Measuring Environmental Impacts of Manufacturing Processes - Research Paper Example

Life Cycle Analysis, Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis: As Essential Tools of Measuring Environmental Impacts of Manufacturing Processes 0Introduction: With the passage of time, it has become widely recognized that the manufacturing processes of a firm have a strong effect on the environment. As a consequence, the organizations were increasingly influenced by a variety of external pressures like the customers, socially concerned investors, environmental groups and regulators and also the firm's own stakeholders increasingly expected the company to adopt various norms that recognize their social responsibilities towards the protection of environment. Such protective measures do cause the firms enormous costs and this has led to the development of the assessment models like, Life Cycle Assessment, Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Approach, which could enable the firm to make a critical review of its manufacturing processes and eliminate or modify those processes which affect the environment and also costs the company. This paper produces a report on the utility and application of these tools to a manufacturing environment specifically bringing out the necessity of applying these principles and also to evaluate the exact reasons why such an analysis need to be done at all. 2.0 Paper Manufacturing - A background of the processes: For the purpose of outlining the manufacturing process we take the example of paper production processes. For manufacturing paper wood, bagasse (outer stalk sugar cane), hemp straw etc are used. Normally the paper manufacturing is preceded by the pulping process where the raw material for example wood is made into pulp. Pulping processes are generally classified as chemical, mechanical or semi-chemical. The three chemical pulping methods are known as kraft, sulfite and soda. There are three steps involved the pulping; initial processing, washing the pulp and bleaching the pulp. At the end of the processes several Toxic Air and Water Pollutants like Volatile Organic Compounds causing damages to lungs tissues, Total reduced Sulphur with foul odors, Hazardous Air Pollutants causing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, Adsorbable Organic Halides Chloroform, Dioxin and Furan are generated. (EPA Fact Sheet 1997) 3.0 Life cycle Analysis (LCA): "LCA is a technique [] compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system; evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs; and interpreting the results of the inventory and impact phases in relation to the objectives of the study" (ISO 14040:2006) This part of the paper deals with an important tool for assessing the impact of the manufacturing processes on the environment. According to O'Neill (2003) Life Cycle Analysis is a technique used to quantify the environmental impact of products during their entire life cycle. The different parts of the life cycle are examined from raw material extraction, manufacture, transport and use through to waste processing. The publication of Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme envisages that LCA can be used to evaluate the environmental performance of processes, products and services1 from 'cradle to grave' and identify potential cost savings. It is relevant to most, if not all, industrial situations where a product is manufactured or a service provided. The figure below illustrates the life cycle stages: Karolina Flemstrom et al.(2004) opines that the effects of product or services considered in LCA are overall potential environmental impacts e.g. global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion, acidification, photochemical oxidant formation, toxicity and eutrophication, of all resources used and waste generated in a defined technical system. To conduct an LCA it is essential that the following three interrelated components are identified and addressed during the LCA process: Life cycle Inventory: is the process of quantifying energy and raw material requirements, air emissions, waterborne effluents, solid waste and other environmental releases incurred through out the life cycle of a product, process or activity. Life Cycle Impact Assessment: is an evaluation of the impact of the components identified by the inventory component on the ecological, human health, social, cultural and economic segments. Life Cycle Improvement Analysis: both quantitative and qualitative measures of improvements derived on the basis on the analysis of opportunities to reduce or eliminate the environmental impact throughout the life cycle of a product or service. This may result in changes in the product designs, raw material usage, change in the manufacturing processes, varied consumer use and effective waste management. The following figure illustrates the steps involved in the LCA process: 3.1 Process of Life Cycle Analysis: The LCA process takes the following steps: 1. The first step is the defining the scope of the system to be analysed. The system takes into account all the raw materials taken from the environment and ends with the outputs released back to the environment. 2. The next step is defining the system boundaries which involve the synthesis of the total system into subsystems and defining the linkage between the subsystems, to enable the collection of consistent measurements. The following figure exhibits the process of defining the System Boundaries: Source: Battelle & Franklin Associates, Ltd. 3. Next is the subsystem analysis in the overall inventory analysis which includes studying the processes of raw material acquisition, manufacture and fabrication subsystems, transportation and distribution subsystems and consumer use and disposals. 