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Environmental Operations Leeds School of Business University of Colorado

Professor Stephen Lawrence. Environmental Operations Leeds School of Business University of Colorado. Global Warming Ozone Depletion Acid Rain Deforestation Pesticides Nuclear Power. Automobiles Resource Depletion Plastics Electromagnetics Oil Spills Toxic Chemicals.

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Environmental Operations Leeds School of Business University of Colorado

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  1. Professor Stephen Lawrence Environmental Operations Leeds School of Business University of Colorado

  2. Global Warming Ozone Depletion Acid Rain Deforestation Pesticides Nuclear Power Automobiles Resource Depletion Plastics Electromagnetics Oil Spills Toxic Chemicals Environmental Crises Bast, Hill, and Rue, Eco-Sanity, Madison Books, Lanham MD, 1994

  3. World Resources Institute (www.wri.org/wri)

  4. World Resources Institute (www.wri.org/wri)

  5. Who is Responsible ?? • Rapacious Corporations • Oil companies • Mining companies • Paper and timber mills • Chemical industry • Most all businesses !! • Uncaring Business People • Greedy Capitalists • Antigovernment Conservatives

  6. Global Warming Ozone Depletion Acid Rain Deforestation Pesticides Nuclear Power Automobiles Resource Depletion Plastics Electromagnetics Oil Spills Toxic Chemicals Environmental Crises Seeds of a Solution... Bast, Hill, and Rue, Eco-Sanity, Madison Books, Lanham MD, 1994

  7. Changing Conceptions of the Natural Environment

  8. Thomas Malthus 1766-1834 “In Essay on Population (1798) Malthus posited his hypothesis that (unchecked) population growth always exceeds the growth of means of subsistence.  Actual (checked) population growth is kept in line with food supply growth by "positive checks" (starvation, disease and the like, elevating the death rate) and "preventive checks" (i.e. postponement of marriage, etc. that keep down the birthrate), both of which are characterized by "misery and vice".  Malthus's hypothesis implied that actual population always has a tendency to push above the food supply.  Because of this tendency, any attempt to ameliorate the condition of the lower classes by increasing their incomes or improving agricultural productivity would be fruitless, as the extra means of subsistence would be completely absorbed by an induced boost in population.  As long as this tendency remains, Malthus argued, the "perfectibility" of society will always be out of reach. ” http://cepa.newschool.edu/~het/profiles/malthus.htm, April 2002

  9. Romanticism (18th-19th Centuries) Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

  10. Industrial Revolution

  11. The Start of Environmentalism

  12. Limits to Growth (1972) Suter, Fair Warning? The Club of Rome Revisited, Australian Broadcasting Corp, 1999. http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/rome/default.htm

  13. Evolution of Green Sentiment Sometime in the late Sixties, pollution ceased to be a morally neutral problem subject to rational analysis and balanced solutions; it acquired instead, the status of sin. Congress wrote tough legislation -- the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970 and the Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972 -- to stamp it out. • Leonard, Pollution and the Struggle for the World Product, Cambridge (1988), p81 Although many environmental requirements have been written into law, the law alone will never make our air and water clean. A full compliance with the law can never be achieved by a government agency trying to ram it down everyone’s throat. • Quarles, Business and Environment, Conservation Foundation (1977), p57 The real pressure to be green is coming not from environmental pressure groups, or even from the green consumer: it is coming from inside business. • Pearce, The Greening of Business, University Press (1991), p2

  14. Emerging Conceptions of Commerce and the Environment

  15. Business and Environmentalism • Waste is the common enemy of Business and of the Environment • Pollution is Waste! • wasted raw materials • wasted handling • wasted cleanup expense • wasted transportation • wasted disposal expense • wasted legal expense • Business attention moving from environmental compliance to proactive cleanup

  16. TQM and Environmentalism • Initial focus on cleaning up problems “at the end of the pipeline • Later, attention to improving processes and eliminating problems at their source • Then, recognition that pollution is waste, and that environmentalism is cost effective • Finally, involvement of all employees in a program of continuous improvement

