Sustainable Manufacturing - Institute for Manufacturing (IfM)

Sustainability

From plastic waste to better homes in Nepal

Nepal faces a growing plastic waste crisis, with 600 tonnes littering streets and mountains daily. Dr. Curie Park’s Plastic to Ghar (P2G) project, supported by UK Aid and UNCTAD, empowers communities to turn plastic waste into sustainable building materials, transforming pollution into a resource and creating local hubs for innovation.

The environmental impact of a Playstation 4

Journalist Lewis Gordon worked with IfM's Dr Claire Barlow and colleague Dr John Durrell to unpick the carbon footprint and impact on workers of this soon-to-be-obsolete console, with eye-watering findings.

Boosting industrial sustainability through transformative technologies

Manufacturers are already working towards strategies which can both improve their sustainability practices and deliver on business objectives. Among these leaders, there is innovative thinking about the role for digital technologies can play. But what might this look like? Professor Steve Evans shares his insights.

Manufacturing sustainability: Identifying and eliminating waste

This webinar looks at how identifying and eliminating waste in your business makes business sense. Experts from research and industry will explain techniques for identifying waste using data you are already collecting and how you can get buy-in from across the business to drive the initiative forward.

Resource efficiency: Can sustainability and improved profit go hand-in-hand?

Professor Steve Evans shares his insights into how resource efficiency can be good news for your profit margins as well as the environment.

Gamifying sustainability: delivering worker engagement and environmental impact

Raynor Foods is renowned for its innovative initiatives and is currently focusing on the challenge of inspiring its entire workforce to enhance sustainability. In pursuit of this goal, they have initiated the S3 Project in partnership with academic and technological collaborators to establish a digital twin factory for real-time monitoring of carbon emissions. They plan to use gamification to involve employees in reducing the company’s carbon footprint.

A more sustainable cuppa: Driving sustainability at Kenyan tea factories

IfM partnered with top tea producer Eastern Produce Kenya to promote simple - but effective - energy-saving practices at two tea estates in the Nandi Hills.

Sustainability: making the invisible visible

In our conversation with the IfM's Centre for Industrial Sustainability, we explore the crucial importance of making industrial resources more visible. By bringing to light some of the often neglected aspects, we discover how — as resources become more visible — their value increases, which results in a crucial step towards achieving environmental, climatic, and financial benefits.

Quick win sustainability strategies from the IfM

Insights from the IfM show that rapid sustainability improvements are not only achievable, but can also improve the bottom line.

Manufacturing sustainability: Practical steps towards an efficient future

In this webinar, experts from the Centre for Industrial Sustainability highlight why sustainability makes business sense and how manufacturers can generate new value whilst reducing waste.

Manufacturing sustainability: How to develop sustainable business models

This webinar looks at why sustainable business models matter and how to think differently about value creation and capture. We also cover applications from three industries where IfM tools have helped businesses to shift to a sustainable business model.

Towards a sustainable industrial system, with recommendations for education, research, industry and policy

This report calls for a collaborative effort by academics, teachers, industrialists and policy makers to create a sustainable, global industrial system.

How the EIT Food Accelerator Network can transform your start-up

The EIT Food Accelerator Network is a unique programme of support that has helped some of the most impactful start-ups in the agri-tech and food-tech sectors. In this webinar, we hear from the programme lead and previous alumni of the programme about what makes it such a success.

EIT Food Accelerator Network provides showcase and support to growing agritech and foodtech ventures

The IfM is in the third year of running the Cambridge hub of the EIT Food Accelerator Network, offering expert mentoring and helping agritech and foodtech start-ups across Europe to increase their chance of becoming commercially and sustainably successful.

TransTextile Project Report

High Value Innovation for Industrial Textile Waste in Sri Lanka.

Manufacturing sustainability: Sustainable value creation through industrial symbiosis

This webinar covers the findings from the EU-funded SCALER Project. Researchers from the Centre for Industrial Sustainability highlight the role; the triggers, enablers and barriers for implementation; and the economic, environmental and social benefits of industrial symbiosis.

Manufacturing plays a vital role in creating a truly sustainable world by 2050

Seven years ago, Professor Steve Evans helped to write a major report for Whitehall on the future of British manufacturing and sustainability. In the wake of COVID-19, he looks back on the predictions and what the future looks like today for policy makers and executives.

Manufacturing sustainability: Back to the future

In this webinar Steve Evans revisits the 'Future of UK Manufacturing' predictions from 2013 and looks ahead to the big changes and challenges that are now shaping our industrial future.

Can policy simulations help developing economies after COVID-19?

In the wake of the economic jolt of the coronavirus, Nazia Habib explains how policy simulation labs can help developing economies chart a path to recovery.

Grass-root circular economy through creative waste innovation

Dr Curie Park explains how recent projects in Thailand have nurtured local entrenpreneurship through the creation of innovative products made with industrial waste and ocean plastic waste.

Industrial sustainability: paradox or paradigm?

Professor Steve Evans is working with manufacturers to make manufacturing more sustainable. He explains that the environment, society and manufacturers can all benefit from increasing non-labour resource efficiency, re-thinking business models and transforming industrial systems.