Sustainability has been a difficult word for manufacturers to swallow. The baggage it has accumulated on frequent trips through the political gauntlet has colored its connotations, and for many people, it has become synonymous with that most feared of all words: regulation.
Still, forces inside and outside the industry have begun to clarify the meaning and soften the translation. A growing vanguard of companies has discovered that the concept of sustainability holds monetary benefits, especially in the context of managing energy. And the driver isn’t regulation, but cost savings and brand equity.
Sustainable manufacturing “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” states the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing, a nonpartisan group dedicated to helping U.S. manufacturers “increase revenue-generating opportunities, decrease costs, and increase speed through sustainable manufacturing.”
Sustainable business practices encompass many activities, but reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints captures the lion’s share of attention. Central to those measurements is the way a manufacturer uses energy, the production of which contributes mightily to the world’s carbon footprint.