Cleaner Production Level Research Articles

Assessment of clean production level in phosphate mining enterprises: Based on the fusion group decision weight and limited interval cloud model

To develop a robust cleaner production level assessment model for phosphate mining enterprises, this study investigated the key factors influencing their cleaner production levels. The model incorporates integrated group decision weights and a limited interval cloud model. Based on the comprehensive life cycle of phosphate mining production, we constructed a detailed evaluation index system to assess the cleaner production level of these enterprises. This system defined the quantitative ranges for each level and revealed the interrelationships among the indicators. To ensure comprehensive weight determination, we proposed a method that integrates the expertise of multiple stakeholders. This method leveraged group decision-making principles to effectively resolve conflicts in expert judgments during the weight determination process. In addressing the characteristics of evaluation indicators for the cleaner production level of phosphate mining enterprises, we proposed employing a finite interval cloud model to accurately characterize the distribution of the indicators. Leveraging the finite interval cloud model, we obtained numerical characteristics for various indicators and incorporated the weights of the integrated group decision-making attributes. This approach enabled us to determine the cleaner production level of phosphate mining using a finite interval cloud generator. Validation using five phosphate mining enterprises in Hubei Province, China, confirmed the model's high accuracy. This model demonstrated its applicability in evaluating cleaner production levels for phosphate mining enterprises, offering a theoretical foundation for developing targeted environmental management policies.

Cleaner production evaluation system for textile industry: An empirical study from LCA perspectives

The contradiction between the rapid textile expansion and intensive energy consumption, highly environmental pollution calls for the adoption of cleaner production (CP). However, current evaluation system mainly targeted on CP at production stage, guidance and support on the life cycle assessment is still in its infancy. Meanwhile few studies brought the combination of water conservation and carbon reduction into considerations. This study compared the existing CP evaluation systems including guidelines for the whole industry, standards for textile industry and indicators for the dyeing and finishing sector by quantifying the differences of indicator score compositions. Comparisons analysis from six aspects suggested that all the evaluation systems had relevant indicators regarding “pollutant emissions”. “Management”, “process equipment and techniques” and “resource and energy consumption” have also been well concerned while “product characteristic” seemed to be overlooked at current stage. From the perspective of whole life cycle, the key of textile processing is the “printing and dyeing” (44.23 %) followed by “fabric manufacturing”(28.85 %) and setting (15.38 %). With regards to the environmental impacts, resources depletion gained the highest attention since their indicator scores reached up to 25.71 %, 18.47 % and 20.62 % for EMAS, ERG 2018 and HJ-1852006. Cleaner production awareness and social impact also played significant roles in ISO 14031:2021 and WMG. Subsequently, a set of new comprehensive CP evaluation indicator system was established, including 3 scopes and 7 goals. The newly-built indicator system incorporated with life cycle perspectives gave a powerful tool to measure the CP level in textile industry and of CP will benefit from water reuse and energy utilization with high efficiency.

Green Supplier Assessment and Selection for Sea Cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) Processing Enterprise: Case Study in China

Green supply chain management is a crucial way to balance economic benefits and environmental impacts. As an important economic aquatic product in China, sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is facing the dual challenges of economic benefits (profit) and environmental sustainability (material input and emission output). Currently, the sea cucumber industry in China lacks a green supplier screening system, resulting in a fragmented pattern of cooperation among enterprises. Core enterprises in the supply chain cannot assume social responsibility to help and guide upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly improve environmental performance. This study focuses on the selection and evaluation of green suppliers for sea cucumber processing enterprises. Firstly, a green supplier assessment indicator system for sea cucumber processing enterprises was established, and the indicator weights were determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Next taking a large sea cucumber processing enterprise in Dalian, China, as an example, the importance level of each index was evaluated by fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE), and the score and ranking of existing suppliers were determined. The validity and practicality of the method were verified. The results show that Supplier 1 (S1) has the highest score, and the price of sea cucumber farming, the cleaner production level of sea cucumber farming, environmental awareness, and long-term cooperation willingness were the most important factors in the selection of green suppliers for sea cucumber processing enterprises, which provides useful clues on the best practice of making sustainable development decisions. With an in-depth understanding of the key factors, suppliers can formulate different prices according to the differences in sales channels to improve the economic deficiencies. Environmental pollution can also be reduced by using clean energy, establishing a recirculating aquaculture system, and using micro-ecological preparations. The conclusions of this study can provide technical support and decision-making suggestions for the application of green supply chain management in China’s aquaculture industry.

