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Cleaner production & waste management - Stages of Green Production

6 important questions on Cleaner production & waste management - Stages of Green Production

What are the 6 stages towards Green Production?

1. Overview
2. Eco - profile
3. Department Network
4. Quantification
5. Conceptualization
6. Green Production

Explain stage 1 "Overview" towards Green Production

• Analysis of the production process
• Identification of all individual stages (i.e., procurement of raw materials & components, manufacturing, assembly, packaging, distribution, transportation) – enables identifying alternatives in the future
• Documentation of respective inputs & outputs for all stages – provides data for subsequent stages
• Estimation of overall environmental impact & of each stages’ contribution – provides data for subsequent stages

Explain stage 2 "Eco-profile Stage" towards Green Production

• Creation of the ecological profile based on the data from the previous stage
• Initial assessment of the possible origin of the impacts
• Identification of the connections between the impacts at the individual stages of production – enables arranging stages of production based on their environmental impact assessment
• 4 impact groups
– Materials: Origin of materials & dependence on limited resources
– Energy: All energy types and resources used for production
– Chemicals: Impacts that derive from the use and disposal of chemical & hazardous substances
– Miscellaneous: All other environmental impacts not listed above

Explain stage 3 "Department Network Stage" towards Green Production

• Identification of individual departments & their role in the production process
• Identification of overlays/connection amongst the departments w.r.t the production process
• Recording of each department’s contribution to the environmental impact

• Data from each department is compared with the data from previous stages that is on processes
– Data collected in preceding stages might be incomplete
– Thus, some assumptions need to be made

Explain stage 4 "Quantification" towards Green Production

Execution of a quantified life cycle assessment, which includes
• System boundaries
• Inputs
• Outputs

Explain stage 6 "Green Production"

• Compilation of the district improvements into a universal strategy governing the green production process that is applicable from upper management to workforce
• Formulating a universal strategy is chaotic; proposals on environmental improvement plans can be ranked
• Environmental improvement plans has a higher adoption probability if aligned with corporate strategy