Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A return on investment metric for incorporating sustainability in process integration and improvement projects

  • Brief Report
  • Published:
Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A new approach is proposed for the inclusion of sustainability issues in the assessment and prioritization of process improvement projects. It is based on extending the conventional economic return on investment to include the beneficial or detrimental impacts of a project on sustainability early in the design process. The concept of aggregate sustainability metrics is coupled with economic profitability and process integration targets (benchmarks) to develop a unified metric that evaluates the augmented value of the project profitability and contribution to sustainability relative to the capital investment. Because of the return on investment nature of the proposed metric and because of its augmented inclusion of economic and other sustainability factors, it can be readily incorporated in typical process engineering activities and can be used by decision makers to make informed decisions regarding the viability of the projects and their impact on sustainability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

References

  • AIChE (2000) Total cost assessment methodology. AIChE Center for Waste Reduction Technologies, ISBN# 0-8169-0807-9

  • Banerjee S, Pendyala K, Buchanan M, Yang R, Abu-Daabes M, Otwell LPW (2006) Process-based control of HAPs emissions from drying wood flakes. Environ Sci Technol 40:2438–2441

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson FE, Phillips EK, Tenhaeff SC, Detlefsen WD (1995) A study of formaldehyde and other organic emissions from pressing of laboratory oriented strandboard. For Prod J 45(3):71–76

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • El-Halwagi MM (1997) Pollution prevention through process integration: systematic design tools. Academic Press, San Diego

    Google Scholar 

  • El-Halwagi MM (2006) Process integration. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • El-Halwagi MM (2012) Sustainable design through process integration: fundamentals and applications to industrial pollution prevention, resource conservation, and profitability enhancement. Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Foo DCY (2012) Process integration for resource conservation. CRC Press, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  • Granström K (2005) Emissions of volatile organic compounds from wood. PhD dissertation, Karlstad University, Sweden

  • Kemp IC (2007) Pinch analysis and process integration: a user guide on process integration for the efficient use of energy. Elsevier, Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Klemeš JJ (eds) (2013) Handbook of process integration (PI): minimisation of energy and water use, waste and emissions. Woodhead Publishing Series in Energy No. 61

  • Manninen AM, Pasanen P, Holopaninen J (2002) Comparing the VOC emissions between air-dried and heat-treated scots pine wood. Atmos Environ 36:1763–1768

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Milota M (2000) Emissions from wood drying. For Prod J 50(6):10–20

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mukherjee R, Sengupta D, Sikdar SK (2013) Parsimonious use of indicators for evaluating sustainability systems with multivariate statistical analysis. Clean Techn Environ Policy 15:699–706

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sikdar SK (2003) Sustainable development and sustainability metrics. AIChE J 49(8):1928–1932

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sikdar SK (2009) On aggregating multiple indicators into a single metric for sustainability. Clean Technol Environ Policy 11(2):157–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sikdar SK, Sengupta D, Harten P (2012) More on aggregating multiple indicators into a single index for sustainability analyses. Clean Technol Environ Policy 14:765–773

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sikdar SK, Sengupta D, Mukherjee R (2017) Measuring progress towards sustainability: a treatise for engineers. Springer, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith R (2005) Chemical process design and integration. Wiley, Chichester

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams JF, Parker JC (2010) Measuring the sustainable return on investment (SROI) of waste to energy. In: Proceedings of the 18th annual North American waste-to-energy conference (NAWTEC18), May 11–13, 2010, Orlando, USA

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi

Authors
  1. Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

El-Halwagi, M.M. A return on investment metric for incorporating sustainability in process integration and improvement projects. Clean Techn Environ Policy 19, 611–617 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-016-1280-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-016-1280-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation