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Environmental appraisal of green production systems: challenges faced by small companies using life cycle assessment

Environmental appraisal of green production systems: challenges faced by small companies using life cycle assessment
Environmental appraisal of green production systems: challenges faced by small companies using life cycle assessment
This paper presents a snapshot of key challenges encountered by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) devoted to green production systems acting on the call to substantiate their environmental claims. It highlights the overriding barriers of SMEs to meeting the standards for conducting credible product life cycle assessment (LCA), in terms of accessibility to customised data and epistemological limitations. This is illustrated using a real-world example describing the material and process flows for a recycling company. We demonstrate that the rigour towards compiling large (and in some cases nested) data sets, involving expert know-how and adequate representation of system boundary can pose operational barriers. This is underpinned by complications of conducting green production and process-based LCA, deemed essential in ascertaining product and process sustainability. Finally, the paper discusses issues highlighted by the case study and provides useful directions for production researchers, SMEs and consultants
0020-7343
1-13
Heidrich, Oliver
663b49d0-cd62-46a5-a45c-4fad5b8eb4e1
Tiwary, Abhishek
f948aa5f-5c42-42b0-8bcb-d8ea5e0d58f8
Heidrich, Oliver
663b49d0-cd62-46a5-a45c-4fad5b8eb4e1
Tiwary, Abhishek
f948aa5f-5c42-42b0-8bcb-d8ea5e0d58f8

Heidrich, Oliver and Tiwary, Abhishek (2013) Environmental appraisal of green production systems: challenges faced by small companies using life cycle assessment. International Journal of Production Research, 51, 1-13. (doi:10.1080/00207543.2013.807372).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper presents a snapshot of key challenges encountered by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) devoted to green production systems acting on the call to substantiate their environmental claims. It highlights the overriding barriers of SMEs to meeting the standards for conducting credible product life cycle assessment (LCA), in terms of accessibility to customised data and epistemological limitations. This is illustrated using a real-world example describing the material and process flows for a recycling company. We demonstrate that the rigour towards compiling large (and in some cases nested) data sets, involving expert know-how and adequate representation of system boundary can pose operational barriers. This is underpinned by complications of conducting green production and process-based LCA, deemed essential in ascertaining product and process sustainability. Finally, the paper discusses issues highlighted by the case study and provides useful directions for production researchers, SMEs and consultants

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More information

Published date: 14 June 2013
Organisations: Centre for Environmental Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 354520
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/354520
ISSN: 0020-7343
PURE UUID: dfc5d6ad-61be-4260-b0c0-e7deacf01742

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 12 Jul 2013 08:48
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 14:20

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Contributors

Author: Oliver Heidrich
Author: Abhishek Tiwary

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