Environmental Performance Of Products Research Articles

Exploitative and exploratory search: Dynamic capabilities enhancing SME adaptation, new product development, and environmental performance

ABSTRACT This study delves into how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adapt to market changes and enhance environmental performance through exploitative and exploratory search strategies within emerging economies. Operationalizing these strategies as dynamic capabilities, we investigate their impact on new product development amid environmental dynamism. Utilizing a two-wave survey of 437 manufacturing SMEs, with lagged primary environmental performance data, we applied partial least squares—structural equational modeling (PLS-SEM) to test our hypotheses. Our findings contribute invaluable insights to entrepreneurship literature, emphasizing the crucial role of intentional search in SMEs’ continuous adaptation and innovation. We shed light on the distinctive contributions of exploitative and exploratory search in shaping SMEs’ resource base and specific outputs, such as environmental performance. By discerning between possessing a capability and achieving successful outcomes, our study offers a resilient framework for SMEs, boosting both new product development and environmental performance in emerging economies.

Evaluation of a Sustainable Production of Encapsulated Chili Pepper Powder (Capsicum pubescens) through Convective and Vacuum Drying

Throughout the world, chili and chili powders are spices of considerable economic importance. Rocoto (Capsicum pubescens R. & P.) is a chili pepper used in Andean cuisine. Fresh chili is perishable and therefore it is convenient to protect the capsaicin, color and other bioactive compounds through preservation methods such as encapsulation. The present study systematically evaluates the technical and environmental aspects of producing encapsulated Rocoto red chili powder using three different wall materials—maltodextrin, rice protein and rice flour—in conjunction with two drying methods, namely convection drying and vacuum drying. Our technical objectives focused on developing an encapsulated product with high heat and vibrant red color, key attributes that significantly influence consumer purchasing behavior. In addition, the study aimed to mitigate the loss of polyphenols, flavonoids and antioxidant activity. After identifying the optimal conditions for each wall material and drying process, a comprehensive environmental assessment was conducted to identify the most efficient and sustainable production methods. The results demonstrate that rice flour encapsulation (20%) in conjunction with hot air drying (40 °C) represents the most efficacious method for the preservation of chili powder’s pungency. This approach resulted in a mere 24% reduction in Scoville units while maintaining the powder’s vibrant red coloration. This method not only preserved key bioactive compounds, including capsaicin, polyphenols and flavonoids, but also significantly enhanced the antioxidant capacity of the product. From an environmental perspective, this approach offers significant sustainability benefits, reducing the overall environmental impact by approximately 72% compared to vacuum drying of unencapsulated chili. The use of rice flour as an encapsulant aligns with sustainability goals, making it the most efficient option for balancing product quality and environmental performance.

How Do LCA Studies Support CE? A Systematic Case Study Review

This study explores the integration of Circular Economy (CE) principles within the framework of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a foundational methodology in industrial ecology aimed at enhancing product sustainability. With CE offering a roadmap towards ecological sustainability within economic systems, the research examines the extent to which conventional LCA studies align with CE principles across diverse industries classified by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC). Analyzing 282 LCA studies, the investigation identifies a limited incorporation of CE concepts. Most studies inadequately address CE in their goal and scope, lack CE-specific data in inventories, predominantly focus on basic recycling strategies, overlook CE-specific indicators, neglect CE considerations in sensitivity analyses, and omit CE-related recommendations in conclusions. These findings underscore the necessity for a more robust integration of CE principles within LCA methodologies, emphasizing CE measures as pivotal drivers for enhancing product environmental performance across industries.

