Comparison of Four Environmental Assessment Tools in Swedish Manufacturing: A Case Study

Abstract

To achieve sustainable development goals, it is essential to include the industrial system. There are sufficient numbers of tools and methods for measuring, assessing and improving the quality, productivity and efficiency of production, but the number of tools and methods for environmental initiatives on the shop floor is rather low. Incorporating environmental considerations into production and performance management systems still generally involves a top-down approach aggregated for an entire manufacturing plant. Green lean studies have been attempting to fill this gap to some extent, but the lack of detailed methodologies and practical tools for environmental manufacturing improvement on the shop floor is still evident. This paper reports on the application of four environmental assessment tools commonly used among Swedish manufacturing companies—Green Performance Map (GPM), Environmental Value Stream Mapping (EVSM), Waste Flow Mapping (WFM), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—to help practitioners and scholars to understand the different features of each tool, so in turn the right tool(s) can be selected according to particular questions and the industrial settings. Because there are some overlap and differences between the tools and a given tool may be more appropriate to a situation depending on the question posed, a combination of tools is suggested to embrace different types of data collection and analysis to include different environmental impacts for better prioritization and decision-making.