Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector

Abstract

The activities developed within an eco-efficiency project in mineral industries located in the largest area for marble extraction in Portugal, in Alentejo region, in the Estremoz – Borba and Vila Viçosa anticline are presented in this paper. The project was designed to apply the sustainability concept in seven companies of marble extraction and transformation. The adopted strategy used new cleaner production models together with sustainable value (SV) improvement, leading to the rationalization of the industrial process, the involvement of economic agents and the orientation of the management of production processes towards eco-efficiency. The challenge was to have the mineral industry managing efficiently the resources on which the business depends, according to sustainability principles. Different opportunities for improvement, related to the minimization of materials, water and energy use, were identified in the companies. Some proposals mainly related to social improvement and small and medium-sized enterprise competitiveness benefits were also selected and discussed. This approach allows the integration of sustainability at company's and region's levels by combining in the entrepreneurial activity the creation of wealth together with the environment protection and the achieving of social benefits. Highlights: The involvement of different stakeholders in the project (Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector) was positive in the discussion and search of solutions for companies. It is possible to involve marble extraction and processing companies in eco-efficiency improvement towards sustainability. Companies from the marble sector improved environmental and social performance and reduced the costs of their production processes by applying SV methodology.

Keywords:

• eco-efficiency
• sustainable value
• marble sector
• ornamental stone

1. Introduction

1.1 Sustainability in the mineral sector

Mineral extraction activities, by providing raw materials, play an important part in a country economical position but they also represent environmental negative effects for local communities and the landscape. Marble, used in construction, is one of those materials, being its production limited to a certain number of countries. The European Union (EU) supplies represent about 17% of world extraction (Traverso, Rizzo, and Finkbeiner 2010).

Although the negative impacts have been detected long ago, nowadays there is a progressive awareness from entrepreneurs in order to minimize them in the mineral extraction and processing activities. The concern about sustainable development, defined by Word Business Council for Sustainable Development (2006) as forms of progress that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, is not a new one for the sector that has always been appointed by the impacts of its activities either at the environment or social levels.

Wherever mineral extraction exists, it will affect to a certain extent either environment or local communities. Anyway those impacts can be minimized, if the enterprises adopt a responsible behaviour towards resource exploitation and transformation and all the stakeholders (Miranda, Chambers, and Coumans 2005).

In spite of the unquestionable importance of the mineral industry to the countries' development, governments must assure that mineral resource exploitation respects environment, human rights and society in a general way and does not consider only economic aspects. More often than desirable the harmful effects of an irresponsible exploitation of resources can be seen, thus risking the well-being of present and future generations (United Nations 2003).

The challenge is to have the extraction industry together with the processing of the raw materials managing efficiently the resources on which the business depends, according to sustainability principles, and therefore the importance of research and implementation of innovative approaches, involving the different stakeholders in the discussion and search of solutions for the companies and regions.

1.2 The Portuguese marble scenario

Portugal is one of the main world producers of ornamental stones. After Italy, Portugal is the bigger world exporter per capita, China, France, Spain and Saudi Arabia being the main importers (AICEP 2012). Marble and limestone sectors increased exports to China by 50% in 2010, with a turnover of about 50 million euros. Quality, beauty and reputation are the main attributes of Portuguese stone, whose exports increased 28% in the first trimester of 2012, the biggest increase in the last 5 years, when the European markets began to contract.

The situation in Portugal in 2010, in what concerns marble and ornamental limestone was: 162 enterprises; 1081 workers; 9,87,683 t produced and 87,567 × 10³ euro (DGEG 2011). This sector is responsible for 1.5% of the country exports, maintaining a positive commercial balance, proving the strong impact of this industry in Portuguese economy.

The marble industry is very relevant in the Portuguese context of ornamental stones, particularly in the region of Estremoz-Borba-Vila Viçosa anticline, in Alentejo, one of the poorest regions at the EU level, an economically depressed area where the extractive industry makes a significant contribution to the local economy, in the form of both direct and indirect employment (EU 2007). Here is located the most important ornamental rock deposit of Portugal that has been explored since the Roman times and is still today the main centre of marble extraction in Portugal due to its characteristics and exclusive beauty (Guerreiro 2000; Carvalho et al. 2008).

This region, having unique geological characteristics in the country, has been intensively exploited, for the last decades, with inadequate practices in what concerns environment, local communities and landscape recovery. Landscape drastic changes caused by quarry rubble deposits and by deep craters near the inhabitants and roads, clearly show the effects of the extraction activities performed for years in this region, becoming clearly worse as the activity is increasingly being left. Other aspects to be considered are related to the high production of slurry and dust, water consumption, noise, and vibrations levels as a result of industrial activity (Guerreiro 2000).