  17. “Greening” OperationsThe Three R’s Reduce and eliminate waste streams by: • Recycling • Reuse • Reduction

  18. Recycling Most well-known and popular pollution prevention method Arguably the easiest method Paper, plastics, glass, metals, oil and solvents Example: reprocessing waste plastic into durable shipping and warehouse pallets

  19. BMW -- Recycling • German “green” laws make manufacturers responsible for products thru their life-cycles • “Cradle-to-grave” responsibility • BMW designing autos to be easily recycled • Easy disassembly, marked parts, and “pure” (unpainted, unglued, ...) materials • 81% of 3-Series coupe can be recycled • Opening up recycling centers in Germany, Europe, and United States

  20. Automobile Recycling at Ford

  21. Reuse • Reuse materials wherever possible • Example: refill rather than discard a 55 gallon drum used to ship a hazardous chemical • Design for reuse where possible • Example: HP Laserjet print cartridges returned to factory for refilling

  22. Reuse at Chrysler • Packaging and shipping containers provides lucrative opportunity for reuse • Wooden pallets have life of 2-3 uses; recycled plastic pallets last 20-30 uses • Similar benefits from replacing corrugated boxes with plastic containers • Chrysler has reduced consumption of disposable containers by 55% • Goal of 95% reduction

  23. Reduction • Most difficult method to implement • Method with greatest potential • Design, manufacture, and use of products to reduce the quantity and toxicity of the waste produced • Difficult to generalize • Strong parallels with Quality movement • Eliminate waste streams, don’t wait until back end of process to clean-up waste

  24. Reduction at Aircraft Plant • Touch-up paints and sealants often hardened in the container • Began buying in smaller containers • Saved over $250,000 per year

  25. The Fourth R: Reclamation • Restore land to previous state after • logging • mining • waste dumps • manufacturing • farming • development • We’re not making more land…

  26. ISO 14000 • International standard • Strengthen environmental mgmt systems • Control environmental impacts • Commitment to environmental targets • regulators • insurance interests • stakeholders • public

  27. Reconciling Commercewith Ecology

  28. Natural Capitalism andIndustrial Ecology

  29. Natural Capitalism • Increase productivity of natural resources • Shift to biologically inspired production models • Move to a solutions-based business model • Reinvest in natural capital

  30. Industrial Ecology Industrial Ecology is the study of the means by which humanity can deliberately and rationally approach and maintain a desirable carrying capacity, given current economic, cultural, and technological evolution. Graedel and Allenby

  31. Industrial Ecology • Industrial Systems • viewed in the context of surroundings, not in isolation • Optimization of entire materials cycle • virgin to finished material • component to product • obsolete product to disposal • Optimization of resources, energy, capital

  32. Sustainability • Sustainable development: • development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needsBrundtland Commission

  33. Industrial Ecology • Five perspectives 1. Long term habitability 2. Mitigating disruptions for fundamental life-supporting cycles 3. Global scope rather than transitory issues 4. Identify and avoid instances where human activity overwhelms nature 5. Understanding and modifying behavior rather thancondemning

  34. Type I Industrial Ecosystem

  35. Type II Industrial Ecosystem

  36. Type III Industrial Ecosystem

  37. Kalundborg, Denmark

  38. Kalundborg, Denmark

  39. But what about the rest of the world?

  40. Where do Ships go to Die? “At Alang, in India, on a six-mile stretch of oily, smoky beach, 40,000 men tear apart half of the world's discarded ships, each one a sump of toxic waste. Environmentalists in the West are outraged. The shipbreakers, of course, want to be left alone -- and maybe they should be.” Langewiesche, "The ShipBreakers," The Atlantic Monthly, April 2000, http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/08/langewiesche.htm

  41. Waste Not,Want Not Let’s go to the video!

  42. Lesson:The bottom line ofGreenis (often)Black

  43. 3M CompanyPollution Prevention Pays (3P) • First formal pollution reduction program (1975) • Encourages employees to identify pollution reduction opportunities • Uses the 3 R’s, focus on source reduction 3M

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