Metrics for green manufacturing

Abstract

This chapter looks at metrics for green manufacturing and sustainability. Relevant economic metrics are reviewed and for complete coverage of sustainability issues, social metrics are also surveyed. The challenges of quantitatively evaluating social concerns are illustrated by highlighting the multiple considerations that social metrics attempt to capture. The chapter then survey metrics that tie in multiple considerations, pulling together ecological, social, and economic metrics. To inform metrics development, methods for inventory and impact assessment are also reviewed. Finally, the chapter presents several approaches for metric development, which systematically build up the metric based on considerations of goal, scope, system boundary, planning horizon, and system drivers.