1. The Sustainable Enterprise Paradigm Shift
Report By:
Committee on industrial environmental performance metrics. National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council
Summary: Rafael Kaliski
Critique: Chris Day
2/21/2019

2. Changing for the future
Embracing “ecoefficiency”
Making more and better products from the same amount of raw materials with less waste
Assess activities as sustainable development
A paradigm shift from “greening to sustaining”
Sustainable industrial enterprise moves beyond
Cleaner production
Ecoefficency
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3. Changing for the future
Movement toward sustainability is a continuation of the “greening” shift
Integration of environmental considerations
Shifting requires
Development of new problem-solving techniques
Innovation in information and communication
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4. The Call for Sustainable Development
Driven by global environmental conditions/problems
Continued deterioration such as the decline of renewable resources, large-scale alterations of global biochemical cycles, and a threatened biological base
Environmental threats are both interactive and cumulative, often arising from many causes
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5. Human Impacts on Natural Systems
Environmental deterioration is related to social trends
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6. Top Ten Global Threats to Ecosystem Viability
The responding business community cite 10 threats to ecosystem viability
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7. The movement toward sustainable business enterprise
The move toward sustainable business enterprise requires
Managing long-term uncertainties
Long-range analysis of trends in efficient use of energy, materials, and land
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8. Sustainable Development and Enterprise-Level metrics
Sustainable development is “ development that meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations’ needs”
Metrics are emerging around three aspects
Economic
Environmental
Social
There are no sustainability performance evaluations that attempt to integrate the three metrics.
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9. Economic performance metrics
Sophisticated internal accounting metrics help reveal underlying drivers of economic performance and share holder value
Economic performance metrics still need to go beyond profitability and cash flow, they need to quantify hidden costs associated with
Utilization of materials
Energy
Capital
Human resources
The metrics must also estimate uncertain future costs
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10. Environmental performance metrics
Based in regulations
Requires companies to measure their output of wastes and emissions
Interest in standardizing environmental reporting is growing
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11. Social performance metrics
Intended to track firm’s social accountability
Social accountability falls into two categories
Stakeholder response on specific categories of performance
Evaluation of social performance through community case studies
Current metrics still need substantial development
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12. Life support service model
Sustainable development means protecting, maintaining, and the restoring the integrity, resilience, and productivity of natural and social life support services
Sustainability demands many social system services that support both citizen and industrial activity
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13. Sustainability as life support maintenance and enhancement
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14. The ecologically sustainable enterprise, as envisioned by Gladwin and Krause
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15. The socially sustainable enterprise, as envisioned by Gladwin
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16. Toward Metrics of Sustainable Industrial Performance
Moving beyond pollution prevention and ecoefficency requires a transformation in the measurements and analysis used to gauge industrial performance
The sustainability analyst would need to handle systemic interactions and aggregation, conditions for sustainability reside in properties of “wholes”
Impact assessments of a given product, process or facility would need to be done with more consideration for both the temporal and spatial scales
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17. The five metrics for sustainable industrial performance
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18. From Loads to Impacts and from direction to target zone
The environmental performance model advises industry to reduce loads/footprints on the environment
The sustainability framework would demand that all such behavior be judged according to their actual impacts on the environment (persistent and cumulative) and society.
Pollution prevention mandates
Product stewardship
Energy and material efficiency
Cleaner production
Sustainability suggests moving from “greening” to “zones” (absolute benchmarks) as determined by the eco-system and socio-system.
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19. From chemical & Physical to Biological and from natural to social
Current metrics are concerned with material productivity, toxic emissions, and energy intensity
Our current social system precludes the environment as a main concern.
For sustainability we must be concerned about the impacts on natural systems and we must address our societal views about the environment
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20. The Intellectual Journey Ahead
Moving from traditional notions of industrial environmental performance toward models/metrics of sustainable enterprise will involve scientific, governmental, corporate, and nongovernmental communities.
The responsibility for ensuring sustainability will fall largely on the world’s businesses
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21. Critique The call for sustainable development
An example of the life support service model
Towards Metrics of sustainable industrial performance
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22. The call for Sustainable Development
States that we need to look at industry’s impact on the environment, not just pollution levels.
Stated by the World commission on the environment as: “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
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23. The call for Sustainable Development
Limiting the impact on the environment should always be our end goal.
Example: Measuring the amount of mercury released into the environment through mining is useless if we don’t know how substantial the effect of mercury in the environment is.
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24. The call for Sustainable Development
Challenges (are they feasible?)
Managing long term uncertainties.
Quantify hidden costs from utilization of materials, energy, capital, and human resources.
“Metrics to assess social performance are embryonic…”
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25. An example of the life support service model of sustainable development The enterprise would,
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26. An example of the life support service model of sustainable development The enterprise would,
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27. Metrics of sustainable industrial performance
Pollution prevention and ecoefficency metrics  sustainability metrics
“About 50 initiatives are underway around the world to develop ‘sustainability rulers’ for business. All are struggling with the difficult challenges of complexity, comparability, credibility, and completeness.”
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28. From loads to impacts
Traditional environmental performance model is to reduce loads on the environment.
Sustainability framework would also require behaviors to be judged by their impact on environment and society.
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29. From direction to target zone
“pollution prevention mandates, product stewardship, energy and material efficiency, and cleaner production all contribute to lessening the environmental harms of industrial inputs and outputs. They fail, however, to provide guidance on how well industrial activities fit within the carrying capabilities of local, regional, and global environments.”
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30. From chemical and physical to biological
Sustainability suggests that the primary threats are habitat destruction and exploitation of renewable resources beyond the rate of regeneration.
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31. From discrete and static to systemic and dynamic
Indicators of corporate environmental performance are generally unconnected.
The sustainability approach would focus on patterns of change, not static snapshots.
Impacts should be estimated over longer terms and larger geographic scales.
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32. From natural to social
“Social progress is commonly acknowledged as one of the three pillars of sustainable development (along with ecological balance and economic progress), but it is typically downplayed….”
Sustainability analysts will then have to consider social justice, various human interests, and societal development as well as non-human ecological impact.
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33. Conclusion
Extensive environmental impact research still needs to be done.
Environmental impact needs to be the focus of sustainability, not just the type or quantity of pollutants.
The life support model needs to reflect a practical solution.
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