Sustainability and Enviromental Impact - Case Study Example

Sustainability from the perspective of environment shows the link between environmental and stakeholder relations (Villanova & Dettoni, . There are advantages and disadvantages relating to sustainability and environmental impact as shown in the case study related to mining magnesium from power station waste. This part of the paper outlines and discusses the advantages of Latrobe Magnesium project. Advantages Waste material (fly ash) is recycled to produce other valuable product and the major advantage for this is that other raw materials still underground are preserved for future generations and this is the essence of sustainable development.

The environment is protected if there are no new mining activities for the same material that take place. The other advantage is that the construction of the Magnesium plan takes place on the existing brownfield site which means that there is no new site going to be cleared specifically for the project. This helps to maintain the environment intact since there is no need for uprooting vegetation to set a new plant since this may disturb the ecosystem. The other advantage is that the project is sustainable.

It can be noted from the case study that if power companies continue to burn coal, then the material for the Latrobe Magnesium Project will just keep on coming. This is waste material that would continue being recycled. Flyash is in form of oxide MgO and when this is dissolved in the leach plant, there is no carbon dioxide released. This is a major advantage as a result of the fact that this re-mining of magnesium does not contribute to environmental degradation through emission of greenhouse gasses which cause global warming.

Global warming is a world wise problem mainly caused by human activities especially in the manufacturing sector. However, this is a manufacturing sector that does not emit carbon dioxide which causes environmental degradation. The other notable advantage is that magnesium alloys which would be used for manufacturing cars are light. This means that the vehicles would be light which leads to a reduction in fuel consumption. Less fuel may be used which may also result in a slight reduction of the amount of green house gas emissions from the cars into the atmosphere.

The cars are also easy to recycle at the end of their life cycle which means that they would not pollute the environment. Over and above, it can be noted that there are more advantages of recycling fly ash as indicated in the case study. A critical analysis of the case study shows that there are no disadvantages that are likely to be witnessed from undertaking this particular project. In actual fact, the whole project is designed to address a problem to the environment. Therefore, there are few if at all disadvantages that are likely to be encountered from undertaking such project.

As seen in the case study, there are no disadvantages. References Villanova, M & Dettoni, P 2011, “Sustainable innovation strategies: Exploring the cases of Danone & Interface”. Institute for social Innovation.