Search This Site
Subscribe
OBIC
The Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC) is a research initiative that integrates academia and industry toward the development of renewable specialty chemicals, polymers/plastics and advanced materials.
| Environmental Excellence: Sustainability |
 |
 |
| Latest | |||
|
Dr. Joseph Fiksel, Executive Director of the Center for Resilience at The Ohio State University (OSU), shared his Center’s vision for sustainability as the lead speaker at a Waste-to-Profit symposium, co-hosted by the Center for Resilience and the Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC), held at OSU on May 13, 2009. His message was sustainably simple: More value and less stuff. This message was underscored in an opening comment by Dr. Stephen Myers, OBIC Director, who said: "It’s not a waste material unless you waste it; there are a lot of underutilized resources out there." Fiksel explained, “The ecological footprint of our industrial supply chains is enormous. There is a hidden mountain of resources required to support what appears to be a relatively small amount of final product.” He added, “The main issue in sustainability is that we use too much stuff. Most sustainability problems trace back to consumer demand for products, services, and energy. In the United States, we consume 30 tons annually per capita of materials from our ecosystems.”  He adds, “These materials are moved from mines, farms, and forests to other locations for processing, fabrication, and distribution. Across these supply chains, about 95 percent of these materials become waste, mainly carbon dioxide emissions and landfill disposal. We need to use our assets more efficiently, reduce our throughput, and thus create a smaller ecological footprint. We don’t pay for our ecosystem services, but we depend on them for valuable resources such as wood, fish, and water. To sustain our lifestyle, we need to protect our natural capital.”That being said, what can we do about it? Fiksel’s answer is simple and direct: Instead of throwing away so much material, find ways to use less in the first place, re-use end-products, or convert wastes into by-products. He cites the example of an aluminum can, which can be used, recycled, made into another aluminum product, used again, recycled again, and so on. He cautions: “Aluminum and other primary materials are easy to recycle, but other materials are more difficult.” Converting wastes into by-products offers an innovative way to re-use materials that were previously sent to landfills. “If companies would learn to collaborate more, then what one company no longer needs, another might use,” suggests Fiksel. “For example, if an electronics manufacturer needs to dispose of spent solvent, maybe it can be purchased by a company that can accept a lower grade of solvent because its process can tolerate more impurities.” This approach can be termed “by-product synergy,” and can involve a network of companies, each transferring residual resources to another company which can utilize them. These types of synergies have potential benefits for both parties—the by-product generator avoids waste disposal costs and may earn revenues, while the by-product user obtains a lower-cost input from a nearby source. Moreover, there are beneficial impacts for the region as a whole—creation of new jobs and reduction of environmental impacts. According to Fiksel, by-product synergy can significantly reduce energy use and carbon emissions by substituting residuals for virgin materials that have a resource-intensive supply chain. Within the sustainability design toolkit, Fiksel includes the following techniques or processes to move an organization toward enterprise sustainability: •Performance metrics – goals, milestones, and tracking methods •Product, packaging, and process design rules – including cost, performance and energy constraints, plus material and technology preferences •Decision-making guidelines – stage-gate procedures, trade-offs, and priorities •Modeling capabilities – including linkages among industrial and ecological systems •Assessment methods – such as footprint indicators, stakeholder perceptions, and especially life cycle assessment. The range of life cycle assessment (LCA) modeling practiced by Fiksel and others is structured in response to the problem at hand, the scale of the entity being impacted, and the quality of the available data sources. Fiksel’s group at OSU has introduced a tool called Eco-LCA™, which accounts for the economic contribution of ecosystem products and services; is scalable; includes input-output data; estimates flows in terms of mass, energy, or money; and enables rapid, iterative analyses. Perhaps this quote from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes sums up Fiksel’s message: Enterprise sustainability is “a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks that derive from economic, environmental, and social developments.” If your company started talking to other companies about business opportunities for re-use of residual resources, what innovative synergies might you discover? Think about it. The Center for Resilience is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to improving the resilience of industrial systems and the environments in which they operate. In a nutshell, Center leaders believe that short-term risk management and long-term sustainability are two ends of the enterprise resilience continuum. The Center for Resilience at OSU has introduced a streamlined tool called Eco-LCA™, which accounts for the full supply chain footprint including ecosystem products and services; is based on U.S. economic input-output data; estimates flows in terms of mass, energy, or money; and enables rapid, iterative analyses using several visualization techniques. The Ohio BioProduct Innovation Center is a Wright Center funded by Ohio Department of Development. OBIC focuses on enhancing Ohio’s leadership position in bioproduct commercialization. A novel market pull model integrates academia and industry in support of comprehensive supply chain collaborations across agriculture, specialty chemical and polymer industry sectors. For more information, bioproducts.osu.edu. Center for Resilience Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC) The Ohio State University
|
BioProduct Blog
|
 | Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center OSU, College of Food, Ag., and Envl. Sciences Room 152 Howlett Hall, 2001 Fyffe Ct., Columbus, OH 43210 Phone- 614-292-2922 Fax- 614-247-4739 |