Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool for the systematic evaluation of the environmental aspects of a product or service system through all stages of its life cycle.1Understanding the environmental impacts of your operations, products, services or technology will improve humankind’s relationship to the environment, but is also a strategy to ensure a business’s viability in today’s rapidly evolving economies. As we, embark in our first venture challenge; I will conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) on the laser printer ink toner used in printing our product labels and its carbon footprint impact on the environment. The five different stages of the LCA that…
It is seen as a negative externality due to the use of toxic chemicals during the production of paper that are suspected of causing developmental, reproductive, and immune system damage. This reflects the society cost of producing paper is larger than cost of paper producers. As shown in the diagram, the social cost curve measures the private cost of producers and cost of bystander affected as a result of negative externality that the paper producers produced. The social cost curve shows a shift to the left of private cost curve, due to the excessive amount of paper produced, and the external cost on bystander is taken in to consideration. The difference between these two curves represent the externality(pollution) caused by the paper producer. At the quantity less than or equals to QO, consumers value paper more than the social cost of producing it. This negative production externality is considered harmful to society. If paper producer produce more thanQO, the social cost of producing paper exceeds the value of paper to consumers. Therefore the intersection point of demand curve and social cost curve indicates the social optimal quantity in the viewpoint of society. Hence reducing the plastic production below the market equilibrium, QM to the socially optimal quantity, QOincreases the total economic well-being of…
| Did you know the Government...The Government has many pieces of legislation designed to protect the environment, companies are required to abide by these. One such piece of legislation is the ‘Waste Reduction and Recycling Bill 2011’, it sets out guidelines to help reduce the amount of waste produced and recover resources where possible. The bill sets out the preferred order in which waste and resource management options should be considered: 1. REDUCE and AVOID unnecessary resource consumption and waste generation; 2. RE-USE waste resources without further manufacturing; 3. RECYCLE waste resources to make the same or different products; 4. RECOVER waste resources, including the recovery of energy; 5. TREAT waste before disposal, including reducing the hazardous nature of waste; 6. DISPOSE of waste only if there is no viable alternative.It’s interesting to note that the last option should always be disposal and that there are many options available to us all to avoid that option and minimize waste.A Macville Success StoryRecently Macville conducted an audit of our resource usage and uncovered some home truths that were less than satisfactory. So we decided to make a change for the better and set ourselves some challenges to turn things around. One area that we focused on was our need to print, and we wanted to reduce this to save on paper, toner and servicing of the printers and copiers. We set the challenge to reduce our printing by 20% over a 2 month period. This was no easy feat, and in order to achieve this, we had to re-think the way we did business.With new procedures in place at the end of the first two months all costs were down. Our monthly paper consumption went from 599 reams to 479, reducing costs by $477.60. Toner costs dropped from $686 to 548.80 and cost of…
Good environmental practice can reduce company’s costs by minimizing of use some materials for example water, paper or even energy.…
Environmental sustainability has become a hot topic in the last couple of decades because of global warming and other weather related changes. In today’s business world, environmental sustainability is an essential part of corporate social responsibility (CSR); therefore, very important to stockholders, owners, as well as to the public in general. Everybody wants to know how businesses are run and how their operations affect their communities for generations to come.…
After several deaths in a small town, a local Tannery is suspected of somehow poisoning the water supply from illegally dumping out toxic waste. The Tannery and another company were later found guilty of dumping toxic waste and were fined for their actions and forced to clean up the toxic materials and restore the land they destroyed. Unfortunately, the dumping that occurred there was not the first case of illegally dumping toxic waste and it probably will not be the last. And, who knows how many countless others, that happened many years ago, are yet to be discovered. One of the biggest reasons that companies continue to illegally dump waste is that it is simply too expensive to dispose of it properly. The cost of proper disposing of the material outweigh the benefits of not. So, in other words, it decreases profits. Another thing to point out here is that even if a company gets caught, it is still less expensive to pay a fine or get a settlement agreement, than to dispose of the waste properly. The article, “The Problem of Social Cost”, addresses this issue. It says that you can regulate these companies by decreasing the amount they produce. This can be accomplished by increasing the social cost, which will lessen the demand for products that produce pollution. This in turn will assist companies in ensuring that marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost. Other…
