Part of:
Seliger, Günther (Ed.): Innovative solutions : proceedings / 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Berlin, Germany, 23rd - 25th September, 2013. - Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013. - ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 (online). - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-40276. - pp. 213–218.Treating the natural environment in a responsible manner is becoming a key challenge for manufacturing companies. This challenge also regards the planning, implementation and modernization of production technologies. In this case, a new technology should not only have economic advantages, such as higher productivity or flexibility, but should address ecological aspects as well. Many existing approaches only focus on air pollution, measured in CO2, and therefore consider only one ecological dimension. So these approaches disregard other effects on the natural environment, such as water and soil pollution. Only through a holistic approach, the influences of a production technology on the environment can be considered completely and comprehensively. The following article describes a holistic ecological assessment approach and illustrates this with an example. This approach enables manufacturing companies to ecologically assess production technologies in a holistic way