A Trade-Off Navigation Framework as a Decision Support for Conflicting Sustainability Indicators within Circular Economy Implementation in the Manufacturing Industry
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Research Design and Methods
3. Presentation of Common Challenges in Implementation of TBL Criteria in Business Processes and the Prominence of Trade-Offs
4. Presentation of the TONF
4.1. Criteria for the Development
4.2. Trade-Off Navigation Framework, TONF—Required Inputs and Detailed Guidance
- Early stages of sustainability-oriented initiative development (e.g., conceptualization stages of business modelling and product development);
- Multifunctional teams (e.g., management, product designers, sustainability managers).
4.2.1. Input Data
A List of Key Indicators for a Set of Initiatives for Comparison
Guidance for Indicator Selection
Acceptability Ranges and Their Non-Negotiability
Guidance for Setting Acceptability Ranges and Non-Negotiability
- Strategic vision, goals, or project objectives set by the decision-making group (e.g., influenced by past performance impact assessments, trends analysis, dialogues from sectorial associations, market position, etc.);
- Customer and/or stakeholder requirements;
- Technical (and performance) requirements;
- Legal requirements (incl. health and safety, quality) and legal thresholds.
4.2.2. A Step-By-Step Guidance for a Trade-Off Navigation
- Step 1: Analysis of the performance on non-negotiable criteria
- If two or more alternatives satisfy all the non-negotiable criteria, proceed to Step 2.
- If only one alternative satisfies all the non-negotiable criteria, proceed to Step 3.
- If none of the alternatives satisfy all the non-negotiable criteria, i.e., either some alternatives deliver the acceptable performance on some criteria but not the others, or neither of the alternatives deliver the acceptable performance, then all the alternatives should be rejected, unless:
- (a)
- The non-negotiability of the criteria, hence the acceptable ranges, can be re-evaluated, supported by the questions:
- Are the acceptability ranges too narrow or too broad?
- Can they be adjusted and how much?
- What is the aim of the defined acceptability ranges/target? (Does it show a problem/risks or an opportunity? Can it be seen as an approach to balance the objectives? Does it reflect means to achieving a specific goal?)
- Can we re-evaluate the ranges/target in a dialogue with stakeholders or management?
- If none of the alternatives satisfies all (adjusted) non-negotiable criteria, none can be accepted as is, requiring improvement or development of a new set of alternatives.
- If two or more alternatives satisfy all the non-negotiable criteria, the analysis should proceed to Step 2.
- If only one alternative satisfies all the non-negotiable criteria, the analysis should proceed to Step 3.
- Step 2: Analysis of the Performance on Negotiable Criteria
- Select only the criteria for which none of the alternatives meet the performance within the acceptable ranges (e.g., if one criterion is satisfied by all the considered alternatives, it should be excluded from the analysis to simplify the weighting). For the selected criteria, weights should be assigned to them. A weight indicates the importance of one criterion relative to the other under consideration, i.e., a pairwise comparison. It is important to agree on the ranking scale and use it consistently to support the weighting process. A Likert scale from ‘much more important’ to ‘much less important’ could be used to assign priority weights. In doing so, the weights will express levels of trade-offs between the criteria rather than in absolute terms [79]. After weighting, a ranking of alternatives is performed based on their performance and the degree they satisfy the acceptable ranges. Similarly, a ranking scale should be defined, such as 1 to 3, i.e., from unsatisfactory (1), to some extent satisfactory (2), to satisfactory (3). As a result, the weighting score and the ranking score will be combined to show the alternative/s with the most satisfactory scores.
- Following the results of the weighting and ranking process, a dialogue about the scores and whether they can help provide judgements for the prioritization of one alternative over others is encouraged.
- Proceed to Step 3.
