Maturity grid development for energy and resource efficiency management in factories and early findings from its application

Abstract

Defining and consequently calculating eco-efficiency in production activities has been a problem for practitioners using quantitative approaches found in literature. Based on cases of environmental performance (EP) benchmarking, the authors seek to understand how eco-efficiency can be captured as a systemic quality with transferable properties across manufacturers. A review of the benchmarking literature is performed on EP measurement and management practices with special focus on case study comparisons between industrial processes and production facilities. The authors cluster cases that demonstrate EP variations with respect to organizational structure. Based on a natural resource-based view of the production system, the authors develop a framework that qualitatively analyzes eco-efficiency in terms of capabilities and practices in manufacturing. Initial research data about the framework's applications through different research methods develop insights on the options available for manufacturers that wish to understand the roadmap to energy and resource efficiency in production facilities.

Building a hierarchical framework of corporate sustainability transition challenges using the qualitative information approach

“…The lack of awareness and knowledge (C5) from society and construction firms are sources of other CST challenges (Koho et al, 2015;Martek et al, 2019). The bias regarding corporate objectives and the irregularity of practices and frameworks is a challenge in CST triggered by the lack of leadership (C6) (Litos and Evans, 2015;Budsaratragoon and Jitmaneeroj, 2019;Martek et al, 2019). A lack of community involvement (C7) or bottom-up initiatives from civil society to uphold and support sustainable practices is a challenge hindering the shift toward sustainability (Fastenrath and Braun, 2018).…”

“…A lack of community involvement (C7) or bottom-up initiatives from civil society to uphold and support sustainable practices is a challenge hindering the shift toward sustainability (Fastenrath and Braun, 2018). Moreover, the passive sustainability implementation caused by a lack of commitment (C8) is a challenge that restricts the shift toward corporations becoming more sustainable (Litos and Evans, 2015;Engert and Baumgartner, 2016). The difficulties in determining specific practices and balancing all operations in corporations due to a lack of strategy (C9) are seen as challenges that inhibit CST (Pham et al, 2019;Cancela et al, 2020).…”

Improving Factory Resource and Energy Efficiency: The FREE Toolkit

“…At this stage, qualitative assessment tools (step 8) can help identify areas of strength and weakness with no data collection required. Tools such as the Capability Assessment Grid for Eco-efficiency (CAGE) framework and the RAMP tool [15,16] provide a basis for such qualitative assessment of companies' maturity in various dimensions of ecoefficiency. These assessments rely on the user's existing knowledge about the company in terms of resource management and environmental management system in place.…”

Metal and Plastic Recycling Flows in a Circular Value Chain

“…In today's value chain, where production rate and correlated resource and energy consumption constantly increase, efficient and effective use of resources is imperative. In addition, recent concerns regarding non-renewable resources and environmental burden of extracting and producing products from virgin raw materials have been published in several reports and scientific publications such as [1][2][3][4]. Material efficiency is an approach within circular economy and resource efficiency to regain the original material value via reduction in industrial waste volumes and decrease of the total virgin raw material production per one unit of output, in addition to increasing the homogeneity of wasted material with better waste segregation [5].…”