Most of the Portuguese companies in the mineral sector, as happens worldwide, are small and medium ones and their activity has a low productivity. New technologies are not often considered, production costs are high and sustainability is not a priority. The result is the production of a very high level of waste material (Gazi, Skevis, and Founti 2012).

This scenario should desirably change. Portugal, as Member State of EU, subscribed the concept of sustainable development as all the other Member States have done (EU 2007; COM 670 2005) and has published a National Strategy for Geological Resources. This strategy recognizes the importance of the extractive industry in contemporary society by creating opportunities namely for growth and development, stating, however, that sustainable development implies that such benefits should be obtained without compromising environmental, social and cultural conditions and without any long-term negative impacts (RCM 2012).

Several entities in the Alentejo's region have also, for decades, paid special attention to this activity:

• Universities, by using quarries as geology ‘open books’, equipments and techniques demonstration fields, inspiring several research works and themes in this area.

• The Technological Centre with a strong link with companies and training activity namely in what concerns the activity regulations and good practices implementation.

• Entities linked to public administration and thus allocating funds to implement actions in order to minimize problems concerning environment impact, territory policies health and safety risks for population and workmen.

• Companies that although with increasing difficulties, either due to deposits shortage or sales decrease, keep themselves receptive to new ideas and solutions.

The importance of the extraction and processing companies in this region, as well as the resources they extract is unquestionable. An important task is to promote the success of their management supported by sustainability principles that will increase their value and prove their compromise with society, by achieving bigger economic profits with less environmental and social impacts and taking into account the different stakeholders' expectations, through an innovative approach.

1.3 Approach to sustainability in marble extraction and transformation companies

Society's understanding of what business is expected to contribute for sustainable development has advanced massively. This is no longer about corporate philanthropy or even narrow iterations of corporate social responsibility; companies are expected to create and share value and responsibility across a complex set of economic, social and environmental issues (Buxton 2012).

The expected answer from companies must consider sustainable production by creating goods, in a responsible attitude and competitive profit, using processes and systems that are non-polluting, that conserve energy and natural resources in economically viable, safe and healthy ways for employees, communities and consumers, and that are creatively rewarding for all stakeholders for the short and long terms (Glavic and Lukman 2007).

Various authors say that eco-efficiency (Schmidheiny 1992) can help the sustainable development of any kind of business activity (Howgrave-Graham and van Berkel 2007; van Berkel 2007). Moreover, other researches demonstrate that eco-efficiency is particularly useful for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries (Byung-Wook, Seung-Tae, and Jeong-Heui 2006).

The concept of sustainability is not difficult in understanding, but its implementation in operational terms has shown not to be an easy one (Briassoulis 2001). The mineral sector has been agreeing, at world level, that sustainable development is a key factor for its future development and for companies' success and that eco-efficiency with its environment preventive strategies as well as resources productivity ones, is essential for industry progress towards sustainable development (van Berkel 2007).

Eco-efficiency becomes then a management strategy towards sustainability by improving the economic and ecological efficiency of companies, attaining a higher value with fewer inputs, materials and energy and more outputs (product), but fewer waste, i.e. pollution in the form of emissions and residues. It lays on the prevention of materials, water and energy losses at the origin, leading to functioning costs reduction and to the improvement of the products environmental profile. The result is a higher value for companies as well as the increase of their competitiveness particularly for SMEs. In the past, companies looked at the environment and sustainability as problems, costs and risk factors, but today they see them also as opportunities – sources of efficiency improvement and growth.

The sustainable value methodology (SVM) is the result of the work of a research team in Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia (LNEG), and integrates value analysis with eco-efficiency and cleaner production (CP) concepts. The complementarities between eco-efficiency (doing more with less) and value analysis (satisfying needs using fewer resources) are visible. Using the synergies between tools used by value management (value analysis as an example) and eco-efficiency (CP – UNEP 1990), the SVM was developed, and integrates the three aspects of sustainability (economic, environment and social) in SV concept (Figure 1; Alexandre et al. 2007; Henriques et al. 2006, 2008; Catarino et al. 2011; Henriques and Catarino 2015, in press).

Figure 1 SV definition.

