ECO-EFFICIENCY INDICATORS FOR INJECTION MOULDING INDUSTRY: A GUIDELINE FOR QUICK IDENTIFICATION A LIFE CYCLE APPROACH

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1 ECO-EFFICIENCY INDICATORS FOR INJECTION MOULDING INDUSTRY: A GUIDELINE FOR QUICK IDENTIFICATION A LIFE CYCLE APPROACH Carlos Roda Instituto Superior Técnico Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica Avenida Rovisco Pais, Lisboa, Portugal carlos.roda@tecnico.ulisboa.pt Abstract The theme of Sustainability and Sustainable Future has been gaining weight in the conscience of the modern societies and conquering space among a growing number of companies and their strategies. This new way of facing the world lead to the development of new concepts and management tools, in the last decades, that provide help in achieving a sustainable position for any given company or business sector. This thesis builds precisely on the applicability of one of these tools, the evaluation of Eco-efficiency, in the business of Injection Moulding of Plastic material. The Evaluation of Eco-efficiency for a production system is a complex, time and resource consuming task. Therefore, this thesis aims to help future evaluations by providing reduced a set of Eco-efficiency Indicators required for a correct evaluation. In order to do that, a guideline is presented that identifies all the steps and data required and matches all the results with the Ecoefficiency principles. All these steps are based on international standards and recognised guidelines that guaranty the step s validity. At the end, a set of tables are presented with the resulting indicators, organized by applicability and ready to provide assistance on future eco-efficiency evaluations. Keywords: Sustainability; Eco-efficiency; Injection Moulding 1 - Introduction The growing environmental conscience of the modern societies turned the theme of Sustainability an important subject of debate [1]. Nowadays, only a few number of companies don t include strategies to achieve a better performance in their energy and material consumption record [2]. In fact, the last decades brought a variety of tools for management assistance that helps companies achieve a more sustainable way of work [3]. This paper focus specifically on one of these tools the Eco-efficiency Evaluation. Eco-efficiency is a tool that provides a way for companies to improve their environmental performance without arming their economic performance. This happens because Eco-efficiency always takes the value of a product or production system in consideration when evaluating the environmental performance [4]. Due to this, in the last years, Eco-efficiency has been gaining its own space inside companies, as top manager s start recognising Eco-efficiency s value and applicability. Documentation on this subject reveals that Eco-efficiency is applicable to any kind of business, regardless its size. Despite that it also shows that, the use 1/6

2 of this tool is still only common among large companies [4] [5]. In this paper, Eco-efficiency is applied to the injection moulding industry. As this is a very competitive sector and since Portuguese moulds are recognize as top of the sector, it is important for this industry to have a tool that provides a way to continually improve its performance, towards a sustainable operation [6]. An Eco-efficiency Evaluation is a complex operation therefore; this paper will present a guide line that will help minimize the time and resources wasted in this process, by providing a reduced list of indicators, suitable for the injection moulding industry. 2 - Eco-efficiency Indicators for Injection Moulding Industry The guide line mentioned before, presents five steps to properly identify eco-efficiency indicators for injection moulding industry [7]. process of the plastic part are identified and accounted [9]. 2.2 Step 2: Data analysis The second step consists in analysing all the data collected before under the scope of the rules and guide lines mentioned earlier. 2.3 Step 3: Functional Unit definition Defining the functional unit of the study case is a fundamental step, because it defines all the metrics used to compare data from different sources, and related to different subjects. The Functional Unit will act as the common denominator that allows this data to be related to each other. The Functional Unit is not unique for a certain topic. During a specific comparison or analyses, the Functional Unit is fixed. However, it can change for another analysis of the same topic, depending on the context of the new analyses. 2.4 Step 4: Environmental Profile and Value Profile Eco-efficiency is calculated using the formula Figure 1 - Steps to identify eco-efficiency indicators These steps are based on recognized guidelines and international standards, already used for this type of work [4] [8]. In this case, the rules are adjusted to the specificity of the injection moulding case. 2.1 Step 1: Data from the mould production and the injection process In this first stage, all the relevant data concerning the production of the actual mould and the injection The data used in this formula comes from the Environmental Profile and Value Profile. The Environmental Profile consists in all the data related to the environmental performance of the system. It includes the Environmental Aspects of the system and the Key Environmental Performance Indicators KEPI. The Environmental Aspects qualifies the fluxes of material and energy (type of material consumption, type of energy consumption, type of waste produced, etc.), both in the mould production and the injection process. This is done by analysing every aspect of each technology used for 2/6