Sustainability assessment of orange peel waste valorization pathways from juice industries

AbstractA wide variety of products such as high value-added bioactive materials, biofuels, biochemicals and bioplastics can be obtained by the valorization of waste streams in a comprehensive and holistic biorefinery concept. In this study a meta-analysis of the available technologies utilizing organic waste derived from the juice industry is conducted. Initially, a mass flow analysis is performed to quantitatively illustrate the available orange peel waste volumes in the EU followed by a geographic distribution. The overall sustainability of the available valorization scenarios is then analyzed by considering critical environmental, economic and energy indicators and comparing innovative and conventional valorization technologies. Innovative technologies are better in terms of energy requirements and extraction time and also, in product yield and environmental performance than the conventional ones (85.1%, 9.5% and 47.9% lower CO2 eq values for the extraction of essential oils, pectin and phenolic compounds respectively). In terms of orange peel waste valorization scenarios, landfilling shares the largest environmental impact, followed by thermochemical and biological conversion alternatives. Complex biorefinery schemes are proportionate to environmental performance and energy consumption, but inversely proportionate to production cost. Finally, a trade-off analysis illustrates a positive correlation between environmental indicators of the most under study valorization scenarios.

Sensitivity analysis of the impact of environmental product declaration values on whole life carbon assessment: A case study using expanded polystyrene insulation for the retrofit of a building in Turkiye

Until recently, reducing the energy required to service a building (the operational energy) was the main aim of controlling carbon emissions from the built environment. It is now recognised that the energy required to make a building (the embodied energy) also has a crucial role in creating a net zero carbon future. The methodologies for quantifying embodied carbon are less developed than those for operational carbon, and more research is required to refine the embodied carbon metrics used when a building’s whole-life carbon emissions are calculated in a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). One such metric is the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), a document which can be used in different countries to quantify a product's environmental performance. EPDs are crucial data for conducting an LCA study of a building. However, despite recent efforts to standardise them, there are still inconsistencies between EPDs produced by different countries or manufacturers, even for materials with similar thermal and physical properties. This study considered some of the reasons for variations in EPDs for one product type, expanded polystyrene insulation (EPS). Factors such as (i) the LCA databases and software generators used for the EPDs, (ii) material mixes and manufacturing methods, (iii) country energy production mixes, and (iv) transportation distance from material source to the factory were considered in the analysis. As a case study, this paper examined the effects of selecting different EPDs for expanded polystyrene insulation on the final LCA results from the retrofit of a mid-rise residential building in Turkiye. Differences in EPDs demonstrated a fourfold difference between the highest and lowest upfront carbon impact results of building retrofit. This size of discrepancy indicates the need to choose the most appropriate EPD for a building/location when performing an LCA. Practical Applications Selecting an EPD when conducting an LCA for a new building or retrofit is generally left to the assessor’s judgment and knowledge, which varies greatly depending on the assessor’s background, especially in the construction sector. This study suggests an informed decision-making method over an example of EPS insulation material when the EPD options were none or limited to building locations like Turkiye.

Same product, different score: how methodological differences affect EPD results

Abstract Purpose Demand for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) is already high and increasing in the construction and building sectors. The overall purpose of EPDs is comparability of product environmental performance, and they are thus developed in accordance with product category rules (PCRs): requirements and guidelines for how to make EPDs for one or more product groups. Since several organisations publish PCRs, there is a risk of creating conflicting rules leading to inconsistencies and jeopardising the objective of comparability. Methods This study analyses the causes for inconsistency and the consequences in terms of difference in the results across the life cycle assessment (LCA) models underlying the EPDs. Taking four EPD programmes and their actors as cases, first a document analysis was conducted to identify qualitative and quantitative differences in their guidelines. Further focusing on selected quantitative differences, a series of LCA models were designed for the same triple-glazed window product by adhering to the PCRs of each operator, to highlight the differences in results that occur when performing the same assessment via different but all formally selectable operators and compliant EPDs. Results and discussion Results show that the EPD of a specific product can return very different impact scores if one or the other guideline is followed. Results can vary more than 10% from the base scenarios, what we consider a significant variation. This is observed across all impact categories. Focusing specifically on the climate change impact, the results show that differences are due to the choice of energy mix, reference service life and other parameters. It is thus the combination of several modelling differences that leads to a overall divergence in results, rather than one single methodological choice. Conclusions Numerous different but at the same time compliant EPDs can be obtained for the same product, highlighting a serious harmonisation issue within the EPD system. EPDs are thus not necessarily accurate, and it remains doubtful whether EPD comparability can be achieved. This weakness of the EPD system can in the worst case be exploited by producers to obtain lower results and undermines the system. Recommendations Besides recommending using LCA for learning and process improvement rather than just for external communication and compliance, to increase harmonisation in the EPD system, we recommend limiting the number of product-specific PCRs (e.g. complementary PCRs), align default values, learn from verification, use just one background database, increase transparency and move towards one centralized operator.