Impact of global value chain embedding on industrial environmental performance: An empirical study based on the countries along the “Belt and Road”

Global value chain (GVC) embedding is a “Double-edged sword”. While the countries along the “Belt and Road” benefit from the dividends brought by GVC embedding, the environmental pollution caused by industrial production becomes increasingly severe due to the lack of core technology and weak research and development (R&D) capability. Environmental performance can comprehensively reflect the cleaner production level of the industry considering the interaction of various input factors. With the deepening of GVC embedding in countries along the “Belt and Road”, it is essential to improve industrial environmental performance from the perspective of GVC embedding. Based on the industrial sector data from 15 countries along the “Belt and Road” during the period from 2007 to 2020, the impacts of GVC embedding on industrial environmental performance are empirically examined in this study using the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and panel threshold model. The findings of this study could shed light on industrial pollution emission reduction measures through GVC embedding for the “Belt and Road” countries. Specifically, the results manifest that: 1) The increase of GVC forward embedding promotes industrial environmental performance, while the increase of GVC backward embedding has an inhibitory effect. 2) The impact of GVC position on industrial environmental performance shows a evident threshold effect with respect to the intensity of environmental regulation. In other words, when a country’s environmental regulation intensity rises continuously and crosses the threshold value, the upgrade of the GVC position will promote industrial environmental performance. 3) The effect of GVC embedding on industrial environmental performance is heterogeneous. From the perspective of cross-border times of added value, GVC backward simple embedding inhibits industrial environmental performance, while GVC backward complex embedding is promotive. From the perspective of time heterogeneity, the implementation of the “Belt and Road” Initiative has changed the impact of GVC backward embedding on environmental performance from inhibition to promotion. In the end, this paper provides policy implications for countries along the “Belt and Road” to establish a green and low-carbon circular development system and achieve the goal of industrial clean production.

Cleaner production indicator system of petroleum refining industry：From life cycle perspective

The Cleaner Production audit is a comprehensive method that aims to realize Cleaner Production throughout the life cycle industrial process of petroleum refining. The audit simultaneously measures the environmental impacts of the refinery, its upstream and downstream organizations and related auxiliary activities. At present, most research associated with the Cleaner Production indicator system of petroleum refining industry predominantly focuses on the production stage, while the environmental impacts of other stages, such as raw material supply, logistics and transportation, downstream sales, and product use, tend to be ignored. In addition, the imperfection of the indicator systems, the hysteresis quality of the evaluation standards, and the high subjectivity are the drawbacks of the Cleaner Production indicator systems of China's petroleum refining industry. This work analyzed the existing international pollutant emission standards and the Cleaner Production indicator systems of the petroleum refining industry from the microscopic life cycle thinking, and integrating a set of Cleaner Production indicator systems suitable for the current development of the petroleum refining industry of China. New ideas were proposed to improve the Cleaner Production indicator system by incorporating the Cleaner Production level of the partners into the Cleaner Production inspection of the refinery industry. In particular, the newly established indicator system places more emphasis on carbon emissions which are ignored in traditional ones. This review provides reflections on energy saving, pollution reduction, carbon neutral and sustainable development of the supply chain-wide, the addition of carbon emission indicators can promote the synergistic effect of Cleaner Production and carbon neutrality.

