Measuring Eco-efficiency By A LCC/LCA Ratio And Evaluation Of Its Applicability

The corporate world has an immense impact on the environment and plays animportant role in the holistic context of sustainable development. This is one of the focalmotives for the development of the concept, eco-efficiency. Eco-efficiency was developedby the world business council for sustainable development (WBCSD) in the beginning ofthe1990’s as a model for managing the work of corporate organisations in a manner,consistent with sustainable development. Eco-efficiency is defined as a business conceptthat creates an increased value to a product or service with less environmental impact. Theresearch on eco-efficiency is a hot issue now, but there is no standard methodology tomeasuring it.A methodology developed by Professor Steen in Sweden was used in this paper,which is, the product eco-efficiencies of two cases were calculated by a LCC/LCA Ratio.An Evaluation of its Applicability was taken based on the two case studies.In this study,life cycle assessment and life cycle cost methodologies were applied. And two case studiestook by professor Steen and GUY SKANTZE were referred to. A specialized softwareGaBi developed by Germany PE Company was used as the technical support.In case1, the eco-efficiencies of two treatment systems of paper-making wastewaterin a Paper-making Company in Suzhou were calculated by a LCC/LCA Ratio. Thedifference between the two systems is that ultrafiltration apparatus was installed in the newwastewater treatment system. The results showed that the eco-efficiencies of the twoprocesses are90.18%and92.47%respectively.Therefore, the ultrafiltration apparatus canreduce environmental impact and decrease environmental impact during the Wastewatertreatment process.In case2, the product eco-efficiencies of the two zinc plating process systems werecalculated by a LCC/LCA Ratio. Those processes were electroplating process and hot dipgalvanization process in a company in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. The results showedthat the eco-efficiencies of the two processes are78.19%and82.08%respectively.Therefore, it would be better if the former one would be replaced by the later onegradually.The measuring method of eco-efficiency discussed in this paper is a new attempt tofind out and prove a useful methodology for estimating the environmental influence ofdifferent technologies and different products and service and even for different businesses. The concept of life-cycle were considered in the methodology. It turned out to be feasibleand practical through out the two case studies.