From Covid-19 to conflict: Does environmental regulation and green innovation improve industrial sector decarbonization efforts and environmental management?

During the COVID-19 period, industrial production was slowed or halted due to COVID restrictions and lockdowns, followed by global tensions and conflicts, which created uncertainties for industrial production. Similarly, during this period, the growth in carbon emissions was seen shrinking. However, it is greatly important to explore whether this shrinking trend will continue or whether a new growth pattern could emerge. Considering this, the research was carried out to investigate the relationship between green innovation initiatives and environmental regulations in the process of environmental management and environmental performance in the industrial sector. To do so, the survey-based research methodology using PLS-SEM was adopted, and data was gathered from 279 managers working in the equipment manufacturing industry. Our empirical findings revealed that environmental regulation and green innovation efforts strengthen decarbonization efforts, which further improve environmental management and environmental performance. The mediating role of decarbonization efforts was found to be prominent among green process innovation, environmental management and environmental performance. Moreover, decarbonization serves as a mediator between green product innovation and environmental management. In contrast, we could not verify that decarbonization mediates the relationship between green product innovation and environmental performance. The key findings are greatly important and provide a fresh roadmap for environmental management in the post-COVID era.

The impact of construction on the environment - the European experience of normative and legal regulation in Ukraine

Construction is a sector of the economy that directly affects the ecology, changing existing ecosystems and creating a new modified environment, which leads to the transformation of the existing one. Taking into account the importance that the implementation of construction projects has for the successful transformation of the environment, the study of factors of influence, design and other activities of construction participants on the environment, the development of systems for assessing such effects and their implementation in practical activities remains an extremely urgent task. The article examines the regulatory and legal documents of the EU regarding the regulation of the ecological consequences of the impact of construction on the environment, and also systematizes the directions of the impact of construction on the environment. Construction has a significant negative impact on the environment, which is accompanied by the transformation of ecosystems, fragmentation of landscapes, during drilling and blasting, construction of pits and trenches, felling of forests and bushes, pollution of the atmosphere, territories and water areas adjacent to the construction, and noise pollution, damage to the soil layer and washing away pollution from the construction site, the formation of construction waste dumps, etc. That is why the planning, construction and operation of construction sites must be carried out in accordance with environmental standards, and the standards themselves should ensure the minimization of the impact of networks on the environment. Therefore, it is important to improve the existing methods of assessing environmental risks, to form criteria and an assessment mechanism, as well as to bring the Ukrainian legislative and regulatory framework closer to the European one.
 The features and differences of the preparation of the following documents are determined: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), as well as the advantages of using environmental product declarations (EPD) used in the EU in construction as a means of communicating transparent and standardized information about the environmental performance of products, are based on life cycle assessment (LCA) and comply with standards such as ISO 14025. By implementing mandatory and voluntary environmental standards and green building practices, enterprises in the construction sector will be able to play a key role in reducing the impact on the environment environment.

Analysis of Cleaner Production Performance in Manufacturing Companies Employing Artificial Neural Networks

Cleaner production has emerged as a comprehensive paradigm, aiming to reduce, or even avoid, the environmental impact in the production stage, in a broad variety of fields. However, the great number of interacting factors makes the assessment of efficiency and the identification of critical factors pose significant challenges to researchers and companies. Artificial intelligence and, particularly, artificial neural networks have proven their suitability to lead with diverse multi-variable problems, but have not yet been applied to model production systems. In this work, we employ dimensionality reduction in combination with a fully connected feed-forward multi-layer perceptron to model the relation between the input (cleaner production techniques) and output variables (cleaner production performance) and, subsequently, quantify the sensibility of the different output variables on the input variables. In particular, we consider Product Design, Production Processes, and Reuse as the input latent variables, whereas the Environmental Performance of Product, Environmental Performance of Processes, and Economic Performance comprises the output variables of our model. The results, employing data collected from a direct survey of 205 Brazilian companies, reveal that the best configuration for the ANN uses eight neurons in the hidden layer. Regarding sensitivity, the obtained results show that improving practices with poor marks leads to a higher enhancement of output figures. In particular, since reuse presents mainly low marks, it can be identified as an area for improvement, in order to increase overall performance.

