Optimizing Environmental Product Life Cycles |
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Authors: | PAUL M Weaver H LANDIS Gabel JACQUELINE M Bloemhof-Ruwaard LUK N VAN Wassenhove |
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Institution: | (1) University of Durham, UK;(2) INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305 Fontainebleau Cedex, France;(3) Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | In this paper, we propose a methodology, based on materials accounting and operational research techniques, to assess different
industry configurations according to their life cycle environmental impacts. Rather than evaluating a specific technology,
our methodology searches for the feasible configuration with the minimum impact. This approach allows us to address some basic
policy-relevant questions regarding technology choice, investment priorities, industrial structures, and international trade
patterns.
We demonstrate the methodology in the context of the European pulp and paper industry. We are able to show that current environmental
policy's focus on maximizing recycling is optimal now, but that modest improvements in primary pulping technology may shift
the optimal industry configuration away from recycling toward more primary pulping with incineration. We show that this will
have significant implications for the amount and type of environmental damage, for the location of different stages in the
production chain, and for trade between European member states. We caution policy makers that their single-minded focus on
recycling may foreclose investment in technologies that could prove environmentally superior. Finally, we hint that member
state governments may be fashioning their environmental policy positions at least in part on some of the trade and industrial
implications we find. |
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Keywords: | environmental policy pulp and paper life cycle optimization technology lock-in recycling geography of production environment-trade conflict |
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