Search results

Sustainable development is a complex concept which concerns a wide range of social, techno‐economic and environmental issues. Without addressing all these dimensions, teaching of sustainable development would not be complete. Therefore, taught modules and teaching materials for engineering students should include not only technological analysis and economic evaluation, but also environmental and social considerations. This paper outlines the way in which a multidisciplinary approach to teaching sustainability has been embodied in learning programmes and activities in engineering at the University of Surrey, UK. More specifically, it describes a project to develop a comprehensive IT‐based learning resource comprising a set of multidisciplinary case studies and support material in order to aid engineering students in understanding the concepts inherent in sustainability and how solutions can be developed.

This paper presents an interactive multimedia case study in waste water management developed at the University of Surrey, UK. The case study considers waste water treatment methods used in a typical sewage treatment works (STW). The works uses a biological treatment process which depends on the provision of dissolved oxygen to the incoming waste water stream. There are several alternative ways of providing oxygen and this case study explores the technical, environmental, economic and social aspects of the various alternatives. The aim of the case study is to suggest which criteria chemical engineers should consider in order to identify more sustainable process alternatives. The case study is developed as an IT‐based interactive learning package (CD‐ROM).

This paper presents a framework for modelling polymer material flows through industrial processes with a focus on the recovery, re‐use and recycling of waste polymer materials within a life cycle approach. This is achieved by comparison of material characteristics at all points in the system with defined requirements or options. Conditional criteria are implemented as direction indicators that drive the flow towards feasible process operations and successful application in the use phase across many life cycles.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and map the main areas of the Circular Economy literature of the first two decades of 21st century, offering a broad vision about the growth of the theme during these years.

The research was divided into two stages: the first was a systematic review of literature and the second consisted on generation and analysis of bibliographic maps.

The publication indicates the prominence of China and European Union countries in the production of articles about Circular Economy. Furthermore, the topic is restricted to academic area, and that research on Circular Economy is still very focused on theory studies, even with exponential growth in the number of published articles about the theme since 2015. Finally, it also provides a collection of information as the principal authors, the most cited publications, citations, co-citations and countries that have most published beyond which are the most discussed topics.

A possible limitation of the research is that it was performed only in the Scopus database. It may be suggested as future searches that other databases are included as well, and another suggestion is to reduce the time period between research samples due to the exponential increase in the number of publications and topics discussed lately.

The results of this paper can guide future researches about the development of Circular Economy during the next decades or years and serve as a facilitator for researchers and for managers that want to know more about the topic.

A mapping of the principal players and main discussions about Circular Economy made in the first two decades of the 21st century and an analysis about the growth and changes about the theme.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework and key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the sustainability of the manufacturing organizations along the integrated supply chain.

A systematic literature review of existing peer-reviewed articles has been carried out to understand the strengths and weaknesses of current frameworks. A sustainability assessment framework has been proposed for the manufacturing sector. KPIs to assess sustainability performance of manufacturing organizations are identified. An empirical study is carried out for the cement industry to test the proposed framework and KPIs.

The existing frameworks on sustainability assessment lacks an integrated assessment consisting product life cycle, resources, critical factors (product, process and policy), KPIs and their interrelationship with sustainability dimensions. In total, 121 KPIs are identified for sustainability assessment of manufacturing organizations. The empirical study of the Indian cement industry identifies 52 KPIs (17 social, 15 economic and 20 environmental), which are classified into 13 factors using exploratory factor analysis.

The proposed framework is tested for the cement sector. More studies are required to validate and refine the framework to make it generalized for the manufacturing sector.

This study has developed for the first time a close interrelation among life cycle engineering, resources, critical factors, KPIs and sustainability dimensions.