Improving the Economic, Environmental, and Safety Performance of Bio-Jet Fuel Production through Process Intensification and Integration Using a Modularity Approach

In this work, process intensification and heat integration are applied to improve a palm oil biofuel production process using modularity analysis and evaluated through techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA). The modularity analysis integrated with the safety indicator guided the scoping of intensification options and the application of the LCA at the level of process modules that facilitate the treatment of recycles. Two alternatives are presented: the first is the intensified one only and the second is the addition of heat integration. In both cases, there was an improvement in economic terms by decreasing utility costs by 2 and 70%, respectively. In environmental terms, the global warming potential obtained is 12.8 kg CO2 eq./GJ for the intensified design and 12.2 kg CO2 eq./GJ for the intensified and integrated design, which is a considerable improvement over other studies that have been carried out. In addition, process safety was improved as the fire and explosion damage rate decreased by 15% in the separation section. In conclusion, this work demonstrated a novel application of modularity to scope intensification opportunities, implement LCA models at the modular level, and identify hot spots.

The regulatory role of sustainable product design media and environmental performance in the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on corporate sustainability: an application in Turkey.

This research aims to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 epidemic, which entered the world agenda in 2019 and affected the whole world, on the corporate sustainability of businesses. The mediating effect of sustainable supply on this effect and the regulatory effect of environmental performance were investigated. The research was conducted among 235 businesses operating in Turkey. The data obtained using the survey method were analyzed in SPSS and AMOS analysis programs. As a result of the analyses obtained, it was determined that the COVID-19 epidemic significantly affected the corporate sustainability of the enterprises and that the environmental performance of the enterprises was a regulatory effect, together with the mediation of sustainable supply. It is understood day by day that COVID-19 negatively affects the economies of the countries. However, despite these negative effects; It is expected that the results of this research will contribute to the literature with a significant effect on the institutional sustainability of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Process integration and scale up considerations of Typha domingensis macrophyte bioconversion into ethanol

Ethanol production from bio-based materials is one of the most popular alternatives to gasoline due to its environmental and economic sustainability. In this study, an innovative process of 2 G ethanol production from Typha domingensis macrophyte was investigated. Experimental and literature data was used to develop a complete bioethanol production system design in Aspen Plus based on a two-stage saccharification pathway; both starch and cellulose fractions of feedstock are exploited for the production of fermentable sugars. A parametric analysis of different conceptual designs was performed in order to assess the most efficient scheme in terms of final product yield, self-sufficiency, operating expenses and environmental performance. Process simulations reveal that plant efficiency and bioethanol production yield can be quite high using this specific feedstock in an efficient way if aspects such as high solid concentration in starch and cellulose hydrolysis and C5 & C6 co-fermentation are taken into consideration.

The RothC Model to Complement Life Cycle Analyses: A Case Study of an Italian Olive Grove

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a fundamental role in soil health, and its storage in soil is an important element to mitigate climate change. How to include this factor in Life Cycle Assessment studies has been the object of several papers and is still under discussion. SOC storage has been proposed as an additional environmental information in some applications of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). In the framework of wider activity aimed at producing the PEF of olive oil, the RothC model was applied to an olive cultivation located in Lazio region (Italy) to calculate the SOC storage and assess four scenarios representing different agricultural practices. RothC applicability, possible use of its results for improving product environmental performance, and relevance of SOC storage in terms of CO2eq compared to greenhouse gas emissions of the life-cycle of olive oil are discussed in this paper. According to the results, in all scenarios, the contribution in terms of CO2eq associated with SOC storage is remarkable compared to the total greenhouse gas emissions of the olive oil life-cycle. It is the opinion of the authors that the calculation of the SOC balance allows a more proper evaluation of the agricultural products contribution to climate change, and that the indications of the scenarios analysis are useful to enhance the environmental performance of these products. The downside is that the application of RothC requires additional data collection and expertise if compared to the execution of PEF studies.

