The path to a sustainable chemical industry: progress and problems

The drive toward sustainability among businesses, governments, academic programs and individuals has resulted in much progress in the last several years. Methods such as life cycle assessment, carbon and water footprinting are increasingly popular. In addition, many regions are developing byproduct synergy networks to enhance resource efficiency by using waste from one industry as a resource in another. Most efforts toward sustainability in engineering, including these, focus on enhancing efficiency of resource and energy use for a process or life cycle. Unfortunately, these efforts need not lead to sustainability. Additional efforts are required to address several challenges. These include accounting for the role of ecosystem services in life cycle analysis and decision making, considering the strong multidisciplinary, complex and wicked nature of the sustainability challenge. Process systems engineers are in a position to address these challenges by working with researchers in other disciplines.

► Sustainability is a popular goal for many corporations, governments and consumers.
► New methods focus on enhancing life cycle resource and emissions efficiency.
► Existing methods need to account for the role of ecosystem services.
► Sustainability also needs to consider the interaction across scales and disciplines.
► New methods are needed to address the ‘wicked’ nature of sustainability.