Sustainability may be a common term used in businesses these days, but not many actually know what it means, much more how businesses can put it into practice.

At least so says Gina Blus, author of Sustainability for Manufacturers: Driving Profitability and Growth, written as a white paper for the Autodesk Manufacturing. “Sustainability is an increasingly common theme in the business and trade press, at conferences, and in everyday conversation,” she says, adding that, unfortunately, despite the commonness, businesses need to learn to “integrate sustainability into their corporate strategy to drive both profits and growth.”

Fortunately, Blus adds, there are “sustainable design methodologies that can assist in lowering the environmental impact of any product, quickly and cost-effectively” – considered important since “taking action on sustainability can help mitigate perennial business challenges.

”What Sustainability?
 
The World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission, 1987) defines sustainability as the “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

This is of particular interest to businesses, especially with calls for them to be environmentally conscious. Thus, citing the case of those in the manufacturing industry in particular, Blus says “manufacturers use raw materials as inputs and transform them into finished goods; but materials like wood, copper, and steel, while once cheap and plentiful, are growing ever more expensive and harder to find. Cost and availability are likely to worsen as rapid growth in newly industrializing countries consumes natural resources faster than they can be replenished or substitutes found.”

With this, the obvious effect is bad for the environment, since “the harvest and extraction of natural materials can cause substantial environmental harm, especially as supplies dwindle and resource recovery becomes more invasive,” Blus says. Consequently, this will have an effect on any “product’s material inputs, as well as the production process. The lifetime impact of a product may vary significantly based on the materials selection and on the  amount of materials consumed.”

Obviously, in this case, sustainability is attainable when “manufacturer (only) use the minimum materials necessary to do any job, and, when feasible, choosing materials that are plentiful, such as rapidly renewable natural materials like bamboo or readily available industrial materials such as recycled aluminium; and are healthy and safe, or those that are not subject to regulations, restrictions, grassroots campaigns, or questions about their environmental impact on humans, wildlife and habitat,” Blus says.

Focal Points

For businesses to be sustainable, Blus believes that there are three areas where sustainability has to, simplistically, be focused.

 Firstly, “manufacturers often use water as an input in the production process, and some industries are particularly water-intensive. (But) only a tiny fraction of the planet’s water is fit for human consumption, and the amount is shrinking fast as aquifers are overdrawn, chemicals leach into groundwater, and climate change shrinks lakes and reservoirs. Seasonal and crisisrelated shortages are common in some regions and likely to increase in coming years. At-risk communities are increasing their reliance on recycled water to meet the non-potable needs of  residents and businesses,” Blus says.

For those with business, especially  those who use water frequently, costs and risks related to water and wastewater may be reduced by “minimizing the overall use of water in their manufacturing processes; using recycled water rather than potable sources; minimizing contaminants in wastewater; and investigating the feasibility of capturing, recycling, and reusing water onsite.”

Secondly, “virtually all manufacturing processes use energy.” And regardless of type and source, “energy prices have escalated over the past 35 years, so that, unless manufacturers have invested in energy efficiency, energy costs now represent a larger share of operating expenses than ever before, with no end in sight.” Worse, the “resulting greenhouse gas emissions are a major cause of global warming and increasingly subject to regulation.”

The solution is in cutting the energy used in operations, both in business operations and manufacturing processes; while actually looking at using clean, renewable energy to meet some or all operational needs.

And thirdly, a focus on the wastes – “A problem that is growing acute,” Blus says – has to be done. Businesses should “consider the waste produced by their products, as well as their operations (since) products that generate unwanted by products will be more costly and troublesome to their purchasers than ones that operate more efficiently. Products covered by extended producer responsibility policies, either mandatory or voluntary, will impose higher costs and hassles on manufacturers if they are not designed for efficient disassembly and resource recovery,” Blus says.

Blus adds: “Waste is a symptom of a non-optimized manufacturing process. Any unwanted by-product increases expenses – and the cost of goods – but does not increase the product’s value or selling prices. However, what constitutes waste for one business may be a valuable input for another. Transferring unwanted by-products to another manufacturer is a financially sound business practice, regardless of whether a fee is collected. Eliminating waste by improving the efficiency of the process is an even more cost effective practice.”

Here for good

The increasing importance of environmental issues to manufacturers offers more opportunities than risks, as there is much to be gained in “connecting the opportunities to the business challenges commonly faced by businesses.”

Among the benefits that Blus sees include profitability, such as in using less energy in production to lower overhead and product costs; creation
and subsequent retention of customers supportive of environmental moves; and compliance with regulatory pressures that avert negative regulatory impacts later (See Table 1).

Sustainability is not something that businesses should take for granted, says Blus, who believes that it is a solution for businesses to thrive while actually helping the environment thrive. So “businesses should choose sustainable outcomes that advance their top business priorities, such as lowering operating expenses or taking market share from a competitor,” she says. The most important thing to realize is that “sustainability is here to stay. The business world is undergoing a permanent change, and smart business leaders will build sustainability into their business model.”