4. After the collection of the data on the subsystems, the firm should analyse the impact of such subsystems on the social, cultural and economic determinants of the society. 5. The final step is the search for the possible improvements based on the impact analysis. On the question of why life cycle analysis has to be undertaken by a firm, the answer is that: The manufacturing of all products have some impact on the environment. Since some products use more resources, cause more pollution or generate more waste than others, Life cycle analysis may be conducted by an industry to enable it to identify areas where improvements can be made for reducing the generation of waste and reduction of pollution. Further more, it would be ideal for the firm to identify those stages in production processes which have a heavy material or energy demand even though the environmental burdens are comparatively lower. The firm may also be benefited by LCA since it enables the firm to identify the scarce resources and replace them with a more sustainable product. This becomes possible by breaking down the manufacturing process in to finer details. 3.2 Benefits of LCA: LCA is the only tool that provides the data to allow informed environmental management. John Stewart of Queen's University says that LCA can be used to assess the interactions with the environment associated with a product, process or activity. He adds that during design and decision making stages LCA can be used to minimise any adverse environmental effects associated with new products, process and operational changes. LCA can be used in establishing baseline environmental performance and determining the environmental consequences of changes to raw materials. 3.3Common Barriers to LCA Adoption: Researchers have identified some common barriers to the adoption of Life Cycle Approaches to the industry, although their relative significance varies between sectors. Frans Berkhout (1996) states that the barriers include: high cost; methodological differences across firms and sectors; poor access to data; mismatch between the needs of firms and the results of studies; and problems with communication of results. The Firms are generally unclear about how to intervene in managing product life cycles which are substantially outside their direct control, and they are also skeptical about the returns that can be expected in terms of profitability or risk reduction. 4.0 Risk assessment: Fairman et al. (1998) defines Risk Assessment as the scientific process in which the risks posed by inherent hazards involved in the process or situations are estimated either quantitatively or qualitatively. Risk assessment includes the quantitative evaluation of exposure and hazard related data, with the objective to estimate the probability that adverse or undesirable effects would occur. According to Karolina Flemstrom et al. (2004) "Risk assessment is a system analytical tool to organise, structure and compile scientific information in order to help identify existing hazardous situations, anticipate potential problems, establish priorities and provide a basis for regulatory controls and/or corrective actions. While LCA characterizes emissions and waste over a product's life cycle, it does not allow for a complete assessment of a product's potential impacts also sometimes referred to as "safety profile" or its risk assessment. An LCA Article says that the exposure and hazard assessments, required as input for the risk assessments, are not part of the LCA. For each type of emission, the probability of adverse impacts can be quantified by risk assessment, taking into account all sources of exposure. Risk Assessment may relate to 'Ecological Risk Assessment', evaluating the potential adverse effects that human activities may have on plants, lakes and animals etc. that make up ecosystems and implicitly the co-operation and functions of ecosystem itself and 'Human (health) Risk Assessment' evaluating the potential human health risks to people that may now or at some times in the future be exposed to a certain chemical risk. The following actions are to be undertaken in a risk assessment process: 1. Hazard Assessment comprising of Hazard identification and Dose (concentration)-response (effects) assessment; determining the identification of adverse effects capability and the severity of such incidence. 2. Exposure Assessment estimating the extent of exposure 3. Risk Characterisation involving hazard evaluation and the exposure assessment is combined to estimate the likelihood whether exposure will be sufficient for an effect or impact to occur. 4.1 Relationship between Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment: Since, the purpose and perspective of both LCA and Risk Assessment are different from each other a possible connection between both the tools has not been established by the available literature till date. When comparing risk assessment and LCA there emerge different alternative solutions and approaches; these could be seen as completely separated as well as overlapped. Hence it can be stated that RA could be a subset of LCA and vice versa. However it cannot be denied that they should be seen as complementary to each other and both are needed to be applied to get the whole picture. There are some similarities and differences between the two tools which are outside the scope of this report. 