The concept of value has been used with different meanings and scopes in business world in the last centuries. More recently several authors introduced the concept of SV and those differences can also be found (Laszlo 2008; Figge and Hahn 2004, 2005; Hahn, Figge, and Barkemeyer 2007; Kuosmanen and Kuosmanen 2009).

If this present approach, which has been developed and applied since 2004, is compared with the one proposed for example by Figge, differences will also be found. Both approaches are based in the satisfaction of needs by goods and services and the use of economic, environment and social resources. In Figge's approach SV measures corporate contributions to sustainability by valuing resource use based on the opportunity cost, which must be estimated. The SVM approach follows the value definition in Value Management European Standard EN 1325-1: 2011, in which ‘value is the relationship between the satisfaction of needs and the resources used in achieving that satisfaction’ (Figure 2) and explicitly takes into account the three dimensions of sustainability. According to EN 12973 value is not absolute but relative and may be viewed differently by different parties in different situations. It is an indicator that enables to compare initial value of a study subject to the proposals resulting from the methodology application. The optimization is achieved by balancing the amount to which needs are satisfied against the resources utilized in doing so.

Figure 2 The concept of value (European Standard EN 12973 12973 2000).

The symbol α in Figure 1 means that the relationship between needs and resources is only a representation and that they are traded off one against the other in order to obtain the most beneficial balance.

1.4 Objectives

The objective of this paper is to present the updating and development of a methodology implemented in the project ‘Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector’ in order to improve sustainability in companies of the marble sector, by improving environmental and economic performances and involving several stakeholders.

2. Methodology

The project ‘Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of the marble sector’ specifically proposes a new approach for business management and operation, based on eco-efficiency and sustainability principles. Pursuing enhanced eco-efficiency may act as a driver for innovation, improved productivity and hence competitiveness and growth.

This project was designed to apply the sustainability concept in a sample of companies of marble extraction and transformation in Alentejo region, Portugal (Henriques et al. 2009) but paying special attention to their transformation activities. The objective was to increase SV of companies' extraction and production processes and attain a multiplying effect of the results in other companies from that region.

The actions in Table 1 were developed in order to reach the project's objectives.

Table 1 Project activities.

Actions	Objectives	Activities
Divulging	Get companies' attention and interest in participating	Advertising to:
		• marble extraction and transformation companies• other companies• entrepreneurial associations• technological centre• university• municipal and regional entitiesKick off seminar
Selection	Select companies to implement SVM in a real problem	Seven companies were selected by the Technological Centre of the sector and get top management agreement was guaranteed
Training workshops	To aware companies involved to different approaches that could be useful to the implementation of the methodology	Each workshop had 3–6 h duration and several themes were presented and discussed: sustainable development, SVM, environmental good housekeeping in the extraction industry; geology applied to the exploitation of ornamental stone; energy efficiency; renewable energy; life cycle assessment and ecodesign; social corporate responsibility; environment management systems
Application	To increase the SV of the seven study subjects selected	The eight phases SVM working plan was developed in each selected company, by an internal team with top management support and tutored by the LNEG research team
Final workshop	To present to all the stakeholders, other companies from the region and others belonging to the marble sector and coming from different regions, the work developed, the results attained and the action plan for future developmentsTo stimulate the participants with the results presented	The seven companies directly involved presented the work developed, the results attained and the action plan for future developments

The SVM was implemented in each selected company according to the eight phases working plan (Table 2).

Table 2 SVM phases.

Work plan phases	Activity
1. General data from the company	Identification, labouring conditions, staff flow chart, relationship with stakeholders
2. Specific data about the project	The company top management defines the study subject (product and/or manufacturing process), the working team, the objectives and constraints, and, if this is the case information about the product (market)
3. Global inventory (diagnosis)	This inventory is structured based in the CP approach (inputs/outputs) and the resources costs, mass and energy balances are quantified. Also the manufacturing diagram – flowchart, operations description (raw materials, water, energy, products, waste, noise…) is drawn
4. Functional analysis	The study subject's functions are systematically identified, characterized, classified and evaluated (European Standard EN 1325-1 1325-1 2001). Function weighting, function/cost relation, satisfaction levels and SV are estimated
5. Problem synthesis	The problems detected during the previous phases are synthesized: the relationship with stakeholders (Phase 1), the eco-inefficiencies of the process and its environmental impacts (Phase 3) and legal non conformities. And from the analysis of the function/cost matrix (Phase 4), functions and components with high costs are identified. Eventual non concordances between costs and relative importance of functions are detected. The working team evaluates the performance of the study subject and identifies areas, activities or operations where attention must be focused
6. Previous identification of ideas	It is the time to generate ideas to improve the study subject through creativity sessions or research of already existing solutions for similar problems. The working team produces new ideas which will be listed, classified and eventually grouped in order to make a pre selection of those whose viability will be analysed during the next phase
7. Viability analysis	The three aspects of Sustainability are considered. The team analyses the viability of the ideas, coming from the previous phase, in what concerns environmental, social, economic and technical aspects and evaluates and selects the ideas taking into account the improvement of their SV
8. Action plan	Action plans are defined being their implementation dependent on top management decision. The application of SVM will only be effective after implementation