Sustainable production of lithium salts extraction from ores in China: Cleaner production assessment

As the largest lithium consumer globally, China's lithium supply is primarily stored in ores, which have a greater environmental burden than brines. However, China has yet to promulgate cleaner production standards for lithium extraction from ores. This study proposes a comprehensive evaluation system for the lithium ore extraction industry, based on the National Cleaner Production requirements and other industry standards. The 36 indicators included in the evaluation system were categorized into 6 criteria layers, and the importance of each indicator and criterion layer were verified by 21 experts from 11 institutions and enterprises. We collected data regarding these indicators system from 16 ore-based lithium extraction plants and calculated the weight of each indicator with regard to the overall cleaner production level of the plants. Subsequently, we compared and analyzed the cleaner production level of the plants according to the interview and survey data. The results indicate that Shehong Tianqi Lithium (ST) and Chengdu Rongjie Lithium (CR) are the two cleanest plants, with values of 0.800 and 0.789 respectively, placing them at the international leading level (ILL). Overall, China's ore-based lithium extraction industry score's 0.678 in our evaluation system, which is the domestic advanced level (DAL). Sensitivity analysis revealed that of the 6 criteria layers, process technology and equipment (C1) (37.9%), resources and energy consumption (C2) (20.3%), and intensity of pollutants produced (C4) (20.9%) had the greatest impact on the level of cleaner production. The variations in the cleaner production level of different plants is primarily due to the following evaluation indicators: evaporation device (I16), cooling system (I14), fuel type (I12) in the C1 criteria layer, comprehensive energy consumption intensity (I26), water consumption intensity (I25) in the C2 criteria layer, SO2 produced (I46), wastewater produced (I44), sulfuric acid mist produced (I48), and dust produced (I45) in the C4 criteria layer. Finally, based on these variations, this study suggests improving production equipment and technology, using clean fuels, and unifying emission standards as potential policies that can help achieve cleaner production levels in China's ore-based lithium extraction industry.

Design and optimisation of a green manufacturing-recycling network considering heavy metal pollutants – an electronic assembly case

This paper presents a green manufacturing-recycling network design approach for multi-echelon electronic assembly process under a complex product mix scenario which incorporates trade-off between economic cost and heavy metal pollutants. The approach is developed by formulating the green manufacturing-recycling network into a closed-loop logistics bi-objective optimisation model, in order to alleviate negative environmental influence by applying proper cleaner production technologies. The environmental influence is quantified by pollution equivalent numbers which are integrated in the model. Moreover, the volume of the heavy metal pollutants is optimised by selecting the cleaner production level and thus is jointly coordinated with the operation cost. To solve the bi-objective optimisation model, an enhanced global criterion approach is presented to improve the effectiveness on dealing with non-convexity of the Pareto-optimal frontier with computational efficient solutions. The proposed model is implemented on a case study to verify its flexibility to handle the closed-loop manufacturing-recycling network design of different sizes, as well as to obtain trade-off between operation cost and environmental influence by the heavy metal pollutants under various scenarios.

Symbiotic technology assessment in iron and steel industry based on entropy TOPSIS method

Symbiotic technology is a useful technique for industrial cleaner production and sustainability. A comprehensive assessment method is necessary for the selection and update of advanced symbiotic technologies in technology catalogues. However, there has been no studies focusing on the assessment of symbiotic technology, and the uncertainty of technical performances has been rarely considered. Therefore, this research adopts a multi-criteria decision-making method—entropy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution ) to assess 22 symbiotic technologies in iron and steel industrial network. 6 types of criteria are set to comprehensively assess the comprehensive performance of each technology. In addition, an iron and steel enterprise with 3 Mt annual output is taken as a case to apply in the technical selection schemes and evaluate technical effects. Finally, a random sampling method – Latin Hypercube Sampling is adopted to conduct uncertainty analysis. The results show that: (1) The symbiotic technologies utilizing by-products from ironmaking process have the overall optimal performance, while the ones from sintering process have the worst. The medium of assessment result ranges are lower than the initial ones. (2) Based on the technical assessment results, 12 symbiotic technologies are selected to apply in the case iron and steel enterprise under 3 types of preferences. The environmental manager and integrated preference schemes have the same technologies, but 5 of them are different from the enterprise preference schemes, but all of them can reach significant energy, environment, and economic benefits. The findings are hoped to apply to the formulation and issue of symbiotic technology catalogues, and help enterprises to select effective technical schemes to improve their cleaner production level.

