(613a) Technology Assessment and Impact Analysis for Life Cycle Based Sustainability Performance Improvement of Process Systems

Accelerated innovations entail rapid transfer of new technologies to the design and manufacturing of high performance products and services. Although emerging technologies become an engine of change and progress, the net profit brought to the environment and society could be questionable, if sustainability principles are not fully incorporated into technology development and application phases. Two major fundamental questions are: (1) What could be a potential threat of traditional techno-economic focus in technology innovation to the sustainable development of industry and society? (2) How could technology innovation be reshaped to incorporate fully sustainability principles from their early development stage? Scientific answers to these questions require a fundamental study on the sustainability dimensions of technology innovation and mechanisms for sustainability principle incorporation in the entire technology innovation process.

In this paper, we introduce a methodological framework for conducting systematic sustainability assessment of emerging technologies in their early development phase in different life cycle stages and recommending technology sets after performing life cycle based sustainability impact evaluation. The framework is constructed using a hierarchical assessment and decision making scheme, which consists of a coherent set of propositions, principles, and methods that could improve the ability of researchers, decision makers, and organizations to reshape technology innovations. The developed framework is applied to the study of the sustainability performance improvement potentials of new technologies in different life cycle states of metal surface coating design and manufacturing, which is compared to existing technologies in the metal finishing industries.