Digitalization and Industry 4.0 loom large on the horizon of manufacturing. For many companies, they represent the vision of a more sustainable future – and, according to Jan Hedemann from ifu Hamburg, Member of iPoint...
Tag - resource efficiency
Resource Efficiency III: The Quarry and the Factory
One of the more frustrating aspects of research is when the data will not conform to ones expectations. This article consumed much more of my time than I would have liked because I had wondered whether China and...
Resource efficiency II: Offshoring resource consumption
Last year the Economist magazine claimed that “While America and Europe are cutting their emissions by 60m tonnes a year combined, China is increasing its own by over 500m tonnes. This makes it a unique global threat”...
Resource Efficiency: Measuring and Managing Metabolism
Last week’s offering from this blog flew under the banner of “The Circular Economy” – a concept so broad that it might well have been labelled “sustainability”. Like sustainability, the idea of the circular economy is...
The Circular Economy: Another ‘Industrial Revolution’?
The big boys who meet at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos aren’t really into warm fuzzy ideas. For them, money talks and bullshit walks. So the fact that they started talking about the circular economy at their...
How to dismantle the resource efficiency black box in chemical industries
“From Sustainability Reporting to Sustainability Management Control” is the title of the 17th Annual International Conference of the Environmental and Sustainability Management Accounting Network (EMAN) to be held in...
Making an LCA in 1 Hour – How to Get Going with Umberto
SimaPro and GaBi are the most commonly used software tools to conduct a professional life cycle assessment. There is, however, a third solution in this field, one that is capable of not only calculating product life...
Efficiency 2.0 – How to Reveal Hidden Savings Potential with Integrated Energy Management
Adjust all the details, but don’t forget the big picture. That’s the best conclusion you can draw from analyzing industry’s most stunning cases of energy efficiency improvement. You can’t hear it...
5 Steps towards Maximum Resource Efficiency Part 2: Material Flow Modeling, MFCA and LCA Made Easy
Last week, I introduced you to the first three steps small and medium-sized companies need to take to increase their resource efficiency to a maximum. Today, you’ll find the last two of the five steps involved in...
5 Steps towards Maximum Resource Efficiency: Material Flow Modeling Made Easy
When calculating and reducing business-related environmental effects, two different approaches are traditionally taken. There is the product centered concept on the one hand, and the production centered one on the other...