Allen J. Clegg

Environmental leadership and competitive advantage through environmental management system standards

Stakeholders exert pressures on businesses to demonstrate environmental responsibility. However, it is the source and extent of such pressures that determine business response. At present it would appear that the principal pressure on UK businesses to demonstrate environmental responsibility is that exerted by government through legislation and regulations. Businesses must comply with such legislation or risk punitive action. Compliance is the basis of environmental responsibility. However, businesses may elect to go beyond compliance which implies that they are implementing a leadership strategy, balancing risk against competitive advantage. An environmental leadership strategy can provide competitive advantage for a company in two ways: firstly, by catering for a demand in the market place for environmentally responsible products or services ahead of its rivals; secondly, by generating cost savings from practices that conserve energy and materials and reduce waste. Companies that have determined that their strategy should be one of environmental leadership will want to publicize this to their stakeholders. One way of doing this is through an environmental management system standard. This paper presents a case study on Autosmart Ltd., one of the first companies in the UK to obtain BS7750. The case study describes the motives for seeking certification, the changes made to products and processes to improve environmental performance, and the commercial and competitive benefits gained through certification.

The role of the engineering community in sustainable development

Welcome to the first issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Engineering (IJSE), a journal dedicated to the transmission of information and knowledge on sustainable development and sustainability for the engineering community. The achievement of the underlining principles of sustainable development, defined as part of a global vision for ‘Our Common Future’, is part of a journey that many experts argue has just begun. The recent meteorological events and the resulting major disasters linked to the impact of global warming and climate change have created unsurpassed interest and support throughout the international community and perhaps most importantly by businesses and governments. This has resulted in an unprecedented explosion in research driven by the needs to reduce the impacts of global warming and to conserve rapidly depleting resources. At the same time tremendous opportunities have been created for the engineering community to develop methods, technologies and tools which can transform the realisation of sustainable development principles from a conceptual vision to a common reality. Engineering is a term that covers a diverse range of skills, knowledge and expertise, so how can a single journal cover all the engineering interests? Add to this the range and complexity of sustainable development and sustainability and it might seem to be an impossible task. Nevertheless, we have launched the Journal with the premise that engineers have a major responsibility for, and role in, the development of sustainable solutions and that such solutions will require ‘multi-disciplinary skills’. Sustainable solutions will require lateral thinking and knowledge transfer between engineering disciplines, and therefore what better way of supporting these needs than by developing a multi-disciplinary journal that encourages sharing of knowledge between engineers whatever their background? The benefits of this multi-disciplinary research approach are highlighted by several papers in this first issue. For example, there are three papers that highlight the importance of modelling and incorporation of user and consumer behaviour in the sustainable engineering paradigm. They have demonstrated the achievement of this goal using a variety of case studies. Lockton et al. review approaches that have been used to change user behaviour to make the user more efficient and discuss examples for the implementation of user-focused considerations in sustainable engineering and eco-design. Wever et al. continue this theme with their paper that seeks to break the historical approach in which actions to mitigate a product’s adverse effects on the environment were based on those factors under the control of the manufacturer. They focus instead on the way in which users interact with the product. The authors have reviewed appropriate strategies to enable designers to consider user behaviour and provide a case study for an energy meter. Although the importance of the consumer is also emphasised by Short, his premise is that economic sustainability for a manufacturing business is the essential pre-requisite to sustainable products and processes as only those businesses that produce products desired by consumers can survive to practice sustainable engineering. The fourth design-oriented paper considers the inter-relationship between product design and endof-life treatment. Product recovery at end-of-life (EoL) is advocated as a method of conserving resources and reducing waste but what are the product properties that are essential to optimise the value attainable from (EoL) products? Johansson addresses this question in his paper and, from quoted case studies, concludes that there are four principal product properties (denoted disassembly properties) that should be considered at each phase of the product development process. These design-oriented papers are complemented by two papers that consider manufacturing issues, Rao proposes a methodology for the environmental impact assessment of manufacturing processes using a combinatorial mathematics based decision making process. He presents a manufacturing example that demonstrates how alternative manufacturing processes can be evaluated and ranked to enable the producer to make an informed choice between competing processes. Waste minimisation, in the industrial context of printed circuit board manufacture, is considered by Bains et al. The authors report the evaluation of novel processes such as special electroplating techniques, advanced oxidation methods to International Journal of Sustainable Engineering Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2008, 1–2

Bio-plastics in the context of competing demands on agricultural land in 2050

Recent trends in the bio-plastics industry indicate a rapid shift towards the use of bio-derived conventional plastics such as polyethylene (bio-PE). Whereas historically a significant driver for bio-plastics development has been their biodegradability, the adoption of plastics such as bio-PE is driven by the renewability of the raw materials from which they are produced. The production of these renewable resources requires the use of agricultural land, which is limited in its availability. Land is also an essential requirement for food production and is becoming increasingly important for fuel production. The research presented in this paper envisages a situation, in the year 2050, where all plastics and liquid fuels are produced from renewable resources. Through the development of different consumption and productivity scenarios, projected using current and historic data, the feasibility of meeting global demands for food, liquid fuels and plastics is investigated, based on total agricultural land availability. A range of results, comparing low-to-high consumption with low-to-high productivity, are reported. However, it is from the analysis of the mid-point scenario combinations, where consumption and productivity are both moderate, that the most significant conclusions can be drawn. It is clear that while bio-plastics offer attractive opportunities for the use of renewable materials, development activities to 2050 should continue to focus on the search for alternative feed stocks that do not compete with food production, and should prioritise the efficient use of materials through good design and effective end-of-life management.

Eco-Design Tool to support the Use of Renewable Polymers within Packaging Applications

Bioplastics derived from renewable polymers such as sugars, starches and cellulose, have attracted significant interest from companies looking to reduce their environmental footprint. New production capacity and improved materials have resulted in their increasing adoption for mainstream consumer products packaging. However questions remain regarding their overall environmental benefits and how the maximum environmental gain can be achieved. These uncertainties highlight the need for a decision support tool to aid the packaging design process. This paper examines the issues surrounding bio-derived polymer use and discusses the development of an eco-design tool to assist in their rapid and efficient adoption.

The dynamics of regions and networks in industrial ecosystems

the economist’s perspective, the conservationist’s perspective, the project developer’s perspective, the nongovernmental organisation’s perspective, the retailer’s perspective, the credit originator’s perspective, the investor’s perspective, the buyer’s perspective and even the bank’s perspective. This chapter in fact provides the reader with a comprehensive survey of voluntary carbon markets and creates an opportunity for readers to integrate the experts’ opinions from different business sectors in order to formulate a consolidated view on voluntary carbon markets. Finally, Chapter 5 concludes the book by suggesting some unaddressed issues that are worth thinking about and recommending ways in which to move towards the answers. This is a comprehensive text summarising key issues regarding the chosen topic. However, the setting of this book is clearly not suitable for undergraduate students, but this is not a criticism of this book as undergraduates are probably not its target audience. In contrast, this is a very useful book for postgraduate students, particularly MBA students, in business schools. This book makes use of an innovative approach to lay out various contemporary debates and experts’ opinions, which results in an interesting textbook for business students. It is also a valuable reference source for researchers in this area, as the viewpoints from the practitioners provide valuable perspectives that better reflect the needs and issues of voluntary carbon markets.