Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing

Joseph Sarkis

Mechanical Life Cycle Handbook: Good Environmental Design and Manufacturing, edited by Mahendra S. Hundal, Marcel-Dekker, Inc., New York, NY, 2001, pp. 523-554, 2001.

Environmental sustainability within organizations has evolved from an afterthought to environmental regulations to a proactive measure that needs to be integrated into organizational strategy for competitive advantage reasons. Organizations realize that the manufacturing or production functional area provides the greatest potential for improvements in corporate environmental sustainability performance. In this chapter we shall investigate how this function can contribute to overall sustainability goals of the organization, what measures need to be taken from a process, product and technology perspective, decision making issues facing the organizations, as well as emerging and evolving issues related to environmentally friendly manufacturing. A goal of this chapter is to provide a review of exemplary literature in each of these areas. Case examples, where appropriate, are also presented for further elicitation of the topic.

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