Evaluation of sustainability using an integrated approach at process and product level: a case study

Abstract

The present world is facing problems like rapid depletion of natural resources and undesired environmental changes on a global scale. Manufacturing organisations are realising the importance of mitigating the present crisis and are adopting sustainable manufacturing principles. Since it is important to achieve sustainable manufacturing, sustainability assessment models were developed. Sustainability assessment models have their own drawbacks and may not provide clear scope for complete sustainable development. A system approach has been developed to overcome this shortcoming by integrating various sustainability assessment models that are already in practice. This article reports the advantages of collecting the advantages of individual sustainability assessment models and how the implementation of the integrated approach has helped to identify the current sustainability level and the scope for future developments in an automotive industry.

Keywords:

• sustainability
• sustainability assessment
• weighted average method
• sustainability index
• risk/benefit sheet
• life cycle assessment