Natacha Gondran

Estimating the carbon footprint of a road freight firm, perspectives to mitigate these emissions

Make supply chain greener and reduce their carbon emissions is a growing issue for businesses. Among the different activities of supply chains, transportation is one that emits the most greenhouse gases. Whereas transportation, and more specifically road freight, is one of the main contributors of European greenhouse gases emissions, it is one of the only sector whose emissions continue to growth. This paper proposes a study at a micro-economic scale of the estimation of the carbon footprint of a road freight company in 2009. The main objectives are twofold: identifying the main emissions sources and finding the best solutions for a greener supply chains.

Sustainable development training by simulation of an industrial crisis

Sustainable development education raises a problem of knowledge contextualisation. Therefore, the authors developed a situational role play which allows students to better link sustainable development theory with real life situation. In the role play, three stakeholder groups take position and negotiate while other groups observe, in three periodic rounds of negotiation. To evaluate training impacts, a survey was conducted. The results show that students appreciated the game-based approach. It allowed them to develop a systemic way of thinking and understand conflicts and positions of different actors while trying out a consensual process over a period of time.

L’empreinte écologique à l’épreuve des inégalités

Si l’empreinte ecologique est discutee sur le plan methodologique, elle n’en traduit pas moins une realite : notre humanite vit au-dessus de ses moyens. Du moins, une partie de l’humanite. Car c’est bien le mode de vie des plus riches qui est en cause. Depuis une trentaine d’annees et notamment la publication du rapport Bruntland en 1988, la soutenabilite est generalement definie comme la capacite des generations presentes a leguer aux suivantes de quoi repondre a leurs besoins. En particulier, la soutenabilite environnementale vise a preserver la nature afin de permettre a nos descendants d’en beneficier. Pour designer la partie de la nature qui repond aux besoins materiels de l’humanite, les economistes ont pris l’habitude de parler de « capital naturel » : le terme englobe a la fois les ressources naturelles (en amont du cycle economique) mais aussi les « puits », c’est-a-dire les capacites de la nature a retraiter les dechets et les pollutions (en aval du cycle economique). A s’en tenir a un point de vue purement comptable, la soutenabilite environnementale consiste a ne pas degrader le capital naturel qui fournit l’ensemble de ces services ecosystemiques.

Integrating Environmental Assessment Methods: Development of a New Approach

Human activities generate local environmental impacts (on the quality of water, air and soil), as well as global impacts affecting the ecological carrying capacities at world level.

Towards the Integration of Local and Global Environmental Assessment Methods: Application to Computer System Power Management

The 21st century is characterized by the increase of information technologies, whose environmental impacts are now well documented. The consequences of these impacts, their nature but also the difficulty for the users to identify them make IT services to be an interesting case study for environmental assessments.

Ecomatériauthèques: visibility on the environmental impact of materials to help decision-making of designers?

There exists few tools to help the designer to advise or choose a material, to obtain precise information about its impacts on the environment. The question is to know how the existing tools can answer the questions of the designers, if they satisfy their expectancies and if they are useful to help him to have a broader view of the environmental impacts of the product that is designed. Two types of eco-materials library were identified: the tangible materials libraries and the databases. Initially, these various tools and the specific information that they provide on the environmental aspects will be defined. Within this framework, a description of 3 French materials library and 2 data bases will introduce a comparison of the data collected on 2 types of materials, the polypropylene and aluminum. The results of this work will be presented within a workshop with designers. The outcome of the workshop will orient the reflection on the level of information that is necessary for the designer in his work The final objective is to answer, with the designers, to the following questions: Are the existing tools sufficient? Can one single tool answer the totality of expectancies? Is it necessary to use a series of tools to answer expectancies? In this case, do the designers need a guide to know the type of information that is provided by the different tools in order to facilitate their approach? Is a new tool necessary? Which specific form must this new tool have? Which type of environmental contents and information does it have to propose in order to be used in varied contexts and to answer the needs of designers without being too far from scientific rigor?