Inaccurate polyester textile environmental product declarations

<abstract> <p>Development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)s used for green marketing, specification, procurement, certification and green building rating systems are important for documenting and understanding product environmental performance. Considering such applications any misleading of stakeholders has serious legal ramifications. Various studies have highlighted EPD veracity depends mainly on the data quality of underpinning life cycle assessment (LCA). This paper compares data quality across polyester product case studies, literature surveys and EPDs. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) results are presented and interpreted. Surveys show recycled polyester fibre results are most sensitive to melt spinning energy data which varies over a wide range. The case studies compare results from median, lower and upper energy use in melt spinning. The work highlights that, accurate, clear definitions and vocabulary is as vital for specific foreground process data as it is for generic background supply chain data. This is to avoid misconceptions and mismatched assumptions in respect of EPD data quality and incorrect acceptance of inadequate charting of all essential processes. If product-specific accurate data is inaccessible, EPD options include presenting impact assessment results from LCI of best and worst-case scenarios. This is preferable to legal risks of using junk data that misleads stakeholders in marketing. General recommendations are presented for LCA practitioners to improve EPD data quality and accuracy. These include using multiple data sources to avoid reliance on any single database. Data also needs to be verified by a third-party with industry expertise independent of the specific manufacturer. It recommends using suitable, comprehensive and specific product-related scenarios for data development in any EPD.</p> </abstract>

Worse is worse and better doesn't matter?: The effects of favorable and unfavorable environmental information on consumers’ willingness to pay

AbstractIncreasing consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for environmentally friendly products is a key challenge for sustainable development in market economies. Still, how consumers react to favorable and unfavorable environmental information of different quantitative extents is largely unknown. This research therefore uses prospect theory and competing theoretical foundations to derive pertinent hypotheses and test them by using a multi‐level structural equation model. The analysis draws on a survey‐based experiment conducted among a representative sample of the German population. Results confirm key assertions of prospect theory. The negative effect caused by unfavorable product carbon footprint information on WTP is stronger than the positive effect caused by respective favorable information. Besides this negativity bias, consumers tend to generally reward or punish deviations of a product's environmental performance from industry average instead of consistently accounting for the size of these deviations. From a sustainable development perspective, the observed patterns highlight a problematic contrast between the need for substantial environmental improvements and limited market incentives for companies. Consequently, political intervention is needed to introduce negative labeling, raise consumers’ reference points, set minimum industry standards, and subsidize companies for radical improvements.

SMEs’ charismatic leadership, product life cycle, environmental performance, and financial performance: A mediated moderation model

In recent years, researchers have begun to examine the effects of charismatic leadership on environmental performance. Previous studies have considered how the stages of product life cycles influence green manufacturing, but have neglected to explore the connections among charismatic leadership, environmental performance, and product life cycle. To investigate these connections, survey data were collected from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) along the east coast of China. The main findings included a mediated moderation effect to connect those concepts and enriched the literature of organizational context and natural-resource-based view. Precisely, we concluded that the product life cycle is a contextual factor in the effects of charismatic leadership on environmental performance to support the strategy of product stewardship; SMEs’ charismatic leadership helps share visions among stakeholders for promoting environmental performance and sustainable development; and environmental performance ultimately improves financial performance for sustainability.

The Commodity Life Cycle Costing Indicator. An Economic Measure of Natural Resource Use in the Life Cycle

This study defines a methodology for the development of an economic indicator of natural resource use to be applied in the framework of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to integrate the assessment of the environmental performances of products or processes during their life-cycle. The indicator developed-called Commodity Life Cycle Costing (or C-LCC)-is based on market prices, therefore incorporating information from both the demand and supply sides. Monte Carlo analysis is used to take price volatility into account. Alternative versions of the indicator, based on open-source data or calculated considering European Union’s critical raw materials only, are also developed. The study also provides a comparison between the C-LCC indicator and ReCiPe’s Mineral and Fossil Resource Depletion indicators and applies the proposed methodology to several types of batteries for stationary energy storage.

