(28a) Sustainability of Products and Processes: a Review

For measuring sustainability performance of products and processes, it is generally believed that we need to identify metrics that neatly fall into economic, environmental, and societal categories. The task of sustainability analysis then is some integration scheme that provides an overall assessment. Many corporations acknowledge the useful fact, however, that the three dimensions of sustainability are connected with one another: an action in one category changes factors in others. Nevertheless, these metrics are used to conform to the so-called triple bottom line characterization of sustainable development. At the process and product level, many have argued that the societal impacts have been ignored. Except for a very few uniquely societal metrics, societal impacts are already included in extant metrics. This talk presents an overview of research on sustainability metrics. In particular, here is discussed a metrics classification that incorporates the interconnections among measurable metrics, and a method of analysis that depends on identifying the metrics with their dimensionality, prioritizing them according to their extent of sensitivity to overall impacts, and finally aggregating them in a single indicator. This aggregate indicator can be conveniently used for comparative analyses for sustainability. Several examples will be used to illustrate the methodology.