The consideration of environmental impacts is more and more present in companies’ policies and strategies. To answer this request, many methods of sustainability assessment have been developed, such as life cycle assessment or circularity assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts and on human health of assessed products or services. These sustainability assessments use sustainability indicators to assess the environmental impacts and on human health. In the literature many sustainability indicators are described; choosing the most adequate one can be a difficult task for the designers who want to assess the environmental impacts and on human health of their designs. Enterprise information systems provide most of the necessary data to the realization of sustainability assessments and enable the implementation of these assessments in the industry. This paper firstly covers a state-of-the-art review on sustainability indicators and how the data issued from the enterprise information systems is useful in practicing sustainability assessments. Then, this paper presents preliminary research work regarding a proposed framework for the data integration of enterprise information systems to help carry out sustainability assessments.
Unplanned obsolescence affects sustainability in automotive, rail, and aerospace sectors. Traditional remediation solutions—storage, repair, remanufacturing, redesign—are chosen based on economic and industrial criteria, ignoring environmental impact. However, this factor is key to selecting the right solution. This article examines the environmental impact of various remediation methods and the factors influencing them. The objective is to provide new insights for integrating environmental analysis into the decision-making process for obsolescence management. This work is the first step in a study aimed at modeling these impacts to incorporate them into decision-support tools for selecting the most suitable obsolescence remediation solution. This analysis is a first step toward developing an environmental assessment method tailored to obsolescence remediation solutions.
Ceramic wares of various types, sizes, and shapes can be found in many homes. They are popularly used to serve food and drinks. Although they have been utilized for centuries, there is a need to assess their potential impacts on the environment. This study utilized the four steps ISO 14044 standard based Life Cycle Assessment process to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of a South African made white porcelain dining plate. Results of the LCA analysis showed that the greatest impact of porcelain plates is Global Warming (GWP), followed by acidification (AP) and then eutrophication (EP). This implies that porcelain plates have the potential to cause significant climate change, aquatic issues, and forest related environmental impacts. Furthermore, the analysis revealed a massive amount of energy and water consumption. Improvements on porcelain plates would require replacing or reducing materials and processes that significantly contribute to GWP, AP and EP at various stages in the life cycle of porcelain plates. In addition, the use of renewable energy will reduce the carbon footprint while water footprint of porcelain plates can be reduced by implementing water reuse and recycling.
Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and End of Life Vehicles (ELVs) are waste streams typically holding high potential in terms of embedded economic value. It is indeed usually rich in terms of critical raw materials content. Furthermore, entire components are often technically reusable, repairable, or can be remanufactured. There are however significant barriers to implementing electronics reverse supply chains, including several related to technical and economic constraints. In this context, in CIRC-UITS Horizon Europe Project, four pilots led by industrial partners are developed with the aim of defining electronics reverse supply chains in Automotive and Household equipment industries. Specific solutions are developed to overcome major barriers and enable the future implementation of such reverse supply chains at industrial scale. They attempt to overcome hurdles related to the low technology readiness level of automated solutions to perform components disassembly, struggles in designing products easy to be remanufactured and repaired, and mismatches between demand and supply of repaired and remanufactured electronic components.
In recent years, the use of biocomposites in structural parts is a promising alternative to synthetic composites made from carbon or glass fiber. The use of biocomposites in structural parts is currently limited to less critical applications due to their lower mechanical performance compared to synthetic composites. This study aims to addresses the current limitations of biocomposites and explore their potential use in high-performance structural part applications. The scientific panorama related to bio-composite and nano composite materials was analyzed through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology specifically for industrial applications like wind energy systems and naval construction. Moreover, this research explores also the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach in reference domain to provide a manufacturing product with more efficient and sustainable features from the environmental and economic perspective. The scientific outcome of this study is capitalized in an empirical experimentation supported by a LCA analysis that provides useful insights in identifying the better material for the research purposes.