Step by step, a diagnosis of environment, economic, social and functional problems of the study subject took place followed by the search of solutions to answer the problems that were found. Those solutions were evaluated taking into account all those aspects thus contributing to increase value in a sustainable way.

To create SV, the methodology starts from the environmental, economic and social characterization of the used resources by the enterprise and the evaluation of the level of satisfaction attained by the product and/or process that constitutes the study subject.

To support the implementation of the methodology in companies, a didactic manual with the description of each of its eight phases was produced.

The information collected during the application of the methodology was treated and the data obtained in each company were integrated in order to widen perspectives of the impact of the project Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector, either in terms of the environmental effects – reduction of companies' environment impacts – social improvement or economic savings as a result of ideas generated in each company.

A relationship between the number of ideas and stakeholders involved was searched as well as the evaluation of the integrated aspects related to performance, cost and SV variation for the companies studied subjects.

3. Results and discussion

After the kick off meeting, in the divulging action, seven companies from marble extraction or marble blocks transformation were selected, by the technological centre, according to a set of criteria previously defined, to apply SV methodology.

The stakeholders (local university, associations, technological centre and suppliers) were involved in several activities: the initial, intermediate and final seminars, as well as brainstorming sessions to generate ideas for improvement. Several institutions, from the region, participated in the initial seminar in order to know about the project and its objectives. In what concerns the companies they learnt about the project, their doubts were clarified and could apply as target enterprises. The information about the seminar was publicized by local press and through the entrepreneurial associations, technological centres and by a leaflet designed to present the project and to be spread among the population.

The intermediate seminars, in the workshop format, equipped the participants with new knowledge and innovation ability. This implied not only the reinforcement of R&D abilities within companies, but also the development of new competences. Those sessions were composed by a theoretical introduction to the theme, presentation of tools to implement preventive strategies in the companies, and then discussion, in group, based in case studies, examples and their own specific study subjects.

The knowledge, acquired in these sessions, enabled the selected companies and technological centre, to develop the project by practical implementation of the SV methodology under the research team supervision. As companies had results from the methodology application they were discussed during the workshops in a larger team (with all companies involved), with the objective of comparing experiences, detecting constraints and difficulties, correcting mistakes and analysing work development in each company. Those results were also an important input in what concerns the SVM and updates took place for future application.

The target enterprises involved in the project were mainly small ones, with 5–48 workers, located in the Portuguese Estremoz Anticline. Only one of them was certified according to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The activity of three of the enterprises is marble extraction and for the other ones it is marble processing into final products for the building-construction industry such as surfaces and paving. One of them has a rubble crushing plant to produce aggregates for construction, nearby the quarry.

With the support of worksheets, companies worked on the relationships with stakeholders and detected possible problems with workers, suppliers, clients, local communities and society. Generally there is a good relationship with workers and suppliers that support processes' and machinery's choice. Some problems arise in maintaining clients due to increasing difficulties regarding what concerns the traditional export of ornamental stones to Arabian countries. Local communities welcome the companies' activity as it represents a source of income to the region, but society in general does not have the same opinion as it consumes natural resources with a large amount of production waste. Another source of society disagreement is the practice of stone waste deposition in the anticline landscape.

According to Phase 2 of the methodology, the top management of each company selected the study subjects, and all of them chose the production process. One to three SME elements from quality, design/development, management, commercial departments were involved in the working team.

The main constraints faced by companies had to do with market retraction and the high percentage of material waste in the extraction and transformation processes.

