Sustainable Development in Manufacturing

Definition of Sustainable Manufacturing

Manufacturer and companies in the world has started to change the method of running their business. This change was to include the environmental concerns on their daily manufacturing activities. Manufacturers were force to change when the government realizes that the environmental impact has some relation to the Ecological footprint left by manufacturer. A strict government regulation for all manufacturers was created to make sure that their activity will at all times consider the environment circumstances. In United States, Lake Erie was dead, while in Europe, the Rhine was on fire and in Japan; the people were dying due to mercury poisoning (“Beyond Greening-Strategies for sustainable world” Stuart L. Hart). The importance of sustainable development was shows by the response from manufacturer such as Cargill Dow which has adopted a sustainable statement in his business philosophy.

“Cargill Dow is the leader in producing plastics from renewable

Resources, and is dedicated to meeting the world’s need today without compromising the earth’s ability to meet the needs of tomorrow.”

-Cargill Dow’s business philosophy –

 ‘Application of Life Cycle Assessment to PLA production’-.

In recent years, sustainable developments have become increasingly an important topic due to the decreasing of natural resources and the unbalance ecosystem in the world we live in. It can be seen that many articles, journals and conference report published discussed on the effect of human activity towards the greenhouse gasses, water pollution, air pollutions and more. Various tools and methodology in assessing the environment affect on a product and process has been implemented in various countries and region depending on the local environmental requirement which inherit different priorities and strength. Based on the survey result done by Hartmut Kaebernick and Sani Sara “Environmentally Sustainable Manufacturing: A Survey on Industry Practices, Proceeding of LCE 2006, 13^th CIRP International Conference On Life Cycle Engineering” since 2006, the European is concentrating on the recovery of raw material, United States is developing on remanufacturing and reuse of product and parts, in the meantime Asia-Pacific region are improving on creating a much sustainable manufacturing operations. The survey result shows that countries in Asia-Pacific is still low in considering the implementation of Environment assessment tools during Product Development Stages, compare to much higher developed region such as United States and Europe. Asia-Pacific has shown high awareness in manufacturing activity with the use of cleaner process and the utilization of materials and energy. 

 The Three Pillar of Sustainable Manufacturing

The approaches towards sustainable development are based on a three pillars that is Economical Sustainability, Social Sustainability and Environmental Sustainability. In other words, sustainable development is a development or activity to improve the economic, social welfare and at the same time it improves the environmental condition without compromising future ability to meet the needs of future generations. 

Economic Sustainability is related to the developing a business which creates market for agricultural based product which will invites more research activity, increase career opportunities and other economic benefits both for investors and society.

Social sustainability is more in creating or developing awareness in side all human being that our actions will gives impact towards other living things and the world it self. Therefore, social sustainability can be related to marriage, family, parenting, divorce, community, culture, nationality, and globalization.

Environmental Sustainability is an activity to design and manufacture or produce a product which gives lesser impact towards the environment. In order to be one of the greatest manufacturers in the world, the activity can be implemented as a continuous improvement activity which will be performs either by designers and manufacturing engineers in order to provide more alternatives on their product to make it much safer for society, social and environment. A well known tool for environmental assessment by researcher and engineers for environmental sustainability is known as Life Cycle Assessments. One important factor that needs to put in mind is that, the improvement should not degrade the product performance and quality and at the same time it minimizes the environmental effect.

Sustainable Environment are one of the major factor that contributes towards the success of Sustainable Development. Without environment safety measures, the world we live in will get older and weaker every day and this will result to the degradation of our ecosystem and human life.

Manufacturing is a process that translate raw material to a final product. This translation process uses numerous of energy and at the same time engender waste. If the energy resources are not well managed or highly consume, manufacturing activity will be the major contribution towards the environmental effect. Therefore, every manufacturer cannot run from the fact that their activity will always concern the environment by leaving an Ecological footprint. What is important here is how big is the Ecological footprint are. Even Government and customers expect that investors and manufacturers give awareness towards the environmental properties of all products. This shows by the implementation of EMAS, BS ISO 14040 series which require a continuous improvement in the organization trough environmental management system (EMS). Manufacturing industries has direct impact on the environment trough raw material depletion, waste generated, emission to air and water and energy consumption trough production processes and transportation of raw material and goods. Each stage in the product life cycle generate energy and waste in it own way. Non-renewable resources process during the extraction of raw materials, gas emission t o air during transportations, and treatment of solid waste by land filling or incineration during disposal are some of the example that giving negative impact towards Environmental Sustainability.