• Why do we consume so much anyway? o Psychological influence (advertising and peer pressure) o Planned obsolescence (engineering new products to replace “old” ones) o Structural imperatives (national obligation to consume) • Solutions to reducing solid waste? o Voluntary behavior (do the right thing) o Command and control (product bans, taxes on packaging, etc.) o Market-‐based approaches (consumer behavior) • Hazardous waste: waste that threatens human health or the environment because it is toxic (poisonous), dangerously chemically reactive, corrosive, or flammable • Who generates hazardous waste in US?…
The reason for this analysis is that, as a company, we are at a crossroads of sorts. We are receiving pressure from both the national headquarters and the Ontario 3R regulations to reduce at least 20% and 50%, respectively, of our waste that goes to landfills. We also have internal cost pressures associated with sending our waste to landfills. If we do not act swiftly in the near future the competitiveness of our company will be compromised. We are currently a leader in environmental policies and processes but this is a fast growing point of differentiation and if we don’t stay on the cutting edge we will get left behind and lose our competitive advantage in this area. Also, if we don’t act now we may be behind the curve and cause ourselves financial hardship when new, more stringent policies are enacted by the government that have real monetary damages attached to them.…
Kimpton’s environmental sustainability initiatives have proven successful and beneficial both in terms of its environmental and business benefits. Environmental improvement is one of the benefits of diverting waste. Some of the benefits are exemplified in their rollout phases, including: introducing non-disruptive and cost-reducing operational practices such as a recycling program, non-toxic cleaning products, promotional materials printed on recycled paper, complimentary coffee that was organically grown, and their towel/linen reuse system. Investing in water and energy conservation, using organically grown cotton for their linens, and the most fundamental changes, renovating hotels or using these approaches in new hotels.…
Number of companies is mentioned in the case, for example Kennecott, Tiffany, Canyon Resources and Free port McMoran.…
As far as sustainability, they have been exploring other ways to increase this such as using discarded corn seed (seed that does not pass their quality standards) for fuel to produce steam energy for their Muscatine, Illinois plant and this resulted in a significant cost savings each year. In 2014 alone, they have saved approximately $1.6 million in energy and disposal costs and have reduced their carbon footprint by reducing their CO2 levels by 17,000 and SO2 levels by 61 tons. They also continue to seek ways to reduce their environmental footprint by looking for ways to reduce and reuse their materials and reduce their emissions. One of these is to recycle their packaging at some of their operation facilities and by doing so, they have contributed 45% less to greenhouse gas emissions, reduced their release of CO2 by 10,000 tons, their solid waste 48%, and their water consumption by 800 liters per year.…
Over the past years, carbon dioxide has been at the center of debates in regards of the negative effects it has on the environment. CO2 is considered as a pollutant, it has the ability to turn fresh air into toxic air. Industries and automobiles are two of the major entities known to cause CO2 pollution. Automobiles emit CO2 by burning fossil foil for energy. The most frequent utilized fossil fuel worldwide are coal and oil. “Over 90 percent of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes gasoline and diesel” (EPA). In addition to being a pollutant, CO2 is considered as a greenhouse gas. This means that it has high tendency to cause on climate change.…
Our transportation and the things we use in a day affect our environment dramatically. Oil plants, gas plants and many other big companies release pollution into the air and put things in the water, that then affect us and our environment. Some of the companies may even be too lazy to make organic products and help reduce pollution because making organic products might be "too hard".…
Natural chemicals and dyes would mean that garments made from natural fibers would break down. Cotton and linen do originally break down, so therefore, natural chemicals would allow for garments made out of natural materials to completely break down. Chemicals that are currently in textiles are harmful to the Earth. By replacing the harmful chemicals with eco-friendly chemicals, the Earth would be cleaner and safer. Incentives from the Congress for safer chemicals in the production of textiles would also mean water would be protected. If the chemicals are made of natural materials, it would be acceptable for them to end up in the water source. Nutshells and rosemary leaves that make up some new dyes (Scott) would break down naturally in the water. They are natural materials, they would just go back into the Earth without polluting it. The Earth would be protected from pollution from the textile industry. Also, the Earth would be cleaner overall because the incentives would entice companies not to use harmful chemicals. The government must offer incentives for companies to use chemicals in the production of textiles,…
Constant need for more products destroys the environment – the raw materials must come from somewhere…