The effect of greenness- and price-based competition on a product's environmental performance

This study considers two retailers that offer substitutable products and compete in a greenness- and price-sensitive market. The retailers rely on supply chains that have different costs, replenishment times and carbon intensities. The demand is stochastic, and the inventory replenishment time is also stochastic. Each retailer decides the greenness of its product (carbon intensity), the price and the order size to maximize its expected profit under a service level constraint. The mean demand for each retailer decreases in its price and carbon intensity and increases in other retailer's price and carbon intensity. The customers' switchovers are, thus, governed by disparities in carbon intensity and price. The retailers may have different market powers since the total demand is not necessarily equally shared between them when they offer the same price and greenness level. We derive analytically the best response of each retailer to other retailer's decisions at the Nash equilibrium. We determine the market conditions that lead the competing retailer to offering a greener or a dirtier product than the product it would have offered in a monopolistic situation. We explain how the retailer's market power impacts on its greenness strategy under different market conditions. We also investigate insights into the impact of disparities in transportation carbon emissions, the order size decisions, and the retailers' optimal profit under the different competition scenarios.

Development of a life cycle impact assessment framework accounting for biodiversity in deep seafloor ecosystems: A case study on the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone

The transformation of ecosystems is known to be a major driver of biodiversity loss. Consequently, supporting tools such as life cycle assessment methods (LCA) include this aspect in the evaluation of a product's environmental performance. Such methods consist of quantifying input and output flows to assess their specific contributions to impact categories. Therefore, land occupation and transformation are considered as inputs to assess biodiversity impacts amongst others. However, the modelling of biodiversity impact in deep seafloor ecosystems is still lacking in LCA. Most of the LCA methods focus on terrestrial biodiversity and none of them can be transposed to benthic deep sea because of knowledge gaps. This manuscript proposes a LCA framework to assess biodiversity impacts in deep seafloor ecosystems. The framework builds upon the existing methods accounting for biodiversity impacts in terrestrial and coastal habitats. A two-step approach is proposed, assessing impacts on regional and on global biodiversity. While the evaluation of regional biodiversity impacts relies only on the benthic communities' response to disturbance, the global perspective considers ecosystem vulnerability and scarcity. Those provide additional perspective for the comparison of impacts occurring in different ecosystems. The framework is operationalised to a case study for deep-sea mining in the Clarion Clipperton Fractures Zone (CCZ). Through the large variety of data sources needed to run the impact evaluation modelling, the framework shows consistency and manages the existing limitations in the understanding of deep seafloor ecosystems, although limitations for its application in the CCZ were observed mainly due to the lack of finer scaled habitat maps and data on connectivity. With growing interest for commercial activities in the deep sea and hence, increased environmental research, this work is a first attempt for the implementation of LCA methods to deep-sea products.

Progress in Sustainable Consumption and Production in Slovakia in Comparison with other EU Countries – Energy Intensity of the Sector

Research background: Problematic of sustainable consumption and production is a broad conception that is integrating application of advanced methods and techniques of business management, in all areas, including eco-design and innovation, sustainable marketing, risk management and strategic management with a focus on sustainable development for the environment. The European Union has established numerous strategies to support it, the success of which depends on building a sufficient awareness and above all the involvement of all countries in the process of improving the environmental performance of products throughout their life cycle. Building of sustainable consumption and production on the widest scale is influenced by the social and economic dimension, which awareness and understanding makes it possible to encourage and motivate to socially responsible behaviour. In order to face the current challenges, it is essential to change the way we produce and consume. Purpose of the article: Analyse the financial and economic parameters of selected sectors in dependence on the fulfilment of selected indicators that are measuring progress in sustainable consumption and production in Slovakia in comparison with other EU countries Methods: Time series analysis, spatial analysis. Findings & Value added: Systematizing the ways to measure progress in achieving sustainable consumption and production with regards to defined indicators in strategies, policies and action plans of EU following the structure of national economies.