- Step 3: Decision analysis
5. Application of the TONF
5.1. Example 1a: TONF Application to Support Decision-Making with 2 Alternatives
5.1.1. Filling in the Input Data
5.1.2. A Step-by-Step Application
- Step 1: Analysis of the performance on non-negotiable criteria
- Step 2: Not applicable
- Step 3: Decision analysis
5.2. Example 1b: TONF Application to Support Decision-Making with 3 Alternatives
5.3. Example 2: TONF Application to Support Decision-Making with 3 Alternatives
6. Evaluation of the Results and Discussion
7. Conclusions
- Advancing the discussion about the importance of supporting sustainability-related trade-offs after sustainability evaluation;
- Consolidation of key challenges in manufacturing industry related to the integration of sustainability criteria in the early stages of business processes;
- Identification of criteria to support trade-off navigation;
- Proposition of a structured approach to trade-off navigation.From a practical perspective, the following can be highlighted:
- Overview of the information required to frame a decision;
- A practical and flexible approach to making trade-off explicit based on the contextual information;
- A structure to support objectivity and traceability of decisions, including re-evaluation of sustainability implications of proposed CE and other initiatives.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
References
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Expert ID | Area of Expertise | Level of Experience |
---|---|---|
Industrial experts (IE) | ||
IA#1 | Product design, LCA modelling | >5 years |
IA#2 | Product design, manufacturing efficiency, circular economy design | >5 years |
IA#3 | Product design, circular economy design | >2 years |
IA#4 | Mechanical and environmental engineering | >25 years |
IA#5 | Health, quality and safety management, risk management | >2 years |
IA#6 | Product design, LCA modelling | >5 years |
IA#7 | LCA modelling, sustainability consulting | >10 years |
IA#8 | Environmental management, sustainable supply chain management | >10 years |
Academic experts (AE)—collective | ||
AE#1-12 | Product design, eco-design, LCA modeling | Mixed |
Nr | Challenge | Fr 1 | Example | Business Process | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BM | PD&PSS | SC&M | ||||
1 | Prioritizing key sustainability issues and related criteria (e.g., ‘must’ vs. ‘nice to have’) | 6 | Deciding whether to focus on minimizing CO2 emissions and energy use or on water scarcity and water use | √ | √ | √ |
2 | Balancing sustainability and other (technical, customer) criteria | 9 | Deciding whether to reduce VOC content in a chemical product which will complicate use of the chemical by the user | √ | √ | √ |
3 | Finding a logic of selecting relevant sustainability indicators or measurement methods to quantify sustainability criteria | 11 | Deciding whether to use generic indicators or (customer, supplier, process) specific indicators; use absolute or relative indicators; find a right balance of indicators across sustainability dimensions | √ | √ | √ |
4 | Uncertainty in what data to use for sustainability measurements and data quality | 4 | Understanding how toxicity is measured; understanding social issues are measured | - | √ | √ |
5 | Interpreting sustainability measurement results to guide decision-making process (e.g., to introduce improvements or show achievement of targets) | 9 | Understanding whether to focus on reducing the total number of chemical substances in a product or eliminating one chemical | √ | √ | √ |
6 | Navigating conflicting sustainability criteria, indicators, and measurement results | 11 | How to choose: increased durability compromises recyclability; sourcing of a recycled material increases transportation fuel use and costs | √ | √ | √ |
Development of a CE Initiative | Challenges and Potential Trade-Offs between the CE Criteria (E—Environmental, Q—Quality, C—Cost) | Challenges and Potential Trade-Offs with Added Triple Bottom Criteria (E—Environmental, Q—Quality, C—cost, S—Social) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Offering a leasing scheme for a product (limited time allows to control returns of used products; reduced cost of ‘ownership’ for the customer) [68] | Might require adding/substituting material to increase durability of a product (or parts) leading to increase in development costs and higher (or other type of) resource use | | Might require selecting a material supplier who has not documented material origin | |
Introduction of recycled content (to reduce reliance on virgin materials) [69] | Might reduce product/part aesthetic quality (leading to customer dissatisfaction) and physical durability (leading to shorter lifetime) | | Recycled material might be offered by local recycler at reduced costs | |
