Better – But is it Good Enough? On the Need to Consider Both Eco-efficiency and Eco-effectiveness to Gauge Industrial Sustainability

Michael Zwicky Hauschild

doi:10.1016/j.procir.2015.02.126

Better – But is it Good Enough? On the Need to Consider Both Eco-efficiency and Eco-effectiveness to Gauge Industrial Sustainability

Michael Zwicky Hauschild

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Abstract

Sustainability is gaining prominence among the priorities of large companies, and engineers have taken on the eco-efficiency challenge, optimizing the functionality and minimizing the negative environmental impacts of our products and technologies. Although impressive improvements in efficiency can be demonstrated in many local cases, increases in population, affluence and consumption create an opposite trend that we need to factor in when we address sustainability of our technological developments in an absolute sense. The paper discusses absolute boundaries for environmental sustainability, metrics for gauging our solutions against these boundaries and the need and possibilities of expanding our focus from efficiency to effectiveness.

Original language	English
Journal	Procedia CIRP
Volume	29
Pages (from-to)	1-7
Number of pages	7
ISSN	2212-8271
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2015.02.126
Publication status	Published - 2015
Event	22nd C I R P Conference on Life Cycle Engineering - Sydney, Australia Duration: 7 Apr 2015 → 9 Apr 2015 Conference number: 22

Conference

Conference	22nd C I R P Conference on Life Cycle Engineering
Number	22
Country/Territory	Australia
City	Sydney
Period	07/04/2015 → 09/04/2015

Bibliographical note

Keywords

5-10 keywords Absolute sustainability
IPAT equation
Eco-efficiency
Midpoint LCA
Eco-effectiveness
Cradle to cradle
Planetary boundaries
Carrying capacity
Normalization
Person equivalent

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.procir.2015.02.126

But is it good enoughFinal published version, 671 KB

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title = "Better – But is it Good Enough? On the Need to Consider Both Eco-efficiency and Eco-effectiveness to Gauge Industrial Sustainability",

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N2 - Sustainability is gaining prominence among the priorities of large companies, and engineers have taken on the eco-efficiency challenge, optimizing the functionality and minimizing the negative environmental impacts of our products and technologies. Although impressive improvements in efficiency can be demonstrated in many local cases, increases in population, affluence and consumption create an opposite trend that we need to factor in when we address sustainability of our technological developments in an absolute sense. The paper discusses absolute boundaries for environmental sustainability, metrics for gauging our solutions against these boundaries and the need and possibilities of expanding our focus from efficiency to effectiveness.

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KW - 5-10 keywords Absolute sustainability

KW - IPAT equation

KW - Eco-efficiency

KW - Midpoint LCA

KW - Eco-effectiveness

KW - Cradle to cradle

KW - Planetary boundaries

KW - Carrying capacity

KW - Normalization

KW - Person equivalent

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JO - Procedia CIRP

JF - Procedia CIRP

T2 - 22nd C I R P Conference on Life Cycle Engineering

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ER -

Better – But is it Good Enough? On the Need to Consider Both Eco-efficiency and Eco-effectiveness to Gauge Industrial Sustainability

Abstract

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Cite this