Cleaner Production Evaluation in Gold Mines Using Novel Distance Measure Method with Cubic Picture Fuzzy Numbers

Faced with the contradiction between economic growth and environmental pollution, to implement cleaner production has become a good choice for many mining companies in order to achieve sustainable development. This study aims to explore applicable decision-making methods to evaluate the cleaner production for gold mines. First, the CPFNs (cubic picture fuzzy numbers) are adopted to describe experts’ assessment information under complicated fuzzy environment. Thereafter, the mean-squared deviation models are combined to obtain the comprehensive criteria weights. Meanwhile, a novel evaluation method, which integrates the ranking of CPFNs and distance measure, is proposed to judge the cleaner production level. Subsequently, according to the characteristics of gold mines, the evaluation criteria system of cleaner production is constructed. Finally, a case of evaluating the cleaner production performance for three gold mines is provided to explain the application of the proposed method. Besides this, a systematic comparison analysis with other existent methods is conducted to reveal the advantages of our method. Results indicate that the proposed method is suitable and effective for gold mines to evaluate their cleaner production performance and has important reference values for the cleaner production management and implementation.

Analysis of the cleaner production level of a printing plate roller factory in north China and improvement schemes

The improvement of the cleaner production in the enterprises can not only achieve the source control of pollution and the efficient use of resources, but also strengthen their comprehensive competitiveness. It can also help to realize China’s environmental protection goal. In this paper, a printing plate roller factory in northern China is taken as the research object. The evaluation index system for the cleaner production level of the printing plate roller industry is constructed based on the relevant national standards of cleaner production in the mechanical processing industry and the electroplating industry. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to determine the weight of each evaluation index. The evaluation model will be established to evaluate the factory’s cleaner production status and improvement schemes will be put forward.

Improve sustainability of stone mining region in developing countries based on cleaner production evaluation: Methodology and a case study in Laizhou region of China

The mining activities significantly lower the sustainability in the stone mining region. Cleaner production (CP) is more likely to be proposed to achieve the sustainable development in the mining regions. Therefore, the stone mining industry has begun to implement many CP technologies and initiatives to tackle with ecological problems caused by the mining production. However, the CP practices do not solve the problems sufficiently, because of the low level of implementations by the stone mining companies, especially in the developing countries. This paper aims to establish a support framework for the stone mining industry to develop reasonable CP strategy and avoid inefficient CP practices. Our research provides a methodology for evaluating the CP level, including the principles of establishing indicator and standard system, the method of developing evaluation algorithm and the approach of data collection. A CP evaluation system is developed for the first time in the stone mining industry, which enables the methodology to be operationalization in the real evaluation process. The study also introduced the sensitivity analysis and confidence interval (ci) theory to ensure the reliability of the system and the validity of the evaluation results, respectively. A case study in Laizhou region of China illustrates how a CP strategy develops based on the CP evaluation results. The strategy has achieved collaborative optimization of various indexes of sustainability performance in the mining region.

