Sustainable value and cleaner production: research and application in 19 Portuguese SME

Value with fewer inputs, materials and energy, more outputs but fewer wastes. The result of implementing this strategy is the delivery of products and services that satisfy human needs, at lower costs while reducing the ecological impacts and resource intensity. This means a higher Value for companies, defined as the relationship between the satisfaction of needs and the resources used in achieving that satisfaction, as well as the increase of their competitiveness. The purpose of this research was to develop the Sustainable Value concept using the synergies between tools from Value Management, Value Analysis and from Eco-efficiency, Cleaner Production. The result is an indicator that integrates the three aspects of Sustainability: economic, environment and social and enables the monitoring of the evolution of those aspects in a company. The aim of this approach is to increase the Sustainable Value of the study subject, this being defined as the specific subject to which the methodology is applied, either a product or a process in a company. The satisfaction levels are evaluated considering environmental and social aspects. The resources used to attain that satisfaction of needs are also characterized in an explicit way in terms of environmental, social and economic aspects. The proposed Sustainable Value methodology, with an eight phases working plan, developed by a team, was validated by undertaking three projects, involving 19 Small and Medium Enterprises where Sustainable Value concept was implemented. They represent a wide range of activity areas in different regions of the country, covering almost the whole Portuguese territory. The application of the proposed methodology in the different companies shows the benefits concerning the inputs reduction (water, energy and materials) as well as emissions and waste reduction. The increase of the company’s productivity and collaborators social welfare is also highlighted. Performance, costs and sustainable value variations are quantified. A first important conclusion that can be taken from the reported experiences is that the use of Sustainable Value Methodology enables the diagnosis of the main problems related to processes and products and the quantification of the used resources, and takes into account the three aspects of Sustainability: economic, environmental and social. Another conclusion is the applicability of the methodology to companies of different size and sectors. The same happens and is confirmed in existent literature about the subject with other approaches. The improvement of Sustainable Value of the study subjects is reflected in the competitiveness of the companies. Some suggestions about conditions that must be fulfilled for the success of the introduction and implementation of this approach in a company are also presented

Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector

The activities developed within an eco-efficiency project in mineral industries located in the largest area for marble extraction in Portugal, in Alentejo region, in the Estremoz – Borba and Vila Viçosa anticline are presented in this paper. The project was designed to apply the sustainability concept in seven companies of marble extraction and transformation. The adopted strategy used new cleaner production models together with sustainable value (SV) improvement, leading to the rationalization of the industrial process, the involvement of economic agents and the orientation of the management of production processes towards eco-efficiency. The challenge was to have the mineral industry managing efficiently the resources on which the business depends, according to sustainability principles. Different opportunities for improvement, related to the minimization of materials, water and energy use, were identified in the companies. Some proposals mainly related to social improvement and small and medium-sized enterprise competitiveness benefits were also selected and discussed. This approach allows the integration of sustainability at company's and region's levels by combining in the entrepreneurial activity the creation of wealth together with the environment protection and the achieving of social benefits. Highlights: The involvement of different stakeholders in the project (Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector) was positive in the discussion and search of solutions for companies. It is possible to involve marble extraction and processing companies in eco-efficiency improvement towards sustainability. Companies from the marble sector improved environmental and social performance and reduced the costs of their production processes by applying SV methodology

Eco-eficiência na indústria extractiva :caso da António Galego e Filhos

Comparar o Valor sustentável dos engenhos mais antigos (Simec e Mapor) com os recentemente adquiridos (Pedrini

How to measure the value from a sustainable point of view

Entrepreneurial activities must change when taking into account Sustainable Development paradigm. A new way of evaluating enterprises’ performance which incorporates economical, environmental and social criteria is necessary. Any organisation can no longer work as a “black box”. Society wants to know about the impacts of inputs and outputs of companies’ activities and therefore a continuous process of transparency, communication and continuous improvement is required. Therefore the Value of a company can no longer be seen only as the profi t for its shareholders, but must be extended in an objective way to the other elements of Sustainability: the social and environmental criteria. If Top Management and the VA team are sensitized for the Sustainability principles and for their contribution in creating Value, these aspects will be integrated in the company’s strategic management so that they will contribute for its viability in the long term. This paper aims at presenting a specifi c methodology to support the process of decision making at the level of the practices related to increasing Value towards a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Development. After a study of the possible synergies between tools used by Value Management (mainly Value Analysis) and Environmental Management (Cleaner Production, Eco effi ciency, among others) a methodology, joining them and profi ting from their synergies was developed and tested in several companies