During Phase 3, the processes (marble extraction or transformation) were studied leading to the manufacturing flow chart, operations description (namely raw materials, water, energy, products, waste and noise emission), mass and energy balance and cost diagram. General manufacturing flow charts obtained during Phase 3 are presented in Figures 345, where the main unitary operations for stone extraction, stone processing and auxiliary activities were identified. For each operation all the inputs (raw materials, RM; water, W; energy, E; auxiliary materials, AM; package materials, PK) and outputs (products, P; wastewater, WW; noise, N; wastes, SW; air emission, AE; vibrations, V; heat, H; water, W; auxiliary materials, AM) were identified and characterized. This analysis enabled the quantification of mass and energy balances and the resource costs. This information was used in the next phases of the methodology.

Figure 3 General marble extraction flow chart.

Figure 4 General marble transformation flow chart.

Figure 5 Main auxiliary operations flow chart.

The work developed during Phase 4, functional analysis, lays one of the great differences between this approach and the traditional ones, being the study subject defined as a set of functions The main functions identified associated to stone extraction were:

• to provide extraction – prepare slice cut;

• to extract raw material – cut slice, select raw material and define stone blocks;

• to transport stone blocks and

• to manage waste.

For stone processing, the list of functions was:

	to receive blocks;
	to cut blocks – square, saw and cut blocks;
	to cut plates;
	to finish product (including or not polishing);
	to pack product;
	to dispatch product;
	to store materials (blocks and product) and
	to manage waste.

Each of the identified function was characterized through specific criteria that enabled evaluating the functional performance of the studied processes. The user's satisfaction level will depend on the performance of those functions. For example, some of the criteria used to characterize the function ‘to cut blocks’ were: the amount of energy used in the operation, the amount of stone residue produced, waste dangerousness, amount of water used, cut speed, workers' safety (including the existence of adequate safety measures). Those criteria were quantified using levels that result from information collected during Phase 3 – global inventory.

Considering all the target companies, a large number of different criteria (137) were used to characterize the functions and were distributed by different categories grouped in (1) economic/technical (including productivity, operation speed, maintenance, needs of area, noncompliance, operation time and other technical criteria), (2) environment and (3) social. They are presented (% of the number of criteria used in each category related to the total number of criteria) in Figure 6. Most of the criteria are technical/economic, the environmental and the other less used criteria became the social criteria. Only 3–5% of quarried stone is a valuable product (ornamental rock). Consequently, the large quantities of quarry rubble produced (‘stone residue’) are a common problem to all the companies. Therefore, productivity and operation speed were the most used criteria to characterize the companies' processes.

Figure 6 Criteria used to characterize functions in economic/technical (a), environment (b) and social levels (c).

For the brainstorming sessions the team was enlarged with other participants, namely top management and in some cases external consultants, in order to have different views of the problems and to produce new ideas. By including several stakeholders during the implementation of the SVM a greater number of improvement ideas are obtained.

Generally, a larger number of people involved in the generation of new ideas implies the increase in the number of ideas obtained, as shown in Figure 7. This happened in teams up to 13 people, but in those with 18 and 19 people there was not any additional benefit which may indicate that the team dimension for ideas generation is beneficial up to a certain limit, which, in this particular case, was 13 persons.

Figure 7 Relationship between the numbers of generated ideas and stakeholders involved.

Figure 7 also shows that not only the number of people, but also the number of entities has influence in the number of ideas. The team with five different entities produced the larger number of ideas, with the enlarged team a great number of improvement ideas was generated during the creativity sessions. Then the working team in each company made a previous ideas' evaluation using the most adequate criteria according to the objectives and constraints settled during Phase 2. The ideas were classified according to the implementation times (short, medium long terms), CP techniques and eco-efficiency principles. Complementary ideas or related to the same problem were grouped and analysed as a whole in the next phases of the methodology.

In each company the selected ideas were developed as an individual project, costs were allocated and benefits either in economic terms or environment ones (e.g. use of resources reduction, emissions and residues generation) or social ones (company's image, stakeholders involvement, safety working conditions) were evaluated (Phase 8). After receiving this information top management, in each company, decided about investment plans.

The complete implementation of the methodology lasted for 2 years.

In a general way the ideas selected for implementation in SME involved led to the environmental impact reduction, to the enterprises social performance improvement and in every company to the increase of the SV of production processes.

Table 3 presents some of the generated ideas and its environmental impact in what concerns reductions in resources (water and energy) consumption and also in the contribution for the greenhouse effect. Some ideas led to potential reductions up to 2000 m³/year or 67 t/year, per company. Although some measures increased the contribution for the greenhouse effect, potential reductions up to 177 t CO₂ were also detected.

Table 3 Environment impacts reduction resulting from the ideas generated in each enterprise.

