Development of a multidisciplinary approach to compute sustainability index for manufacturing plants - Singapore perspective

Abstract

The purpose and objectives of this paper is to determine the determinants for computing sustainable footprint for a typical semiconductor manufacturing facility and subsequently to benchmark the sustainability footprint with other semiconductor manufacturing environment. Sustainability index studies have been used by different agencies mostly for public listed companies. Suitable checklist was used to determine the sustainability index of an organization and the results were compared with other similar organization. Using one approach, sustainability index was computed and compared with the other similar organization. By computing the sustainability index for a manufacturing organization, it will help the organization to identify the areas to improve for more sustainable operations. Sustainability index is a function of wellbeing, management, resource and compliance. By using Analytical Hierarchic Process (AHP) model a simple Sustainability index formula was developed for this study SI = (0.375*Wellbeing +0.25*Compliance+0.25*Resource+0.125*Management)/5, Using a structured questionnaire and giving a scoring for each construct, SI for a manufacturing company was computed. For one of the company, Sustainability Index was computed as 80%. Benchmarking can be done with similar industrial sector and will also help shareholders and other interested parties to know better of the organization in terms of their ability to be sustainable. Organizations with low sustainable index will be preferred and will be better recognized in the market. This paper has attempted to define sustainable index and also a method to compute sustainability Index (SI) for a manufacturing organization in Singapore.