Abstract
A total cost accounting approach was used to analyse the suitability of copper and aluminium as winding material for transformers with respect to sustainability, using available data from the Ecoinvent database. It could be concluded that repeated recycling of metal is a necessary requisite to obtain product element life cycles exhibiting a high degree of sustainability. Using cost data for energy and materials and reasonable assumptions about costs for labour and interest for the metal supplier and the product manufacturer, the copper alternative turns out to be the better choice, especially when the expected increase in the prices of energy, copper, and aluminium during life cycle is taken into account. From the study it could be concluded that the total cost accounting approach would be a valuable tool for assessing the degree of sustainability of a product life cycle, in particular, regarding use of natural abiotic resources such as metals.
Highlights
Sustainable growth has become the ultimate goal for all kinds of future development, at least in a political sense, but considering its meaning, the picture is quite diverse: (a) meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987), (b) improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems (IUCN, 1991), and (c) economic growth that provides fairness and opportunity for all the world’s peoples, not just the privileged few, without further destroying the world’s finite natural resources and carrying capacity (Pronk & Haq, 1992)
A product can be seen as a form of produced capital, which is an essential element in the definition of sustainable development made by the Joint UNECE/OECD/Eurostat Working Group on Statistics for Sustainable Development (2008): Sustainable development ensures non-declining per capita national wealth by replacing or conserving the sources of that wealth; that is, stocks of produced, human, social, and natural capital
If sustainability is restricted to minimal depletion of natural resources only, all the indicators shown in Table 1 point to the use of aluminium in preference to copper
Summary
Sustainable growth has become the ultimate goal for all kinds of future development, at least in a political sense, but considering its meaning, the picture is quite diverse: (a) meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987), (b) improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems (IUCN, 1991), and (c) economic growth that provides fairness and opportunity for all the world’s peoples, not just the privileged few, without further destroying the world’s finite natural resources and carrying capacity (Pronk & Haq, 1992). The prices of natural resources will most likely increase substantially, relative to today’s prices This would have a large impact on future product and product life cycle design, and affect considerably product cost-effectiveness and profitability, as well as product sustainability. To arrive at a sustainable situation taking into account those aspects would mean that the acceptable levels of resource consumption and waste regeneration, of human satisfaction, and of consumer price and profitability coincide From this brief review it is clear that a thorough study is needed to be able to compare different means to measure the degree of sustainability of a product life cycle. The total cost accounting approach would be a better indicator for sustainability according to the definition by Bakshi and Fiksel (2003) than the other indicators previously reviewed
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