Comparing Sustainable Performance of Industrial System Alternatives in Operating Conditions
Résumé
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an approach to assess the environmental performance of products throughout their entire life cycle. LCA-based decision-making usually focuses on environmental impacts, excluding other considerations, such as customer expectations and economic aspects. Moreover, although the environmental performances of industrial systems are highly dependent on operating conditions (e.g. local context, accessibility of resources), LCA usually integrates generic data. The aim of this chapter is to provide an integrated framework to identify the solutions best suited to a specific context, considering environmental, economic and commercial aspects.
First, the environmental performances of competing products are compared thanks to LCA. A scenario-based approach is then applied based on the most influential parameters identified in the environmental assessment. Costs are then incorporated into a set of exploitation scenarios.
Second, several customer profiles are generated with respect to their economic and environmental strategies. Products are then ranked according to these profiles. The final step is to identify the most suitable solution for a given context-client couple.
The framework is applied to three burners for forge furnaces. Results show that client profiles and operating contexts (namely client expectations, location and resource availability and costs) affect the technological choices.