Sustainable Environmental Impact Assessment Using Indicators for Sustainable Energy-Intensive Industrial Production

Abstract

We have proposed an impact assessment methodology for determining sustainability in energy-intensive industrial production based on a comprehensive combination of economic, environmental, and social indicators for sustainable development. The goal of this study was to disclose this methodology for assessing sustainability in energy-intensive industrial production. We proved that any energy-intensive chemical, metallurgical, and energy generation processes should maximize the material output values and product value addition to ensure innovative sustainable development. We proposed indicators that determine the levels of increasing the sustainability of energy-intensive production as a whole, as well as taking into account individual technological processes. We proposed a procedure for making managerial decisions to increase the sustainability of energy-intensive outputs using the technological renewal of fixed assets and/or technological modernization of production. Our proposed methodology is based on a graphical model of the technological development’s life cycle of the existing energy-intensive production process. In addition, the proposed methodology ensures resource- and energy-efficiency intensification, together with the environmental safety of the technological processes.