Sustainability solutions for industrial markets
Sustainability activities and related decision-making have taken place for decades, but they are now becoming more visible, formal and focused on results
Sustainability spotlight:
The core components of sustainability
Sustainability is the balancing of various facets when making policy or project decisions, most notably:
- Economic: Building capital, promoting economic growth and increasing profitability and long-term business viability.
- Environmental: Protecting nature and ensuring resources are used responsibly without compromising the needs of future generations.
- Human: Improving human health and welfare.
- Social: Developing workforce skills and fostering cohesion, reciprocity, honesty and benevolent relationships among staff.
Sustainable businesses strive to promote all four of these areas, 1 and focusing on any should involve consideration of the others. 2 Broken down further, sustainability focuses on protecting people and the planet while balancing profit for business continuity. 3
Sustainable development requires an integrated approach that takes into consideration environmental concerns along with economic development. In 1987, the United Nations defined sustainability as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 4
What is sustainability in the industrial sector?
Up until recently, industrial decision-making was focused almost entirely on business economics. For instance, prior to the mid-1900s, smokestacks of industrial factories spewed untold amounts of particulates and chemicals into the atmosphere during production processes, with little or no regard for the emissions’ detrimental effects on the surrounding environment and human health. This is no longer the case, as sustainability has moved to the forefront.
Environmental sustainability is the degree to which a process or enterprise can be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources. 5 Despite this term being relatively contemporary, industry has made dramatic sustainability improvements throughout the 20th century. For example, the energy required to produce one ton of steel decreased from 45 to 15 million BTUs per ton between 1950 and 2010, a time in which the word “sustainability” was not commonly used.
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Economic-ecological interactions
The process improvements in steel manufacturing yielded dramatic reductions in both the consumption of natural resources and carbon dioxide emissions, illustrating how economics sometimes drives industrial sustainability. Sustainability improvements were often unintentional consequences of efforts to improve economics.
However, sustainability and profitability often do not align. For example, pollutant removal from smokestacks benefits the environment and human health, but it comes at the economic cost of purchasing and operating equipment. This becomes increasingly complex because pollution abatement equipment requires energy, which is regularly produced from fossil fuels.
Although sustainability improvements have been ongoing for decades, finding and quantifying sustainability often requires knowing where to look, what questions to ask and how to value it. Implementing holistic and concerted efforts to address these issues by viably planning for sustainability results in better solutions that provide more effective benefits faster and with fewer negative effects, as compared to a haphazard approach.
How can industry become more sustainable?
The implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices must consider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals that were historically overlooked in industrial business decisions. In the past, considerations for process improvement projects were typically based solely on its economic payback, but sustainable manufacturing processes require taking a more holistic view.
Businesses should ask the following questions as they strive to become more sustainable by integrating economic, environmental, human and social elements:
- Can the product be made using different, less environmentally-taxing raw materials?
- Is energy consumption higher or lower with different raw input materials? By how much?
- What results does the modified manufacturing process have on production costs?
- How will changing demand for more sustainable raw materials alter their cost?
- Will customers pay a premium for sustainable products? How much?
- Will using sustainable input materials create more economic opportunities for supply chain partners?
- Will using sustainable input materials improve or degrade an environment for human development?
- How can we decrease emissions?
After consideration, teams can work to implement solutions that pragmatically address these requirements. It should be noted that sustainable manufacturing questions include economics as a focal point because companies cannot survive without making a profit. Therefore, sustainable projects with favorable cost considerations are more likely to be implemented than those that lose sight of economic reality. Identifying efforts, keeping all aspects of sustainability in mind and accurately quantifying these projects’ benefits can be challenging.
While economics are a critical driver, industry must also keep environmental, human and social factors in focus. On occasion, plants have accidents or produce excess emissions in unplanned events. These events have the potential to harm humans and the environment.
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Sustainability processes and technology
Industrial processes are often custom-designed to meet specific production requirements and many operational optimization and sustainable manufacturing efforts are similarly custom in nature. However, some strategies and technologies can be replicated across multiple industries. These include:
- Decarbonization, which is replacing fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, with renewable energy sources like hydro, nuclear, solar and wind to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
- Electrification, which is the conversion of processes conventionally powered by fossil fuels to use electricity, reducing emissions if the electricity is produced from renewable sources.
- Producing and using hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
- Implementing carbon capture, utilization and storage systems to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.
- Developing a circular economy to reduce waste and pollution by reusing items and materials many times before discarding them.
- Conserving and recycling water to reduce raw water requirements.
Many of these sustainability processes and technologies are rapidly developing. In the coming years, experts expect vast progress in these methods’ technical feasibility, environmental efficacy, safety and economic viability. Sustainability solutions are developing quickly and industry must be ready to adopt by considering economic, human, environmental and social factors for continuing operations.
FAQs
Footnotes:
1. The four pillars of sustainability (futurelearn.com)
2. (12) The Three Golden Rules of Sustainability | LinkedIn
3. The Triple Bottom Line: What It Is & Why It’s Important (hbs.edu)
4. https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/sustainability
5. sustainability, n. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary (oed.com)