Elimination of toxic substances (e.g., from impregnation process) (to reduce contamination of potential recycling flows) [70] | Might compromise durability of the product leading to its premature obsolescence and waste generation | | Might require additional cost from the user to maintain the product | |
Criteria # | Elaboration | Criteria Embedded in the TONF |
---|---|---|
Pre-condition | ||
#1—Reveal trade-offs between and within sustainability dimensions [26,27,44,46] |
| Input data:
|
Decision analysis | ||
#2—Provide several prioritization techniques to encourage open dialogue [34,40,51] |
| A step-by-step guidance:
|
#3—Provide rules to evaluate trade-off acceptability [26] |
| |
#4—Easy to use [24,64,74] |
| N/A
|
#5—Flexible for different business processes (own criteria based on the summary of challenges in Table 2) |
| N/A
|
Decisions and actions | Objective (as a direction) | Criteria (as a concrete aspect) | Indicator (as a measurable support) |
| Toxicity of a product | Measured by e.g., type and amount of toxic materials in a product (%) | |
| Safety at working stations | Measured by e.g., noise levels; physical load index; etc. | |
| Product recyclability | Measured by % of recyclable material in a total mass of product | |
Consequences/Impact assessment |
Examples of Different Acceptability Ranges Considering Contextual Settings: for the Criteria ‘Product Toxicity’ (Measured by Both Type of Toxic Substances and Their Concentration) There Might be Different Limits Set by Two Companies | ||
---|---|---|
Criterion | Company A | Company B |
Acceptable Ranges | Acceptable Ranges | |
Toxicity of materials in a product | Acceptable limits: the maximum and only acceptable limit is 0 for both type and concentration | Acceptable limits: the lower value is set to 0 and higher value is set to 4% (of all types of substances, e.g., flame retardants) by total material weight following corporate goal to gradually phase out all toxic substances |
Examples of Different Acceptability Ranges Considering Contextual Settings: for the Criteria ‘Product Toxicity’ (Measured by Both Type of Toxic Substances and Their Concentration) There Might be Different Limits Set by Two Companies. | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Criterion | Company A | Company B | ||
Acceptable Ranges | Negotiability | Acceptable Ranges | Negotiability | |
Toxicity of materials in a product | the maximum and only acceptable limit is 0 for both type and concentration, because it is a requirement of a customer | Non-negotiable criteria based on the customer requirements | the lower value is set to 0 and higher value is set to 4% (of all types of substances, e.g., flame retardants) by total material weight following corporate goal to gradually phase out all toxic substances | Non-negotiable criteria based on corporateobjective |
Recycled content in a product | the minimum and only value is 40% | Non-negotiable based on the requirement of a customer | the minimum and only value is set to 25% | Negotiable based on the corporate objective to replace virgin content by recycled whenever possible |
Reference | Fulfilment of Criteria for a Trade-Off Decision Support | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
#1—Reveal Trade-Offs between and within Sustainability Dimensions | #2—Provide Several Prioritization Techniques to Encourage Open Dialogue | #3—Provide Rules to Evaluate Trade-Off Acceptability | #4—Easy to Use (Evaluated by Practitioners) | #5—Flexible for Different Business Processes | |
Present study | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ |
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[88] | √ | ~ | √ | ─ | ~ |
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Kravchenko, M.; Pigosso, D.C.A.; McAloone, T.C. A Trade-Off Navigation Framework as a Decision Support for Conflicting Sustainability Indicators within Circular Economy Implementation in the Manufacturing Industry. Sustainability 2021, 13, 314. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010314
Kravchenko M, Pigosso DCA, McAloone TC. A Trade-Off Navigation Framework as a Decision Support for Conflicting Sustainability Indicators within Circular Economy Implementation in the Manufacturing Industry. Sustainability. 2021; 13(1):314. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010314
Chicago/Turabian StyleKravchenko, Mariia, Daniela C. A. Pigosso, and Tim C. McAloone. 2021. "A Trade-Off Navigation Framework as a Decision Support for Conflicting Sustainability Indicators within Circular Economy Implementation in the Manufacturing Industry" Sustainability 13, no. 1: 314. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010314
APA StyleKravchenko, M., Pigosso, D. C. A., & McAloone, T. C. (2021). A Trade-Off Navigation Framework as a Decision Support for Conflicting Sustainability Indicators within Circular Economy Implementation in the Manufacturing Industry. Sustainability, 13(1), 314. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010314