Sustainable development was presented by the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 as an approach to reconcile global economic development with environmental protection and social equity. Since its inception, various private organizations have incorporated sustainable development into ongoing operations with the goal of continuous improvement. The chemical industry has also considered near-term and long-term steps toward sustainability through various steps such as education, energy efficiency, use of renewable feedstocks and energy, green chemistry, life cycle assessments (LCA) and others. Process intensification represents an important enabler of sustainability by its potential to address several of these steps to sustainability of the chemical industry.
In this 60-minute webinar Dr. David Shonnard provides a background on sustainable development and global programs to address the most human pressing needs and a review of the chemical industry perspectives on sustainable development. Additionally, he presents tools to assess sustainability such as LCA and gives examples of how process intensification can help achieve sustainable development in the chemical industry through examples and case studies.
Webinar content is available with the kind permission of the author(s) solely for the purpose of furthering AIChE’s mission to educate, inform and improve the practice of professional chemical engineering. All other uses are forbidden without the express consent of the author(s). For permission to re-use, please contact chemepermissions@aiche.org.
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