Conference Papers & Presentations (Sustainable Life Cycle Management)
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4004
2024-03-29T09:02:36ZManagement of imported supply chain products – incorporating country-specific sustainability criteria in life cycle decision analysis
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4926
Management of imported supply chain products – incorporating country-specific sustainability criteria in life cycle decision analysis
Sustainability criteria for life cycle management in the South African context
differ from other regions of the world. From an environmental perspective, natural water resources are limited and significant losses of topsoil have been experienced, which is seen as an important agricultural resource. Water and land should therefore be considered as specific criteria where certain materials or components in the automotive life cycle rely heavily on these resources, e.g. leather and natural fibres for interior finishing. Also, waste management was not given a high priority historically, which has resulted in the lack of long term planning, information, legislation and the capacity to handle waste streams.
Similar to the use of water and land, waste streams that influence the ambient quality of air, water and land resources are important factors in the life cycle management of materials and products imported from South Africa. Furthermore, from an economic perspective, mined resources are important and the impact on current reserves must also be considered together with the other environmental resources. Two examples are given of automotive components exported by the manufacturing sector in South Africa and their related impacts.
2002-11-15T00:00:00ZLife cycle check as a decision support tool for medical waste management in underdeveloped areas of Africa
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4925
Life cycle check as a decision support tool for medical waste management in underdeveloped areas of Africa
Rogers, David E.C.; Rohwer, Mark B.
In most developing countries, the emphasis for health care has moved to community preventative services and away from district curative health services, e.g. immunization. Sterilization and reuse is being replaced with single use and disposal to minimize the risk of cross infection. This has lead to larger amounts of infectious waste in underdeveloped areas. The responsible authorities and agencies do not have waste management infrastructure to safely handle and dispose of the waste. Although not recognised as a significant problem before, health care professionals now require allocation of funds that were previously not identified. In Africa where much of the health care currently receives donor funds, these professionals are also obliged to comply with national regulations and international protocols for waste disposal, mostly only known to specialist waste management practitioners.
In order to address these problems a Check List has been developed for planning at District, Regional, and National Managerial levels, using a Streamlined Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA) according to ISO 14040. SLCA can evaluate parameters of the waste life cycle qualitatively and thereby reduce the time and cost of conducting a comprehensive, quantitative life cycle analysis. The SLCA was compiled from data obtained through a case study of an African country and was used to evaluate different management options for health care waste in such a country. The checklist is aimed at providing decision makers and waste management practitioners with a tool to prepare budgets and waste management plans. The planning tool will be discussed using a process assessment and a comparison between waste management options.
Paper of 11 pages accompanied by presentation of 38 slides.
2002-09-05T00:00:00ZSaving product lives in global and local remanufacturing networks : a scientific and commercial work report and an outlook
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4924
Saving product lives in global and local remanufacturing networks : a scientific and commercial work report and an outlook
Steinhilper, Rolf
Remanufacturing which is becoming the standard term for recycling by manufacturing “good as new” products from used products in an industrial (series production) scale, looks back to an almost 65 year long history. It started in the United States of America and in the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1940 – the time when World War II fully occupied their industries with aircraft, tanks and weaponry manufacturing.
While no private car (not to say spare parts) production existed in the US for five years in those times, remanufacturing obviously offered the only way to keep America’s cars on the road.
Meanwhile, not only the world wars, but also the cold war belong to history and do not influence our industrial economies too much any more. Industrial production of private industrial products, whether it comes to cars, electric or electronic goods, does not at all suffer from undercapacity any more. In most areas, the ever-increasing productivity has led to overcapacities, making up to date products of the finest technology and performance available in any quantity and at even falling prices.
So, where is the chance and where is the future for remanufacturing under such economic circumstances? From the first authors’ work for both the manufacturing and the remanufacturing sector over the past 25 years, extended by an international viewpoint in particular from the second author’s research, the following work report and outlook about remanufacturing can be given in 10 theses.
2003-12-01T00:00:00ZEffective consideration of relevant sustainable development aspects pertaining to the life cycles of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) eligible projects
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4923
Effective consideration of relevant sustainable development aspects pertaining to the life cycles of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) eligible projects
Labuschagne, Carin
Development projects that are potentially eligible for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) funding under the Kyoto Protocol have been validated to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases compared to the baseline. Apart from these positive effects on global warming, the projects must also demonstrate a positive contribution to sustainable development in the host country. The host country has to give a final approval for each CDM project through its Designated National Authority (DNA). The potentially eligible projects within industry sectors are consequently evaluated in terms of positive and negative contributions to the different aspects of sustainable development. Although generic approaches have been proposed, sustainable development criteria must reflect the society priorities of the specific country where a development takes place. Within the South African context, a framework of criteria is introduced to assess these projects. Weighting values are shown for these criteria from the perspective of the manufacturing industry sector of South Africa. The weighting values have been obtained from a survey, which is based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a known Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) procedure. With respect to the environmental sub-criteria, the priorities of the South African national government expenditure are compared to the industry judgements. The results indicate a difference in the weights placed on the sub-criteria. Furthermore, national expenditure on the environmental issues alone shows that the three main sustainable development criteria, i.e. social, environmental and economic, are not of equal importance. A procedure is subsequently proposed to establish weighting values that better reflect the priorities of the South African society, which combines the AHP with known group decision-making techniques. A means to obtain an adequate sample of individuals that represent the different parts of society is presented. The importance of the different criteria must be incorporated into the assessment procedure of the projects. A qualitative procedure is shown to evaluate and compare potentially eligible CDM projects to baselines in terms of contributions to sustainable development in South Africa. A case study in the South African process industry is used to demonstrate the procedure.
Presentation of 25 slides accompanied by abstract.
2003-10-20T00:00:00Z