Water and wastewater monitoring of Guia Submarine Outfall: an 11 year survey

SANEST is a public sanitation company that manages a wastewater treatment plant located at Guia, on the west coast of Lisbon, Portugal. This company collects and treats the sewage of four municipalities with an estimated 750 000 population equivalent, thus being one of the biggest sanitation companies in Portugal. A Decision of the Commission 2001/720/CE conceded SANEST derogation, exempting it to apply less than secondary treatment to wastewaters discharged into the Atlantic Ocean from the four agglomerations. This decision was supported on a large monitoring program, presented to the EU, and set up by SANEST. It surveys the impact of the effluent disposal and includes measurements of physical, chemical, biological and microbiological properties in the effluent and in the receiving waters. This paper presents methods and results for the effluent chemical and microbiological quality as well as for the receiving waters and an ichthyofauna survey, and resumes an eleven year situation, with the preliminary wastewater treatment before effluent disposal. The WWTP results correspond to medium load urban effluents without treatment with temporal variability related to flood fluctuations. In the receiving waters almost legal values are respected and the plume of the outfall is only identifiable by faecal bacteria in the vicinity of the discharge. The fish community, in particular benthic species, has revealed a slight degradation probably due to the fact that pollutants tend preferentially to accumulate on sediment. The treatment plant is being upgraded to fulfil, by May 2009, an advanced primary treatment level that includes disinfection during the bathing season to fully observe the European Commission Decision 2001/720/EC

Criar Valor Sustentável – Caso de Estudo MRodrigues

Este artigo foca as melhorias obtidas pela empresa MRodrigues, do sector metalomecânico, como resultado da aplicação da metodologia Valor Sustentável (VS), desenvolvida pelo INETI no âmbito do Projecto DEUSA . A metodologia VS, seguindo uma estratégia de eco-eficiência empresarial e resultando da combinação entre Produção Mais Limpa e Análise do Valor e da ampla experiência de aplicação destas duas ferramentas de gestão, encoraja as empresas a tornarem-se mais competitivas, mais inovadoras e mais responsáveis, levando-as a repensarem continuamente as suas actividades e produtos numa perspectiva de sustentabilidade. A sua aplicação, procurando melhorar a produtividade de recursos, a eco-eficiência de processos e produtos, a competitividade e a satisfação das necessidades, tendo por base preocupações económicas, ambientais e sociais, resulta na criação de Valor Sustentável para as empresas. A empresa MRodrigues aplicou-a ao seu processo de fabrico, com resultados evidentes também ao nível dos seus produtos

Eco-eficiência na indústria extractiva : uma estratégia para o desenvolvimento sustentável

Processo de extracção de mármore da pedreira do Rosal; processo de transformação em comprimentos livre

Sustainable value methodology to compare the performance of conversion technologies for the production of electricity and heat, energy vectors and biofuels from waste biomass

ABSTRACT: The Sustainable Value methodology was used to compare and rank eight combinations of waste biomass types and conversion technologies on a common assessment basis to produce energy, energy vectors and advanced biofuels. The studied combinations included agricultural and agro-industrial residues, slurries and effluents, pulp and paper mill sludge, piggery effluents and organic fractions of municipal solid waste, to produce biodiesel by (trans)esterification, biogas by anaerobic digestion, ethanol by fermentation, hydrogen by dark fermentation, electricity and heat by combustion, biogas and synthesis gas by gasification, and bio-oils by pyrolysis or hydrothermal liquefaction. The numerator “Functional Performance” of the Sustainable Value indicator was estimated according to 14 criteria of process technology, material and energy inputs and outputs, and acceptance by the stakeholders. The performance of the technologies was classified based on the values of relative importance (φ) and level of satisfaction (S) attributed to each criterion. The gasification of residues from the olive-oil industry reached the highest “Functional Performance”, followed by anaerobic digestion of chestnut processing residues and pig-rearing effluents. The Sustainable Value denominator “Costs” depended mainly on the degree of maturity of the technologies, which penalised pyrolysis, hydrothermal liquefaction and dark fermentation. The final ranking of the Sustainable Value indicator was gasification> combustion> anaerobic digestion> (trans)esterification> pyrolysis and fermentation to ethanol> hydrothermal liquefaction> dark fermentation, respectively for the most adequate waste biomass types under study. Thermochemical conversions were mainly impacted by process and input criteria, while output and social acceptance criteria were more decisive for the biochemical conversions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio