste IAEA (2005) Radioactive waste Radioactive waste






IPCC (2007) All environmental related

All environmental related Economic and financial performances

ISO 14001 (2004)


LCA related

Jeswiet and Hauschild (2008)

Toxics LCA related/eco design specs


Jørgensen et al. (2008)

Recognises the lack of these indicators

LCA related

Jovane et al. (2008)

Green technologies/materials/ regulations

Population, emissions, energy


Kloepffer (2008)

SLCA related LCA related LCC

Knopf et al. (2007)

All environmental related/standards/EoL (recyclability, etc.)

LCA related /eco-design specs

Martel et al. (2003)

Waste minimisation, renewable resources, degradation, health and safety

Eco-efficiency Economic and financial performances

Olsthoorn et al. (2001)

Business activity, emissions, waste

Business activity, value lost

Pacala and Socolow (2004)

Billion tons of carbon per year

Patlitzianas et al. (2008)

All energy related (descriptive, basic normalised, comparative, structural, intensity, decomposition, causal, consequential, physical)

Proposed needed indicators (security of energy supply/competitive energy market/environmental protection)

Energy

Ramos and Melo (2006)

Synthetic environmental performance index

Rebitzer et al. (2004)


LCA – ISO4001 Framework

Robèrt et al. (2002)

Dematerialisation, total material flow

CO2, ecological foot printing (EF), factor X, LCA

LCC

250 M. Arena et al.





Rusinko (2007) Company image, product quality, innovative ideas, raw materials, solid waste, recycling

Emissions, water, energy, new customers

Financial performance of the product, cost/benefit, market performance

SA 8000 (2008) Child labour, forced labour, health and safety, freedom of association and collective bargaining, discrimination, disciplinary practices

Working hours, compensation


Seliger et al. (2008)

Toxic materials, resource consumption

Recycling ratios Financial performance of the product, cost/benefit, market performance

SIGMA Project (2003a)

Energy, water, emissions, waste

Energy, water, emissions, waste

Smil (2008) Material, energy, power density


Singh et al. (2009)

Overview of indices on: innovation, knowledge and technology; Sustainability for cities

Overview of indices on: development; eco-system-based; composite sustainability performance indices for industries; product-based; environmental indices for policies, nations and regions; environment indices for industries; energy-based indices; social and quality of life-based

Market- and economy-based indices; investment, ratings and asset management indices

Socolow et al. (2004)

Billion tons of carbon per year


Swiss Federal Statistical Office (2004)

Preservation of resources, fairness, meeting needs, decoupling

Tyteca (1996) Biodiversity, emissions Material, energy, water, emissions, waste

Tyteca et al. (2002)

Certification and disclosures

Material, energy, water, emissions, waste

Business activity

UNCTAD(1999)

Environmental costs and liabilities






UNCTAD(2004)

Water, energy, emission, global warming

Water, energy, emission

UNEP (2004) Biodiversity Biodiversity UNEP (2007) LCA related LCA related Economic and financial

performances Veleva and Ellenbecker (2001)

Materials used, charitable contributions, employee training, injury and illness, waste treatment, disposal, remediation, from renewables

% energy use, water consumption, % take-back, % biodegradable, kg of PBT chemicals, acidification potential, GWP, emissions, solid and liquid


Wackernagel et al. (2002)

Equivalence factors Humanity’s area demands, Earth’s biological capacity

Waggoner and Ausubel (2002)

Emission energy, energy/GDP, percent energy

WBCSD (2000) Waste, energy, emissions, product and service, organisation profile

Material, energy, water, emissions, waste

Economic performances

Weinhofer and Hoffmann (2008)

CO2 emissions

Documents

State of the Art Industrial Sustainability 2009