3 the mould production and injection process (tool s consumption, energy consumption, production of waste and residues, etc.) [9]. The KEPI s are the correspondent quantification of Environmental Aspects. As environmental indicators, the KEPI s will provide all the information necessary to draw the Environmental Profile. This is done by following regulation created for this purpose [8] [10]. The Value Profile is defined by value indicators that can be obtained through financial information from the company, market studies, etc. and also from product characteristics (e.g. durability). Both value and environmental indicators can have a generic character or a specific character. This means that some indicators can be used by virtually all kinds of business (generic ones), but other are specific for a certain kind product or business aspect [2]. 2.5 Step 5: Eco-efficiency Indicators Table 1 - Eco-efficiency user's profile USER S PROFILES Top Production Mould design management management Table 2 - Different types of Eco-efficiency users POINTS OF VIEW Moulding company Injection company With this new approach, the list of Eco-efficiency Indicators is narrowed down to several, more simple, lists containing the indicators relevant for each type of users and each profile of user [7]. In order to prove the applicability of this line of thought, it was applied to an example model [11]. All the steps so far had the objective of creating a list of Eco-efficiency Indicators, representative of the injection moulding sector, which is the main objective of the presented guide line. However, due to the large number of Environmental Aspects and KEPI s, the resulting Environmental Profile is also extensive [7]. Since the Ecoefficiency Indicators are calculated combining the Environmental Profile with the Value Profile, the resulting list of Eco-efficiency Indicators for the injection moulding industry is also predictably extensive [7]. That goes against one of the objective of the presented guide line which is, to provide a simple method of identifying Ecoefficiency Indicators for the injection moulding sector. In order to overcome this situation, three profiles of eco-efficiency users are proposed with two different points of view (Table 1 and Table 2). Figure 2 - Mould used as example [11] Figure 3 - Plastic part used as example [11] 3/6

4 The results from this application are several Ecoefficiency Indicators, for each user s profile and points of view [7]. Through this indicators a company (either Moulding Company or Injection Company) or mould designer have a tool that helps quantify the environmental of mould production and injection moulding [11]. Table 3 - Environmental Influence of the study used as example [7] [11] Environmental Influence of the mould s 64,18 material (pts) Environmental Influence of the mould s 78,76 production (pts) Environmental Influence of the injection ,82 process (pts) Environmental Influence of the mould s end 1645,24 of life (pts) Total Environmental Influence (pts) Table 5 - Example of Eco-efficiency Indicators for production management profile TOP MANAGEMENT Moulding Company 0,142 h/pts Injection Company 70E-9 h/pts Table 6 - Example of Eco-efficiency Indicators for mould design profile MOULD DESIGN Table 4 - Example of Eco-efficiency Indicators for top management profile 5,16 parts/pts TOP MANAGEMENT Moulding Company 23,68 /kg 3 Guide line steps vs Eco-efficiency Principles Injection Company Another objective of this guide line is to find a connection between the data from each step and the Seven Principles of Eco-efficiency. 23,26 parts/kg ECO-EFFICIENCY PRINCIPLES 1 - Reduce de material intensity of goods and services 2 - Reduce the energy intensity of goods and services 3 - Reduce dispersion of any toxic substances 4/6

