Sustainable Manufacturing Group
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Seminars
The Institute for Manufacturing seminar series on Sustainable Manufacturing was suspended in Michaelmas term 2007 to make way for a cross-divisional seminar series:
"Engineering for a low carbon future", held on Wednesday afternoons in term time at the Engineering Department main site.
Past seminar titles and presentations (where available) can be seen below.
Easter term 2007
Wednesday 6 June
Dick Searle, Chief Executive, Packaging Federation
The role of packaging in society
This talk examines the importance of packaging to brand owners, retailers and consumers, and its significance in the context of an increasingly eco-aware society.
The way in which packaging and society have evolved and influenced each other over the last half century will be discussed, and the achievements of packaging will be highlighted. It makes a huge contribution to the feasibility of contemporary supply chains, and plays a key role in optimising resource efficiency. However, public perceptions of packaging would often indicate a different story: where does the truth lie?
Download Dick Searle's slides presentation (404k MS Powerpoint file)
Wednesday 23 May
Peter Laybourn, Director, NISP
The UK's National Industrial Symbiosis Programme
Industrial symbiosis brings together companies from all business sectors with the aim of improving cross industry resource efficiency through the commercial trading of materials, energy and water and sharing assets, logistics and expertise. It engages traditionally separate industries and other organisations in a collective approach to competitive advantage involving physical exchange of materials, energy, water and/or by-products together with the shared use of assets, logistics and expertise. Peter Laybourn is the creator of NISP, which is currently the only Industrial Symbiosis programme anywhere in the world which is operating on a national basis. He was originally inspired to create NISP after hearing about by-product synergy programmes operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
Michaelmas term 2006
Past seminars
Wednesday 6 December
Professor Roland Clift from the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey
Nanotechnology and precautionary risk management
As a new and promising technology, nanotechnology needs to learn form the experience of past innovation including nuclear power and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). This experience shows that it is essential to be proactive in managing risks and responding to possible public concern over these risks. This paper reviews how this might be achieved.
To start with, there is a need to establish and quantify, however approximately, what the real advantages might be in deploying nanotechnology, particularly in electromechanical and energy conversion devices. This can be achieved by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and existing LCA methodology should be capable of establishing whether the benefits of using nanotechnology outweigh the resources used to produce engineered nanomaterials.
More uncertainty surrounds the possible impacts on human health and the environment of using engineered nanomaterials. There is reason to think, and some limited evidence, that nanoparticles can have harmful effects on humans and on non-human organisms. This argues for a precautionary approach to health and environmental risk management. This contribution will explore what this might mean. It implies a presumption against applications which would deliberately release nanoparticles into the environment. It also implies that manufactured products incorporating nanomaterials should be subject to strict regulation of how they are to be handled at the ends of their service lives. The scope for managing risks by treating nanomaterials as new chemicals under something like the European REACH regime is explored. Precaution could perhaps be achieved by strengthening the European Directive on end-of-life management (particularly the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - WEEE - Directive); the implications and practicality of this approach are explored.
Download professor Clift's slides [580k Acrobat.PDF]
Wednesday 15 November
Dr Julian Allwood
Well Dressed? - The present and future sustainability of clothing and textiles in the UK
Julian M.Allwood, Søren E Laursen, Cecilia M de Rodriguez, Nancy M P Bocken
Most work to date on 'sustainability' has had a strong focus on measurement, and where change is recommended, this is usually expressed through policy, economics and sociology. Practical change that will have a globally significant effect is assumed to emerge from policy and economic incentives. However the UK's Carbon Trust in aiming at a 60% carbon emissions reduction by 2050 can only identify economically viable change of around 25% of current emissions within the industrial sector. What is required to make a substantial change?
This seminar presents the outcome of a five person-year study conducted at the Institute for Manufacturing on the future supply of clothing and textiles to the UK. The bulk of the work of the project was a scenario analysis of various future means to meet the UKs demand for clothing and textiles. The scenarios were developed with three case study products, and analysed according to the "triple bottom line", including environmental life cycle costs, calculation of national accounts and prediction of employment changes.
In the seminar we will give an outline of the methodology, present the main findings and describe the 'ideal consumer' who would drive change in the sector. We will conclude with a discussion of the barriers to developing 'ideal consumer' behaviour and look at means to overcome them.
Easter term 2006
- Monday 8th May, 5.00pm, Professor Michael Grubb, Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust, and Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Economics at Cambridge University and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College, will talk on the promotion and adoption of sustainable manufacturing technologies by economic and political incentives.
Download Michael Grubb's slides [600k pdf file]
Lent term 2006
- Wednesday 1st February, 5.00pm: Chris Boyd, CEO of Lafarge Cement in Italy, and formerly chief environmental officer, will talk about sustainable manufacturing from the perspective of the worst offenders.Download Chris Boyd's slides [6.5Mb pdf file]
- Wednesday 15th March, 5.00pm, Stuart Elmes, Founder and CEO, Viridian Concepts Ltd will talk on the Development and production of a low cost Solar Panel
Michaelmas term 2005
- 19th October (at 5pm) - Prof. Mike Ashby (CUED) - Materials and Sustainability
Slides ( pdf slides, 0.8Mb)
- 16th November - Prof. Tim Jackson (University of Surrey) - Clean Production
Slides ( pdf slides, 1.2Mb)
- 30 November - Rob Lake (Henderson Global Investors) - The City's view of sustainability
Easter term 2005
- 11 May 2005 - Microwave induced pyrolysis or...strange things to do with a microwave oven. Carlos Ludlow-Palafox.
- 8 June 2005 - Product Recovery Management and RFID Systems. Marisa de Brito and Ajith Kumar Parlikad.
Slides ( .pdf, 3.1Mb)
Lent term 2005
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