Comparison of Four Environmental Assessment Tools in Swedish Manufacturing: A Case Study
Journal article, 2019

To achieve sustainable development goals, it is essential to include the industrial system. There are sufficient numbers of tools and methods for measuring, assessing and improving the quality, productivity and efficiency of production, but the number of tools and methods for environmental initiatives on the shop floor is rather low. Incorporating environmental considerations into production and performance management systems still generally involves a top-down approach aggregated for an entire manufacturing plant. Green lean studies have been attempting to fill this gap to some extent, but the lack of detailed methodologies and practical tools for environmental manufacturing improvement on the shop floor is still evident. This paper reports on the application of four environmental assessment tools commonly used among Swedish manufacturing companies—Green Performance Map (GPM), Environmental Value Stream Mapping (EVSM), Waste Flow Mapping (WFM), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—to help practitioners and scholars to understand the different features of each tool, so in turn the right tool(s) can be selected according to particular questions and the industrial settings. Because there are some overlap and differences between the tools and a given tool may be more appropriate to a situation depending on the question posed, a combination of tools is suggested to embrace different types of data collection and analysis to include different environmental impacts for better prioritization and decision-making.

green lean

sustainable manufacturing

environmental assessment tool

Author

Sasha Shabazi

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Martin Kurdve

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Supply and Operations Management

Mats Zackrisson

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Christina Jönsson

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Anna Runa Kristinsdottir

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Sustainability

20711050 (eISSN)

Vol. 11 7 2173

Circular material flows

Chalmers, 2017-08-21 -- 2019-08-21.

CiMMREC – Circular models for mixed and multi material recycling in manifacturing extended loops

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, 2016-08-01 -- 2020-03-01.

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Environmental Management

Business Administration

Other Materials Engineering

Energy Systems

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Transport

Production

DOI

10.3390/su11072173

More information

Latest update

5/14/2020