Life Cycle Approaches for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Organizations: Defining the State of the Art

Preparation and Characterization of Insulating Panels from Recycled Polylaminate (Tetra Pak) Materials

Eco-sustainability and the reuse of materials are highly topical issues. In fact, in recent years, much study and research has been developed on this aspect, making the eco-sustainability of materials a real need. Polylaminate containers, more commonly called Tetra Pak containers, represent the most used packaging in the world. This work proposes a new strategy for the reuse of discarded polylaminate containers in order to create panels that can be used in construction and in particular as insulating panels. The proposed thermal method has been optimized in terms of operating variables such as time, temperature, pressure, number of polylaminate sheets. The results obtained show that the proposed thermal method is suitable for obtaining panels with characteristics suitable for use in green building. The advantage of the thermal method is that it does not use chemical or other binders and moreover uses only and exclusively sheets of recycled polylaminate.

The Environmental Impact of Organizations: A Pilot Test from the Packaging Industry Based on Organizational Life Cycle Assessment

This article presents and discusses a pilot test concerning the environmental impacts assessment of organizations. The study was conducted in a production site of a world leading group in the plastic packaging industry. The purpose was to deepen the knowledge of the methodologies currently available and also of the benefits and the difficulties related to their practical implementation. The analysis was conducted in the period 2018–2019, in line with ISO 14044 and ISO/TS 14072 standards and therefore inspired by the organizational life cycle assessment (O-LCA) procedures and standards. The O-LCA test application has proved useful in detecting a number of environmental hotspots usually not detected by other life cycle based approaches, on which the organization should focus to undertake improvement actions, both internal and external (e.g., the category “employees commuting”). The experience gained in the production site under study also led to the replication of the assessment approach to other facilities around the world and for informing corporate sustainability reporting activities (e.g., Global Reporting Initiative and Carbon Disclosure Project reporting standards). Such results can provide methodological and practical insights to both scholars and practitioners in that field of activities.

Industrial Ecology and Innovation: At What Point Are We? Editorial for the Special Issue “Industrial Ecology and Innovation”

For a long time, starting from the first industrial revolution until the second postwar period, technological progress has been aimed at increasing the technical-economic efficiency of production systems [...]

Environmental Management in German Hospitals—A Classification of Approaches

This paper analyzes organizational environmental performance and environmental management approaches in German hospitals. Based on data from an online survey and a subsequent cluster analysis, three groups of hospitals are identified: traditionalists, pragmatists, and environmentalists. The clusters differ regarding their organizational environmental performance, i.e., the environmental management elements adopted (policy, goals, structures, processes, and monitoring) and the environmental issues addressed (energy, water, material consumption, waste, emissions into water and air). The environmental management approaches hospitals adopt range from least to most active. Despite perceived stakeholder pressure being generally low, differences between the clusters can be observed. The most relevant stakeholders are internal ones, i.e., management and owners, rather than external ones. Furthermore, some organizational characteristics distinguish the clusters. This paper adds knowledge in the under-researched setting of hospitals and discusses managerial possibilities for the types of hospitals to increase their organizational environmental performance and to pursue a more holistic environmental approach.