5 4 - Enhance the recyclability of materials 5 - Maximise sustainable use of renewable resources 6 - Extend the durability of products 7 - Increase the service intensity of goods and services Since all the steps presented and their corresponding data are based on regulation concerning the Eco-efficiency theme and the rules stated by the WBCSD for eco-efficiency evaluations, it is logical that a connection between these and Eco-efficiency s Principles will be found. However, not every data of every step is related to all the principles. This happens due to the vast applicability and aspects covered by Eco-efficiency and Eco-efficiency Indicators. In fact, some indicators have a very specific application to a certain aspect of production or operation. That makes it difficult to connect to principles that reflect very different aspects or information. The same thing can be said about the Principles of Eco-efficiency. Although these principles have the same goal of helping achieve a more sustainable situation, linking indicators that deal with the issue of recyclability with a subject like product durability, may reveal a difficult task. Apart that, in the majority of cases, a relation between data and Eco-efficiency Principles is easy to find. Conclusions Eco-efficiency was already known as management tool already used in some subject. Now it has proven it s applicability to the injection moulding industry. The guide lines presented here, try to establish a recipe for evaluate Eco-efficiency performance in the injection moulding industry, by identifying the fundamental parameters (Environmental Aspects; KEPI s; Funcional Unit; Environmental Profile and Value Profile) necessary to achieve this goal, and usable for any case study inside the industry. At the same time, this guide line tries to establish a connection between the parameters, the Ecoefficiency Indicators that result from this guide line and the Seven Principles of Eco-efficiency. The selection of the Functional Unit turns out to be a step of outmost importance. This unit not only establishes a connection between data from very different sources, but also helps put into context the Eco-efficiency analyses, depending on the perspective of the Ecoefficiency s users or the objective of the analyses. The connection between this data, the Ecoefficiency Indicators and the Eco-efficiency Principles is intense. However, there isn t a full connection between all the parameters, indicators and principles. This happens because the sceptre of analyses of the eco-efficiency is very wide and covers many issues, some of them are so different form each other that a direct connection between them is unlikely. As a result, some parameters and indicators may miss some principles, and the same happens the other way around. This guide line also suggests a separation of the Eco-efficiency Indicators by type of users and user s point of view. This alternative form allows faster way to get results for a specific kind of users, which may turn out to be a valuable tool for future study cases. Finally, with the application of this guide line to an example case allows to evaluate the environmental influence of each part of study, either it s the production of the mould phase or the injection process phase, or the total influence. It shows that the injection phase has the higher environmental influence, leaving the mould production phase with a residual environmental influence. References [1] Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, available at, Brundtland_Report_1987.pdf. 5/6

6 [2] World Business Council for Sustainable Development, WBCSD: Vision 2050: The new agenda for Business, WBCSD, Genebra, [3] ODUM, E. P., Ed. Guanabara, [4] World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Measuring Eco-efficiency a guide to reporting company performance [5] Vesela & Ellenbecker, Indicators of sustainable production: Framework and metodology, Journal of Cleaner Production, [6] A Indústria Portuguesa de Moldes, disponível em, s/historia [7] Roda, C; Indentificação de Indicadores de Ecoeficiência para a Industria dos Moldes de Injeção de Plástico ; Instituto Superior Técnico; Portugal: [8] Instituto Português da Qualidade, Gestão ambiental Avaliação do desempenho ambiental Linhas de orientação (ISO 14031:1999) ; NP EN ISO 14031:2005; IQP: Portugal. [9] Instituto Português da Qualidade; Gestão ambiental Avaliação do ciclo de vida Reqisitos e linhas de orientação (ISO 14044:2006) ; in NP EN ISO 14044:2010; IPQ: Portugal; [10] Global Reporting Initiative; Sustainability Reporting Guidelines ; Global Reporting Initiative; The Netherlands; [11] Pousa, C.; Desenvolvimento de modelos simplificados de análise do ciclo de vida de moldes de injeção de plástico ; Instituto Superior Técnico; Portugal: /6