Integrating resource criticality assessment into evaluation of cleaner production possibilities for increasing resource efficiency

Abstract

A stable and secure source of raw materials is the key to any successful industrial activity. Resource criticality is often discussed in the context of the impact on the economies of certain geographic regions. However, the availability of required resources first of all concerns the competitiveness of industrial companies, especially in those countries which do not possess abundant natural resources. The Lithuanian economy relies heavily on imports since the country does not have abundant natural resources. The paper introduces resource criticality as an additional dimension for evaluating and prioritizing resource efficiency improvement options. Evaluation of resource criticality was integrated into the methodology for evaluation of Cleaner Production. Simple additive weighting (SAW) was used to solve the multi-criteria decision-making problem. The previous study on the natural resources that are imported to Lithuania revealed that metals are among the most important raw materials in terms of economic importance, supply, and environmental risks. Therefore, a typical metal processing company in Lithuania was selected for the detailed investigation of technological processes and Cleaner Production possibilities. The selected company processes about 3000 tons of various metals per year. The results of Process Material Flow Analysis show that most of the metal waste is generated during the metal plate cutting process (about 30.3 % of total metal consumption). Three resource efficiency improvement alternatives were evaluated and compared. The suggested decision support system was tested in order to decide on a definitive solution. The results reveal that evaluation of resource criticality in terms of geostrategic supply risk and economic importance can be used as an advantageous criterion to support the prioritization of Cleaner Production alternatives.

Evaluation of Cleaner Production for Gold Mines Employing a Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Making Approach

“…Considering that the dimensions, types, and units of sub-criteria are various, the initial evaluation matrix must be normalized. According to Equations (8) and (15), the normalized decision making matrix is determined, as shown in Table 3.…”

Critical Natural Resources: Challenging the Current Discourse and Proposal for a Holistic Definition

“…Despite being a highly debated topic, many of the reviewed publications point out the fact that there is currently no universally agreed upon standard definition of criticality concerning natural resources (e.g., [2,41]). The variation in terminology is attributed to the multiple applications of the concept in diverse contexts, such as time or spatial scales [42,43]. Some authors prefer not to have a common definition so that "criticality is a relative concept and the relevant dimensions can (and should) be defined by the user according to his/her particular needs" [44] (p. 728).…”

“…Most authors, almost exclusively, relate "strategic" to military and defence needs, as part of an overall criticality concept [5,39,40]. Now, strategic concerns are also attributed to another interest group than governments: namely, businesses [43]. The term "strategic", as well as "critical", has gone through a substantial expansion and transition over time.…”

Implementation of cleaner production: A ten-year retrospective on benefits and difficulties found

“…This would be done at a reduced cost and would also increase the efficiency of the processes as a consequence. For this reason, Cleaner Production became known as an eco-efficiency strategy (Malinauskienė et al, 2016;UNEP, 1990).…”

“…In addition, Cleaner Production has become a potential methodology for supporting the decisions of the organization as a whole and, in its implementation, can include both improved and new management techniques, such as Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). These tools can be used to support the assessment and mapping of opportunities for improvement, viability, and sources of inefficiencies to be addressed by Cleaner Production (Glavič and Lukman, 2007;Malinauskienė et al, 2016). The widespread use of this methodology should not rely on subsidies and government programms alone and, as shown by (Maroušek, 2014) in the case of biochar production, a Cleaner production approach has the potential of generating innovations and competitiveness gains that make it financially atractive, a prerequisite for its scale gains.…”