Journal
22ND CIRP CONFERENCE ON LIFE CYCLE ENGINEERING
Volume 29, Issue -, Pages 1-7Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.procir.2015.02.126
Keywords
Absolute sustainability; IPAT equation; Eco-efficiency; Midpoint LCA; Eco-effectiveness; Cradle to cradle; Planetary boundaries; Carrying capacity; Normalization; Person equivalent
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
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. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available