An Integrated EDAS-ELECTRE Method With Picture Fuzzy Information for Cleaner Production Evaluation in Gold Mines

Faced with the contradiction between economic growth and environmental pollution, implementing cleaner production has become a good choice for many mining companies to achieve sustainable development. This paper aims to evaluate the cleaner production for gold mines by exploring applicable decision making methods. First, the picture fuzzy numbers with four membership degrees are adopted to describe experts’ assessment information under complicated fuzzy environment. Thereafter, the extended stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis and mean-squared deviation models are combined to obtain the comprehensive criteria weights. Meanwhile, a novel evaluation method, which integrates the evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) with elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE) module, is proposed to judge the cleaner production level. Subsequently, according to the characteristics of gold mines, an evaluation criteria system of cleaner production is constructed. Finally, a case of evaluating the cleaner production performance for four gold mines is provided to explain the application of the proposed method. Besides, a systematic comparison analysis with other existent methods is conducted to reveal the advantages of our method. Results indicate that the integrated EDAS-ELECTRE method is suitable and effective for gold mines to evaluate their cleaner production performance, and has important reference values for the cleaner production management and implementation.

Difference in the characteristics of the rust layers on carbon steel and their corrosion behavior in an acidic medium: Limiting factors for cleaner pickling

This work aims at revealing the key factors that limit the cleaner production level of a pickling process. By comparing the difference in their characteristics and the corrosion behaviors in an acidic medium, three kinds of sample, including the matrix steel (AS), the naturally-corroded carbon steel (NR) and the carbon steel treated under high temperature oxidation (OR), after immersed in the experimental solutions with or without hexamethylenetetramine (HA), were characterized with the methods, such as, electrochemical polarization, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results indicated, no matter which kind of rust layers, the adsorption of HA on their surface all accorded with the same adsorption isotherm. Although the rust layers did not change the adsorption pattern of HA directly, but their steric effect would influence the adsorption potential of HA; the forming process of rust layers (under different environmental conditions) heavily influenced their composition, structure, and the interface roughness between the rust layer and the metal matrix, and also influenced the corrosion behavior of samples in an acidic medium, which were the key factors that limited the cleaner production level of a pickling process. These results indicated that an object-oriented pickling strategy should be adopted for a practical pickling process.

Validity of sustainability framework for China’s mining cities – a structural equation modelling approach

ABSTRACTMany studies developed their framework for sustainability through indicator systems, but the interactions and relationships within these indicators have not been studied yet. In this article, based on indicator systems, we use a sample of 78 mining cities in China and employ structural equation modelling (SEM) method to explore the validity of sustainability framework. Our empirical results show that resources abundance positively affects urbanization level significantly but negatively affects cleaner production level and environmental protection level significantly; economic strength positively affects urbanization level significantly; cleaner production level has a significant effect on economic strength and non-mineral resources conversion efficiency. We also find that when economic strength is low, resources abundance might weaken the positive effect of economy on urbanization.

Assessment of Cleaner Production Level in Agro based Industries – A Fuzzy Logic Approach

Cleaner Production (CP) is a preventive environmental strategy and across the globe there are plenty of success stories of its initiatives which have not successfully transcended to realize the fruits. In this context, there is a need to promote CP initiative to help the industry, society and environment. Hence, present level of CP is to be assessed which facilitates exploring the potential for further CP. This underscores the need for developing a methodology to estimate the CP level. Generalizing the evaluation of assessment of CP is difficult due to heterogeneous nature of operations in industries. The application of fuzzy logic assists in addressing this complexity by offering a methodology that can be adapted to any type of organization by identifying the appropriate variables. This paper presents a model developed to assess the CP status and implementation of this model on 22 cashew processing units. In the assessment of CP level, contributing parameters viz., process efficiency, environmental degradation, and sustainability aspects are considered. Various dimensions of each contributing parameter is identified and measured in the overall estimation of CP level. The result of the study has useful policy implications for catalyzing the CP initiatives.

