Sustainability carbon footprinting

As mentioned earlier, carbon emission remains the greatest threat to sustainability. Carbon footprint is a way of measuring this emission. Governments and regulatory authorities have suggested trading in emission with a view to controlling it. 

As described in Chapter 8, companies and industry associations are increasingly sharing their performance metrics with the public through corporate performance or sustainability reports that include information on many regulatory and voluntary areas including environmental releases, carbon footprints as well as safety performance. 

There is growing interest by investors to invest in firms and funds that reflect the investors own social values. These funds are tending to focus on the more immediate sustainability factors such as carbon footprint, energy efficiency, and environmental performance. As analysts become more familiar with process safety metrics— and those metrics are demonstrated to be useful predictors of a company s future safety performance—it is reasonable that a similar value could be placed on firms that are demonstrating their commitment to process safety as a separate factor or process safety as an element of other social values. Such demonstrated commitment to safety performance should also provide additional information, above and beyond financial information, on which the analyst can assess the overall risk of a firm or facility. 

At present, bioremediation is receiving a lot of interest as it appears sustainable, low cost, and low energy and therefore meets the needs of a remediation solution that will both benefit the environment directly and also have a relatively low carbon footprint. In practice, it often needs to be combined with other approaches to achieve an effective solution. This requirement is frequently driven by the need to remediate over a short timescale, in the case of ex situ bioremediation, or the need to promote long-term effectiveness under a regime such as monitored natural attenuation or permeable reactive barriers. The engineering of bioremediation to enhance its effectiveness has been studied for the last few decades with considerable success. It has become a mainstream part of the toolbox for contaminated sites. 

In order to be successful in this environment, the company hires engineers with ethics, sustainability knowledge (footprint analysis, product lifecycle management, energy intensive, carbon neutral systems) and systems thinking. These were the reasons why... 

Bevilacqua, M., Ciarapica, F.E., Giacchetta, G., Marchetti, B., 2011. A carbon footprint analysis in the textile supply chain. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering 4 (1), 24-36. 

Bevilacqua, M., et al., 2012. Design for Environment as a Tool for the Development of a Sustainable Supply Chain, Chapter 10 Case Study A Carbon Footprint Analysis in Textile Supply Chain. Springer-Verlag London Limited, http //dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-l-4471-2461-0 10, pp. 219-239. 

Patagonia maintains that it is important to share information with competitors and form alliances. Due to these global challenges, it has become beneficial for companies to collaborate in addressing the main sustainability issues including carbon footprint, chemical use, animal rights, land and water use, end-of-life issues as well as social responsibility. The North Face partners with the Ceres Business for Innovative... 

However, when considering the sustainabUity of apparel retail, the most important aspect of the business model to consider is associated with how the retailer sources products. This activity has the most direct impact on the ability of the retailer to be sustainable. The retailer s products and supply chain are the most significant source of the environmental and social impacts. Up to two-thirds of a retailer s carbon footprint and up to 90% of its water footprint is created by its products and supply chain (WRAP, 2011). And as a retailer s supply chain may have more than 20 times more workers in it than in its retail operation, and often in countries where social issues may be significant, the supply chain is a major source of social and ethical challenges for the retailer. Therefore, the sourcing model for products and suppliers is a critical consideration in the development of a sustainability strategy. 

Short (in balance) sustainable carbon cycle using bio-based carbon feedstock MATERIAL CARBON FOOTPRINT... 

Sustainability has many definitions. One way to think of it is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs (defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development held by the United Nations in 1983). The concept of sustainability is that we should synchronize our consumption of natural resources with the Earth s production - in other words, using up natural resources at the same rate at which they are produced. Compared to traditional polymers typically made from petroleum and other fossil resources such as natural gas, sustainable polymers are fuUy or partially biobased and/or biodegradable or compostable. They are bioplastics made from renewable resources (biomass) and can be broken down faster than traditional plastics. Sustainable polymers could also protect our Earth by offering a reduced carbon footprint, a reduced use of fossil resources, and improved end-of-life options. 

The Carbon Footprint of Ammonia Process - Case Study on Utilization of Natural Gas Environmental Sustainability... 

Footprint of such an important process in Carbon equivalent quantities is of high interest these days as immediate mitigation measures should take place in order to optimize current technologies used aiming to assure environmental sustainability of the process. Direct emissions of Carbon Dioxide from the process and its major utility sections (furnace, turbines, steam heaters and boilers) are targeted in this case study. In order to provide a good estimate of Carbon Footprint of Ammonia process HYSYS simulation software and MS Excel can be integrated to calculate process Carbon emissions. 

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