sustainablevaluestreammapping.docVIP

Sustainable Value Stream Mapping: A Practical Aid to Sustainable Production Ann Norton Imperial College Andrew Fearne Kent Business School Background Since the adoption of Agenda 21 at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, there has been recognition of the need to counter the adverse environmental effects of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production in industrialized countries. It was proposed within Agenda 21 that changing these patterns requires “… a multipronged strategy focusing on demand, meeting the basic needs of the poor, and reducing wastage and the use of finite resources in the production process” (UN, 2004). Within the UK government’s Sustainable Development strategy, the proposition is expanded by the view that “much current consumption, and business models based on it, remain unsustainable in the longer term under present technologies and supply patterns”, and that there is a need for “process re-design, lean manufacturing and ways to use waste from one business as a resource for another”, using an approach that promotes “cleaner, more efficient production processes, which strengthen competitiveness” (Anon., 2005). Thus the UK government emphasizes the need for greater efficiency and competitiveness in addition to environmental performance improvements. Within all industries, physical wastes and wasted resources occur at every stage in the supply chain. Once solid wastes have been generated, they require appropriate management so as to minimize the environmental impacts and risks to human health. However, all waste management methods have certain drawbacks: inefficiency due to energy losses or additional energy usage; risks of emissions to environmental media; and not least the compounded wastes and wasted resources within the discarded materials from earlier stages in the supply chain. Therefore waste reduction is environmentally preferable to waste management, as the waste hierarchy illustrates (Figure 1