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Recommended: Cost accounting
BEL CANTO DESIGN
Things to talk about in sus report:
Whole-cost accounting
Triple-bottom framework
LCA
Cradle-to-Cradle
The triple bottom line is similar to whole-cost accounting, because it looks at the cost of more than just money going out of the company for tangible goods and production, and also social and environmental impacts. The economic value of TBL comes from changing markets, and offers 7 ways that companies can shift their economic structure to include future profits through sustainability.
Natural step elements describe the necessity of building sustainable processes and products, reducing environmental costs, byproducts, and future regulations, and keeping stockholders happy (profit).
Herman Miller’s Cradle-to-Cradle approach itemized each material designed to be part of their product and measured its material chemistry. Each part of the design must include materials that were recycled when possible and made with the most recycled plastic available. By planning ahead, this approach is similar to the Natural Step approach, and designing the product piece by piece based on an environmentally-friendly scale, the Cradle-to-Cradle approach reduces waste in the final product.
I work for a company that designs and builds electronic products. Inside are printed circuit boards, capacitors, resistors, and transformers, all parts of an industrial ecosystem historically at odds with the environmentally-friendly mindset. Despite this, my company has taken many steps to minimize waste by using recycled materials, balancing material across product lines, and recycling all metal chassis. Seeing first-hand how products are designed at the company, I have noticed that each segment is designed with the materials that are th...
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...cal facilities that use it on site for their manufacturing, we are part of the recycling chain that encompasses our three main focuses in our triple bottom line.
In design, we have reduced the size and weight of its products in each revision, and as technology permits, this means the products use less resources per unit and reduce packaging volume. Less weight in transport helps to reduce overall environmental impact. By teaming with UPS as our main transporter, we are fortunate to be a part of their unique sustainability strategies that makes them one of the most efficient transporters in the United States (GRI Workplace, 2012).
As our designs improve, our electronics become more efficient. This efficiency translates to a lower energy usage from consumers, further minimizing the physical and environmental footprints of our products. We also offer a trade-in
In conclusion to this investigation one thing is clear and that is that recycling reeks benefits to the environment, Recycling material when compared to making material from raw material is a more efficient energy saving and more environmentally friendly way to reuse material that is usually consider as trash such as empty glass, and plastic bottles, or old newspapers. Recycling helps reduce the possible carbon emissions greatly and does reduce the human carbon footprint. But Recycling doesn’t resolve the pollution that is around the world today. Leading to new questions, questions like what about the landfills are they sustainable, and if so for how long. How long until the air becomes unbreathable? How long until Earth becomes its own furnace?
Caterpillar’s Chairman and CEO, Doug Oberhelman is a member of the Board of Directors of the WRI. The WRI is an environmental group that uses research to find applied ways to safeguard the earth and improve people’s existence (“Sustainability Report,” 2012). Remanufacturing is one of the processes that Caterpillar utilizes to create sustainability throughout the world. Remanufacturing avoids waste through its salvage of materials and the associated resource savings. Sustainability organizations need to forge sustainability strategies which distribute them with cost-effective benefits and social benefits accomplished through environmental accountability. This paper will analyzing different ethical, legal, and economic issues relevant to sustainability as it pertains.
They would generate ideas that would push the company toward achieving their environmental goals. In 1991, a series of guidelines were created by the Environmental Health and Safety group called “Design for Environment” (DfE). These guidelines set the standard in bringing environmental aspects to the design process. Herman Miller knew that tighter environmental regulations was were the world was headed, and knew that DfE was going to help them stay above that curve. The Cradle-to-Cradle Design Protocol (C2C) was introduced in 1997 by architect, William McDonough, and German chemist, Michael Braungart. This design approach involved making products that were able to be recycled at the end of their useful lives, and the component materials were able to become valuable products. The C2C was based on two principles: eco-effectiveness vs. eco-efficiency, and waste equals food. They were four key elements for implementing C2C which were biological and technical nutrients, the green-yellow-orange-red list, disassembly, and recyclability and recycled content. Herman Miller wanted to implement the C2C design process into the next product which was The Mirra Chair. This would be the first product designed under the C2C protocol from
Although Maniates labels the “A” in IWAC as “meaningful consumption Alternatives,” his thoughts on the matter refer more to the institutional influences on product development. In Woodhouse’s words, “The public’s failure to embrace sustainable technologies has more to do with institutional structures that restrict the aggressive development and wide dissemination of sustainable technologies than with errant consumer choice” (48). Instead of attributing the lack of environmentally friendly products to happenstance, Maniates claims that there are production-side structural aspects which hinder the development of green products. Woodhouse mirrors Maniates in this aspect by recognizing the influences on engineers to overlook environmental concerns. “Neither law nor professional norms make [sustainable] design tasks a required aspect of most engineers’ responsibilities, and most employers place substantial obstacles in the way of engineers taking those design elements farther than law and market competition require” (27). By and large, companies are driven by the desire to maximize profit above all else, and from the perspective of employers, adding in environmental concerns is merely an additional constraint on potential profit margins. If engineering ethics and government regulations are sufficiently detailed on sustainability, then employers
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented the Whirlpool Corporation with its SmartWay Excellence Award in 2015 as a way of celebrating their efforts to decrease GHG emissions. This award is given to corporations who implement strategies to be energy efficient and produce its products in the cleanest, most environmentally friendly way possible. Whirlpool has discovered and applied new technologies to their business model decreasing its impact on the environment. This article celebrates the implementation of new methods for distributing Whirlpool’s products around the globe. Annually the Whirlpool Corporation accumulates about five hundred million miles during its distribution process.
