Webinars
SEF Webinar: Resilience and Sustainable Development
Presented by Dr. Joseph Fiksel
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
2:00 - 3:00pm ET
Traditional modeling approaches are ill suited to a world of increasing connectivity, complexity, and turbulent change. Integrated assessment of dynamic, complex systems is challenging because hidden interactions can produce surprising side effects. A key factor is resilience, the capacity of a system to survive, adapt and grow in a continuously changing environment. Indeed, resilience is a prerequisite for sustainability.
Living systems such as communities or ecosystems perpetually evolve through cycles of growth, crisis, and renewal. They respond resiliently to emerging threats or opportunities using a variety of flexible strategies. The concept of resilience is equally applicable to industrial enterprises, and encompasses a range of issues from short-term risk management and supply chain continuity to long-term economic sustainability.
The Center for Resilience was established in 2005 with the mission of strengthening the resilience of global industrial systems and the environments in which they operate. Through sponsored research, the Center has developed a number of advanced modeling tools for assessment of sustainability and resilience in enterprise systems.
This webinar discusses the challenges of sustainable development, and gives examples of current research on life cycle assessment, industrial ecology, and supply chain resilience.
SEF Webinar: Accounting for Ecosystem Services in Strategic Business Decision Making
Presented by Dr. Bhavik R. Bakshi
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Sustenance of all activities on earth is impossible without the availability of various ecological goods and services. These include goods such as fresh water, minerals and fertile soil, and services such as climate and pest regulation, pollination, and biogeochemical cycles. Recent studies have confirmed the degradation of many ecosystem services and the urgent need for considering their role in engineering decision making. The importance of understanding the role of ecosystems has also been recognized by various organizations including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. However, most existing methods that aim to enhance the sustainability of industrial activities, including life cycle assessment and industrial symbiosis, ignore the role of ecosystems.
This webinar illustrates the role of ecosystem services in providing direct and indirect support to various industrial activities. It identifies the challenges in accounting for the role of ecosystem services, and describes approaches based on physical accounting of technological-ecological networks. A software tool for Ecologically-Based Life Cycle Assessment (Eco-LCA) is introduced and applied to compare products such as fossil and biomass based fuels. Application of the Eco-LCA framework for evaluating the vulnerability of industrial activities to the loss of specific ecosystem services is also demonstrated. Traditional engineering design methods are extended to design networks of technological and ecological systems that account for the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems and can be self-reliant. Case studies focus on such techno-ecological synergy networks of some common industrial products.
SEF Webinar: Sustainable Development in the Process Industries: Cases and Impact -- An Overview of Real-World Examples
Presented by Joseph B. Powell, Ph.D
Originally Delivered June 1, 2011
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
This webinar presents highlights and insights from the recently published book Sustainable Development in the Process Industries: Cases and Impact (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), which describes case studies and real world examples of application of the principles of sustainability in the development and implementation of commercial projects. The overview includes sustainability metrics, byproduct synergy and industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency, regional integration, cleaner production, sustainable process integration, bio-based fuels and chemicals, bioleaching, as well as a historical review of the chemical industry and its role in responding to societal needs. The presentation weaves these themes together into a high level perspective on how sustainability principles have, and are being translated into, action.
SEF Webinar: Embedding Sustainability in GlaxoSmithKline's Operations
Presented by Concepción "Conchita" Jiménez-González
Originally Delivered May 11, 2011
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
For the past several years the GlaxoSmithKline’s Operational Sustainability Team has actively worked to embed sustainability principles into GSK by creating tools for scientists and engineers to select and design greener, safer, more efficient chemicals and processes; and has established fruitful collaborations with academics and Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industry to improve the sustainability profile of the industry. This presentation covers the approach to develop tools to embed Sustainability into the New Product Design process. It highlights several tools included in the Eco-Design toolkit, which was developed using state-of-the-art scientific advancements and standards in Green Chemistry, Green Technology and Life Cycle Assessment.
This presentation covers an overview of the Materials Guides with information and EHS ranking on a wide range of solvents and bases and the life cycle impacts associated with solvent manufacture; FLASC *TM*(Fast Lifecycle Assessment for Synthetic Chemistry), a module that allows bench chemists to perform a streamlined life cycle evaluation of the environmental impacts of processes and measure green metrics such as mass efficiency; Green Packing Guide that provides a packing environmental assessment tool with guidance that is used to evaluate and select packing; and Chemicals Legislation Guide that identifies legislation in various parts of the world to highlight those chemicals that are likely to be phased out because of their inherent hazards (chemicals of concern).
SEF Webinar: Credentials for Sustainability Professionals
Presented by Deborah L. Grubbe, PE, CEng
Originally delivered on December 8, 2010
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM ET
In order to effect more positive and faster advancements in the sustainability arena, the speaker suggests that the sustainability community must address two fundamental components. First, the community must define what is meant by the term "Sustainability Practice," and secondly, it must define how to become a credentialed "Sustainability Expert." Like medicine, engineering and other professions, one must have an agreed upon body of knowledge and a set of competent practitioners. Ms. Grubbe will review the progress to date and the future plans around establishing a credential around the practice of Sustainability.you
2008 SEF Virtual Meetings
Topic 1: “Impacts of Freshwater Pollutants on the Chesapeake Bay”
Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time)
Speaker: Frederick Tutman
Log on procedure: To access the meeting itself, please browse to http://aiche2.webex.com a few minutes before 2 pm on February 19, 2008. Click on the webinar name, fill in your name and email address and finally click 'Join Now'. After a few moments, you will be brought in to the WebEx viewer where you will be presented with a pop-up window that gives call-in details (phone number, meeting number and attendee ID). This virtual meeting is sponsored by the AIChE Institute for Sustainability and ASME.
Background information: What is happening in the Patuxent is an excellent indicator of Fresh water impacts on the Chesapeake Bay. This overview will define the issues with the Bay, and address the long term viability and sustainability of the water system. Fred Tutman a full time environmental advocate who serves as the Patuxent Riverkeeper, and works to conserve, protect and replenish Maryland’s longest and deepest intrastate waterway. The Riverkeeper is involved in strategic advocacy, restoration, and education to achieve long term sustainability for the ecosystem of the entire Patuxent River Basin and the people who rely on its future.
Topic 2: “Livestocks' Long Shadow”
Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008
Time: 10:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time)
Speaker: To Be Announced