Research on Cleaner Production Assessment System Based on FUYYZ-AHP in Electrostatic Flocking Industry

Based on the investigation of electrostatic flocking enterprises and related existing industry standards, combined with the principle of construction the domestic cleaner production index system, a cleaner production evaluation index system of the electrostatic flocking industry was introduced. The system contained six primary level indexes, including production technology and equipment, resources and energy, pollutants, waste recycling, product, environmental management and 21 secondary indexes. Based on multi-level fuzzy method using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the evaluation index weight, the cleaner production level comprehensive evaluation model was constructed. Applied the model to flocking enterprise A and evaluated its actuality of cleaner production level objectively, to provide references for its development.

A teoria da solução inventiva de problemas integrada à produção mais limpa: abordagem teórica

Esforços visando à redução de impacto ambiental negativo por parte das empresas são um processo de resolução de problemas, os quais muitas vezes necessitam de soluções inventivas que gerem benefícios ambientais, técnicos e econômicos. Assim, esta pesquisa objetivou verificar, por meio da literatura, e discutir a integração da Teoria da Solução Inventiva de Problemas (TRIZ) às estratégias da produção mais limpa (PML), visando à estruturação de uma nova metodologia para a geração de soluções inventivas voltadas à redução de efluentes, resíduos e emissões. Para realizar este estudo, procedeu-se uma pesquisa de caráter qualitativo e natureza descritiva, com estratégia de coleta documental de dados. Os resultados evidenciam que há predominância de trabalhos no nível 1 da PML, com maior enfoque em melhorias no produto, uma quantidade menor de pesquisas em modificações no processo (nível 1) e em reciclagem interna (nível 2), e não se obteve evidências da TRIZ utilizada no nível 3 (reciclagem externa e ciclos biogênicos). A integração proposta é promissora, uma vez que ambas as metodologias buscam a situação ideal e a redução de problemas. Ao final, detectaram-se oportunidades para aplicação da TRIZ em processos produtivos, por meio da análise funcional e do Resultado Final Ideal (RFI), podendo essas ferramentas direcionar as equipes para a otimização de sistemas técnicos.

The Study of Indicator Framework of Cleaner Production in the Tertiary Industry

This paper gives the contents of the Cleaner Production of the pilot units(scene, hotel, campus) by combining the developing status in the tertiary industry, and through deep theory probing, concludes the indicator framework in this field and shows the reference for the sustainable development in the tertiary industry in China.And the framework concerns such aspects as environmental quality(water,air,noise) and other indicaotrs respectively. It ranges the Cleaner Production level of the tertiary industry into six status like The best , Very good, ordinary, somewhat, danger, and the worst.

Elementary Analysis on Construction of Assessment Index System of Cleaner Production of Cheese Dyeing Enterprises

The concrete assessment index of cheese dyeing enterprises’ cleaner production is filtered out by the classic Delphi method (Delphi) of expert evaluation. According to the characteristic of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP),we have identified the different levels. Finally, assessment index system was established and the weight of each index and standard value were also determined. The cleaner production level can be evaluated eventually more intuitively. So it can provide the technical support and guidance for cleaner production assessment of Cheese Dyeing Enterprises and realize a sustainable development of this kind of enterprises.

Construction of Regional Industrial Systems Cleaner Production Integrated Evaluation Model and Its Application

Abstract The unit industrial added value energy consumption, unit GDP industrial SO2 emissions, unit GDP industrial wastewater emission, unit GDP industrial solid waste yield, industrial system pollution treatment indexes including industrial SO2 removal rate, industrial wastewater emission pass rate, industrial solid waste comprehensive utilization rate are selected from two points of view of industrial system pollutant emission and treatment for constructing regional industrial system cleaner production integrated evaluation model. The model was used for demonstration research on cleaner production level of Chongqing industrial system, the system indicated that the cleaning production level of Chongqing industrial system is located in the medium level currently and has greater gap from other municipalities, and it is located in higher level compared with other regions in western part. The cleaner production level of Chongqing industrial system from 1997 to 2009 experienced a process of decreasing firstly and steady increasing later. The year of 1999 is a turning point during the process, and environment policy of the government played an important role in improving the cleaner production level of the industrial system.