Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4373631 | Ecological Indicators | 2013 | 10 Pages |
The manufacturing industry is seeking an open, inclusive, and neutral set of indicators to measure sustainability of manufactured products and manufacturing processes. In these efforts, they find a large number of stand-alone indicator sets. This has caused complications in terms of understanding interrelated terminology and selecting specific indicators for different aspects of sustainability. This paper reviews a set of publicly available indicator sets and provides a categorization of indicators that are quantifiable and clearly related to manufacturing. The indicator categorization work is also intended to establish an integrated sustainability indicator repository as a means to providing a common access for manufacturers, as well as academicians, to learn about current indicators and measures of sustainability. This paper presents a categorization of sustainability indicators, based on mutual similarity, in five dimensions of sustainability: environmental stewardship, economic growth, social well-being, technological advancement, and performance management. Finally, the paper explains how to use this indicator set to assess a company's manufacturing operations.
► Indicator categorization has been developed for providing a common structure to organize sustainability indicators. ► Five dimensions of indicator categorization are environmental stewardship, economic growth, social well-being, performance management, and technological advancement. ► This paper provides a measurement process for assessing sustainability of manufacturing processes.