5.0 Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA): Cost-benefit analysis provides an organizational framework for identifying, quantifying and comparing the costs and benefits measured in monetary terms of a proposed policy action. "Cost Benefit Analysis or (CBA) is a relatively simple and widely used technique for deciding whether to make a change. As its name suggests, you simply add up the value of the benefits of a course of action, and subtract the costs associated with it." (Mind tools) 5.1 Measuring Environmental Benefits: According to Thayer Watkins of San Jose University, one of the problems of CBA while assessing the environmental impact is that the computation of many components of benefits and costs is intuitively obvious, but there are some others for which intuition fails to suggest methods of measurement. Hence it becomes difficult to put an appropriate value on the environmental benefits that CBA would provide to the firm. The other challenging part of CBA is finding past choices which reveal the tradeoffs and equivalencies in preferences. However this problem can be overcome by combining the Cost Benefit Analysis with the Life Cycle Assessment, where it is possible to exactly quantify the value of the benefits accruing as a result of changes in the usage of materials or production processes. A cost benefit analysis is done to determine the financial benefits accruing to a company as a result of a proposed plan of action. In contrast to the LCA and RA, this tool is relatively simple to apply as there are no complications involved in the calculations. However this tool also has an inherent drawback in that sometimes it becomes necessary to evaluate the benefit of saving human life. It may be impossible to assign a monetary value precisely to the human lives, although some approximations can be attempted. As Risk Assessment is complementary to LCA, CBA also aids LCA by suitably analyzing the monetary benefits of alternative courses of action decided on the basis LCA. 6.0 Conclusion: From the forgoing discussion, it becomes evident that in the modern day business environment, undertaking Life cycle Analysis has become an absolute necessity for any manufacturing enterprise to assess the effect of the firm's production processes on the environment. This is made obligatory in order to fulfill their obligation towards accomplishing their corporate social responsibility towards the various stakeholders. In the process of the LCA, Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis come as effective companion tools to achieve the firm's goal of analyzing the life cycle of its products to assess the environmental impacts. Both Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis can be used as complementary tools to the Life Cycle Analysis. Recommendations: In order to take the maximum advantage of these tools in a manufacturing set up the following steps may be implemented: It is wise to undertake the analysis and measurement in respect of a single product or process instead of applying the tools to the whole set up, in the first instance. This would help the management to assess the cost involved in applying the tools and the benefits that accrues. Depending on the results it can be extended to the complete processes and products. Wherever possible the firm should employ an effective combination of LCA either with Risk Assessment or Cost Benefit Analysis or with both so that the complete exercise would be beneficial to the firm. Reference: 1. EPA Fact Sheet 1997The Pulp and Paper Industry: The Pulping Process and Pollutant Releases to the Environment United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water; EPA 821-F-97-011 [Online] Available From: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/pulppaper/jd/fs2.pdf Accessed on 23rd February 2007 2. Fairman, R., Mead C.D., Williams W.P., Environmental Risk Assessment: Approaches, Experiences and Information Sources. Environmental Issues Series No. 4 . Copenhagen, European Environment Agency, 1998 3. Frans Berkhout (1996) Life Cycle Assessment and Industrial Innovation ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme University of Sussex [Online] Available From: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/gec/pubs/briefing/brief-14.htm Accessed on 01st March 2007 4. ISO 14040:1997; (E) Environmental management - Life cycle assessment; Principles and framework 5. John Stewart Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment Questor Environmental Modelling Group Questor Centre The Queen's University of Belfast [Online] Available From: http://questor.qub.ac.uk/webpages/whatwedo/researchgroups/environmentalmodelling/lca/qcindex.html Accessed on 01st March 2007 6. Karolina Flemstrom, Raul Carlson, Maria Erixson 2004 Relationships between Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment: Potentials and Obstacles Industrial Environmental Informatics Chalmers University of Technology [Online] Available From: http://www.imi.chalmers.se/Publications/Relationships_between_Life_5379.pdf Accessed on 23rd February 2007 7. LCA Article Life Cycle Assessment Science in the box [Online] Available From: http://scienceinthebox.com/en_UK/sustainability/definition_en.html Accessed on 23rd February 2007 8. Mind tools Cost/Benefit Analysis [Online] Available From: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_08.htm Accessed on 23rd February 2007 9. O'Neill T.J (2003) Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Impact of Plastic Products Rapra Review Report Vol. 13 No 12 Report 156 [Online] Available From: http://www.rapra.net/products_and_services/Books/Environment_and_Health/General/Life_Cycle_Assessment_and_Environmental_Impact_of_Plastic_Products.asp Accessed on 01st March 2007 10. Publication Life Cycle Assessment: An Introduction for Industry Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme [Online] Available From: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/23/22058.pdf Accessed on 01st March 2007 11. Thayer Watkins An Introduction to Cost Benefit Analysis Department of Economics San Jose State University USA [Online] Available From: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/cba.htm Accessed on 01st March 2007 Read More