For most of America, recycling has become a way of life. For some, it is a valiant effort to take charge of our waste and do what is right for the environment and for future generations. For others, it is a forced mentality by government agencies or private businesses who attempt to prove their value by self-promoting their commitment to environmental responsibility. Recycling, in theory, is a positive effort; however, massive recycling programs are not the answer. Recycling programs in general lack an intelligent way to a means, since the costs and environmental burden may outweigh the desired result. Recyclers should only focus on materials that they can process in a cost effective way, and consumers should focus
Air lite, for example, represents an eco-friendly technology advance by purifying the air around working like leaves on the trees, eliminating bacteria, mold, and functioning as a filter that eliminates toxic substances. It also reduces the energy consumption in about a 15-50% as it reflects the hot component of sunlight, avoiding that rooms overheat (EASME, 2017).
The Macbook Pro Retina is one of the most popular technological products in the current market. The Macbook Pro is marketed as the greenest notebook by Apple but there are elements of the product that are not environmentally sound. This is proven with the study from the process from cradle to grave of the new Macbook Pro Retina. The environmental impact of the Macbook Pro can be measured by the lack of recyclability in the creation stage, the level of emissions in the transportation stage, the facilitation of disposal by Apple and local governments, and the economic viability of the MacBook Pro.
The environmental performance of numerous tech companies has been evaluated and since Apple has grown over time, it has received more attention. There has been a frequent campaign against Apple by different environmental organisations such as Greenpeace requesting for the elimination of hardware components that are non-recyclable hardware components, a comprehensive plan that would make the products of Apple not end up in the waste and the removal of toxins from iPhone hardware (Apple Inc. 2016). As much as such campaigns affect the operations of Apple Inc., they are good since they help in the conservation of the environment thus having a good impact on the
People are always looking for ways to save money. By using “Green” computer components you can save money and energy. Everyone having a computer powered on days at a time can use up a lot of energy, which will lead to a large energy bill. There is a lot of different ways to adapt your computer to be more energy efficient. Using more energy efficient computer components and changing settings in your operating system will save you big. By purchasing more energy efficient components such as processors, hard drives and computer monitors you can make your computer consume less power thus saving energy.
[7] ¬Holdway, R., Walker, D. and Hilton, M. (2002) Eco-design and successful packaging, Design Management Journal. (pp. 45 – 53)
are required and less energy is needed to make recycled plastic products than to make
Annie Leonard, in her book The Story of Stuff, says that companies can significantly reduce their toll on the environment by changing their design. The design determines “the amount of energy used in making and using the product,” “the length of the product’s life span” and “its ability to be recycled” (Leonard). All these things determine the amount of resources a company must use, so simply changing a product’s design is one way a company can have a large impact on the sustainability of the environment in which it operates. One example of this is that “Wal-Mart attributed more than $100 million of its 2009 revenue to a decision to switch to a recyclable variety of cardboard in shipments” which it sells to a recycler instead of paying to send it to a landfill (Bhanoo).
Recycling is important in the effort to preserve our environment for future generations. We are running out of locations to put landfills. Recycling is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of waste stored in landfills, yet many people do not know how easy it can be. For example, whenever I go to Shoprite® and I b...
"Recycling | Reduce, Reuse, Recycle | US EPA." US Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. .