Developing industrial resource sustainability roadmap: Cement industry case study

For proper implementation of sustainability, two dimensions need to be taken into consideration, resource conservation and pollution prevention. Compromising on any of the two would mean that future generations are deprived of their ability to meet their needs. Since resources are the building blocks of all economies, and a clean pollution free environment benefits the general welfare of the society, the economy and social part are automatically taken care of. The goals of resource sustainability were realized in the following three stages: 1. A roadmap was developed to address the management and strategic requirement for successful implementation of resource and environmental sustainability. Its components comprise inputs of binding regulations, internal organizational limitations, external concerns and the needs and expectations of involved parties. Business owners receive all the stakeholders' inputs and incorporate them into a sustainability management system. The management system is then used to implement an appropriate action plan corresponding to the goals and objectives of the SMS. The last step of the roadmap is a performance analysis to measure alignment with the cradle to cradle/ Industrial ecology goals and objectives previously set. One of the following two statuses is assigned in the evaluation: 1. A compliance status indicates a basic level of cradle to cradle 2. A beyond compliance status indicates that the facility was able to achieve the goals of cradle to cradle, while creating profit out of it. 1. A sustainability management system (SMS) was developed as a major requirement for success of the roadmap. The first step towards a successful management system is a policy commitment to resource sustainability. In the mean time, baseline conditions are measured and used in the strategic resource sustainability planning phase to: a) Determine a resource sustainability strategy. b) Set SMART goals and strategic objectives. c) Design support tools and performance measures. d) Establish strategic initiatives and action plans. 2. A model developing technique is proposed using a life cycle approach to measure the extent to which resource and environmental sustainability can be attainable. To demonstrate the idea, an evaluation tool, The Cement Resource and Emissions Monitoring Application was developed as a support tool, performance Measure and performance analysis for the cement industry. The model allows for the application of three industrial ecology techniques requiring changes in conventional ways in order to reduce emissions and raw materials. A case study was applied on Lafarge to demonstrate possible reductions in emissions and raw materials. Results showed that substituting fuel oil, natural gas and coke for rice straw resulted in a 36.5%, 28.2%, and 47.1 % drop in the total CO2 emissions respectively. Another benefit of substitution included an avoided 6126 kg of NOx emissions resulting if rice straw met its conventional fate, i.e. burned in the fields. It was also found that fuel substitution resulted in an avoided 3,000,000-5,000,000 kg of Sox emissions that would have normally been emitted as a result of fossil fuel burning and another 143,627 kg that would have occurred while burning rice in the fields. About 28,198,824 kg of CO that would have occurred as a result of field burning of rice straw was also possibly avoided. The second industrial ecology principle applied, featured substituting clinker for other raw materials. A 50 % decrease in clinker, resulted in a 50 % decrease in the amount of required fuel and a 50% decrease in the amount of energy required for clinker production, assuming a linear relationship between energy requirement and amount of clinker. It also resulted in a consequent 31.7 % CO2 reduction and a 50 % decrease in other emissions.