	Unit annual impact
Idea	Water input (m^3/year)	Energy input (t/year)	CO2 contribution (t CO2/year)
Waste water treatment	− 400	2	4.7
New way to place blocks		− 0.7	− 1.4
Diesel stacking truck replacement		− 15	− 46
Blocks cutting management		− 67	− 115
Management of compressed air		− 2	− 0.7
Water leaks repair	− 2000
Substitute mono blade by mono string		− 0.1 to − 3.2	− 0.2 to − 7
Switch off mono blade when not working		− 3.2	− 7
Substitute diesel compressor by electrical one			− 3
Substitute diesel by electricity in the crusher			− 85
Substitute diesel by 50% biodiesel in transport			− 5 to − 177
Reduce water flow in the mill machines	− 18
Reduce water flow in the block cutting operations	− 270

Concerning social aspects, the improvements led to a higher worker safety level, better image, reduction of work accidents and a better functional performance (Table 4).

Table 4 Social aspects improvement as a result of ideas generated in each company.

Ideas	Workers safety	Enterprise image	Work accidents	Functional performance
Workers sensitization for the use of individual protection equipment	×	×	×	×
Equipment to load plates into the containers	×		×	×
Use of lifts in the quarries	×	×	×	×
Divulge characteristics of stone aggregates in technical degrees at the university		×		×
Promote workers mobility	×		×	×
Inform workers about work accidents	×	×	×	×
Sensitize/train workers about water, energy and materials savings	×	×		×

Beyond the ideas for improvement in each company, some work between companies was developed. The problems were analysed and discussed and ideas for common improvement were generated. For example, neighbour quarries accorded to explore common boundary areas that could not be done by one alone. Another idea generated and analysed is related to quarry rubble crushing thus generating a new by-product to be supplied by this region and simultaneously reducing rubble deposits (and visual impact).

Following what is established in EN 12973, with data obtained in the SV methodology, in each company (A to G), the new performance and associated production costs for the ideas selected by top management were evaluated as well as the new SV of each study subject. In all of them there was a performance increase from 11% to 33% and cost reduction from 0.1% up to 9% (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Performance, cost and SV variation for the companies studied subjects.

As a result of performance and cost variation, the SV increased from 8% to 43% thus also increasing companies' sustainability.

Beyond the specific results attained and the contribution to sustainable development in each company, other general ones can be pointed out (Table 5).

Table 5 General results.

Sustainability aspect	Results
Environment	Environmental diagnosis of manufacturing processes
	Reduction of toxic dispersion
	Waste preventive approach
	Company eco-efficiency improvementc
Economic	Energy consumption characterization
	Reduction of materials, energy and water consumption
	Cost identification and reduction
	Company eco-efficiency improvement
	Company competitiveness improvement
Social	Internal and external communication improvement
	New competences development in companies and Technological Centre
	Health and safety procedures awareness
	Adoption of more social responsible behaviour by the companies

In the final workshop the seven companies directly involved presented the work developed, and it can be concluded that the active involvement of the different stakeholders, companies, technological centre, university, local authorities and population, strengthened the results and created a multiplying effect that helped the dissemination of this strategy to other companies involved in mineral extraction.

4. Conclusions

The SVM (based in EN 12973) went a step further in what concerns the application of the approaches of CP and value analysis. By using the specific tools of each of them, and profiting from their complementarities, the attained results can be improved.

The SVM supports companies in the improvement of their SV. This strategy improves the relationship between economic, environmental and social performance and the use of resources, thus leading to the improvement of eco-efficiency and competitiveness, based in an innovation entrepreneurial culture.

The functions identification and characterization of the study subjects helps CP classic methodology to include social, economic and environmental criteria, beyond the technical ones.

The SV indicator integrates entrepreneurial information about environmental, social and technical performance and costs.

The involvement of different stakeholders leads to a broader definition and analysis of the study subjects as well as to the searching of interesting solutions to several of the involved parts.

This approach involving companies in the implementation of a specific methodology to their processes leads to the success of their business management supported by sustainability principles. Anyway, future research in this direction is needed in order to advance and validate whether or not the results can be multiplied. This implies a long term follow-up in the companies involved.

Therefore further studies may be needed in order to understand the complex mechanisms of sustainability implementation due to different singularities. Another important step is the development of a more simplified methodology to be implemented in companies in a shorter period of time.

Acknowledgements

This work was possible due to the involvement of the Technological Center, namely in the promotion activities, the other regional entities and LNEG's colleagues that collaborated in the project.

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]