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Introduction to Sustainability

1.1 Sustainability Definition

Sustainability has many definitions. The most common definition of sustainability has its roots in a 1987 United Nations conference, where sustainability was defined as “meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED 1987). Sustainable materials, processes, and systems must meet this definition and not compromise the ability of future generations to provide for their needs while providing for the needs of the current generation. Thus, for plastics manufacturing, materials and processes used today should not deplete resources for future generations to produce plastic materials.

Sustainability can be measured by the outcomes of using a material, process, or system on the environment, society, and economy. The three components of sustainability have economic, social, and environmental aspects and are related with each other as shown in Figure 1.1.

Materials, processes, and systems can have environmental, economic, and societal impact. Sustainable materials, processes, and systems have all three impacts. For example, the development of materials will have environmental impacts of using raw materials, energy sources, and transportation that come from natural resources, which can create air, land, and/or water pollution; economic impacts are creating commerce, jobs, and industries; and societal impacts are creating roles for jobs and services. Some new materials for clothing were evaluated for sustainability (Provin et al. 2020). They found that relating new materials to the sustainable development goals of 2030 Agenda from the United Nations is necessary due to the important issues presenting challenges at the global level, in relation to the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability.

Figure 1.1 Sustainability definition.

Organizations are often analyzed with a “Triple Bottom Line” approach to evaluate the social, economic, and environmental performances of a company (Vanclay, F., 2004). This approach is the key to creating a sustainable organization. The “Triple Bottom Line” was used for biofuels as an excellent example of a sustainable fuel (Sala 2020). Biofuels meet the new economic paradigms that are related to the green economy, the bio‐economy, and the circular economy. They developed an essential approach to apply life cycle thinking to production and consumption patterns to evaluate environmental and socioeconomic burdens and benefits, in an integrated manner. Lastly, they found that for socioeconomic sustainability, the assessment is going beyond the profit‐ and finance‐oriented perspectives, including instead externalities associated to the activities under evaluation.

Examples of sustainability measures were developed for using a holistic approach from sustainability measurements of technology use in the marine environment (Basurko and Mesbahi 2012). The environmental effects of ballast water were measured with an integrated quantitative approach of sustainable assessment. The systematic approach can provide environmental, economic, and social sustainability for marine technologies.

The sustainable tool allows for the inclusion of sustainability principles to the design and operations of marine products. Sustainability can be effectively incorporated into the design phase of products and services and create reduced environmental, social, and economic impacts. The sustainable tool was created with LabView® software with SimPro® life cycle assessment (LCA) program to provide an integrated approach with a single indicator to reduce the environmental, social, and economic impacts of ballast water effects on the ocean quality. Another approach for the triple bottom line in sustainability was found for biomass ethanol production in China (Wang et al. 2020). They used a multi‐regional input output (MRIO)‐based hybrid LCA to estimate the sustainability of ethanol production in China. Employment, economic stimulus, and energy use were assessed. Bioethanol was found to be more effective on energy savings and economic stimulus than regular gasoline. Second‐generation bioethanol had the highest energy return on the investment. Lastly, supply chain sectors make up the majority of social and environmental impacts.

1.1.1 Societal Impacts of Sustainability

The first aspect of sustainability can measure the impacts of products and processes on the society. The societal impact of using a material and manufacturing process can be measured by the effects on the population and the roles of the workers in the community. Sustainable manufacturing processes are defined as providing proper wages for the workers and a clean and safe work environment. The method and environment of producing a manufactured product can result in impacts on a person, group, and community. In another research work, sustainability was evaluated with supply chain management concepts (Vermeulen and Seuring, 2009). The authors propose three‐generation approaches. Single firm approaches are the first generation. Joint product sector approaches are the second generation. And cross‐sectoral approaches are the third generation. They propose that the various forms of sustainable supply chain governance clarify two aspects that have hardly been addressed in the general analysis of value chains: first, these varying forms of interaction, cooperation, and compelling rules in the value chain are an instrument of competition, partly based on specific quality assets of the products (namely the environmental and socio‐ethical performance of value chain partners), and second, these forms of interaction and cooperation include other types of societal actor – apart from newly created nonprofit governance institutions and their (for profit) auditing and control bodies, consumer NGOs, development NGOs, and environmental NGOs also play diverse roles. They recommend that sustainable supply chain management and governance are important to companies, consumers, NGOs, and even governmental agencies. They propose that the challenges of climate change, energy provision, and creating wealth for an increasing world population will broaden the need for sustainability management and sustainable supply chain management and governance in the near future.

The wages, benefits, hours per week, safety, and other human resources provided to an individual worker contribute to the quality of the product or process and the ability of that product or process to maintain its presence in the marketplace. A workplace that produces a product or process without wages and benefits that are appropriate to the workers in the region can lead to high turnover rates of workers, poor worker morale, and loss of personal buy‐in for workers. The product or service will not be sustainable since it may not last if few workers are available or the environment may suffer tragic losses due to health or safety concerns. Poor working conditions and poor wage structures may benefit the economics of the current company but may lead to poor working environments for future workers and thus is not sustainable.

Sustainable workplaces feature the maintaining of welfare levels in the future (WCED 1987). Welfare can be defined as a subjective measure of the sum of all individuals’ utilities generated from the consumption of goods, products, and services (Perman et al. 2003).

1.1.2 Economic Impacts of Sustainability

The second aspect of sustainability can measure the economic impacts of using a material and manufacturing process to produce products. Sustainable manufacturing processes are defined as providing proper wages for the workers and clean and safe work environments. Economic impacts of sustainability can be measured with a capital approach that can be defined as maintaining economic, environmental, human, and social capital over time for future generations (Kulig et al. 2010). The capital approach can be proposed as a theoretical basis for sustainable development indicators (Atkinson and Hamilton 2003; World Bank 2006; UNECE 2014). The capital approach provides a theoretical approach by measuring all capital stocks in their own units. The capital approach can provide consistent, theoretically sound, and policy‐relevant comparisons between countries (Kulig et al. 2010).

The economic benefits of sustainability were developed for water reuse. Sgroi et al. (2018) found that economics are the major barriers to actual development of water reuse. A holistic approach is needed to evaluate the sustainability of water reuse. Circular economy may lead to a “paradigm shift” to enhance resource recovery. Segregation at source may be a starting point for sustainable on‐site resource recovery. The economic impact of using a material can be measured by the effects on the creation of jobs and industry for communities. The creation of jobs can lead to creation of taxable bases and tangible property. In addition, the use of sustainable materials and processes can lead to reduced energy, transportation, waste disposal, and utility costs for manufacturing operations. Sustainable enterprises can be defined as “Lean and Green,” where manufacturing costs are minimized, and manufactured materials are made with reduced environmental impacts.

Recycling of metals, plastics, glass, paper, wood, waste inks and concentrates, waste...