Ecosystem Environmental Assessment

Eco-friendly Products are referred to as the goods and services that people consume and or create, which inflict minimal or no harm to the environment. To make consumers more responsive, these kinds of produce are often marked with eco-labels. Eco-label is a labeling system for consumer-related goods, excluding food and medicine-food has a different form of eco-labeling-that are made in a manner that avoids damaging the environment. The labeling of eco-friendly products has been instituted in a number of developed states to aid in the protection of the ecosystem. However, for the reason that there is no single international standard for this concept, the International Organization for Standardization regards such labels too imprecise to be significant. Thus, eco-labeling is voluntary, and not enforced by law. An example of a labeling that is obligatory is the Green Sticker, mandated by law in North America where they are tagged on major pieces of equipment and automobiles.

For research and development of new products and technology, a simple way to assessing eco-friendly products is implemented through the planning stage, the manufacturing stage, and the production stage. There is a method called Life-Cycle Assessment which is used to quantitatively calculate the ecological effects of a product through all the phases it undergoes, including material procurement, construction, circulation, use, and disposal.

The first step to assessing and achieving eco-friendly products is to have a standard Life-Cycle Assessment program. Identifying and creating a desired concept to fit in to a product before starting with its research, blueprint, and or development is a good way to go. To correctly set objectives, pick out existing products which can be compared with the new product specifications, execute the standard method of assessment needed, and utilize the outcome. When the product specifications are clear, estimate the consumption of energy and perform the assessment standards to see whether the target will be attained. In producing a product massively, perform the Life-Cycle Assessment based on real measurement statistics such as yield and energy utilization, and evaluate the ecological responsiveness of the product. Read the full story

To begin with, let us understand what Ecology means. The scientific study of environment and its organisms with respect to their abundance, habitat, interaction, climate and distribution belongs to a branch of biology known as ecology. Ecology is now used in a more general sense, coined to mean environment-friendly. When we talk of Industrial ecology, we hint at the effects of industrialization on the environment.

The physical, chemical and biological interactions and relations between the industrial processes and ecosystems are studied in detail and this study is termed as Industrial Ecology. Basically, the study revolves around the flow of materials from industrial processes into the nature. The objective of Industrial ecology is to reduce the negative impact of industrial process on nature, thereby clearing off the threat posed to the environment, mainly in the form of Global Warming.

Of the various strategies being adopted to bring this objective into effect, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method is one of them. The life cycle analysis of a product is done right from its inception to its disposal to assess the extent of damage caused by the product on the environment. The LCA method analyses the Inventory, Impact and Improvement processes.

Detailed studies of the industry as well as the natures’ systems aid in working out a plan to reduce the impacts of industrial processes, also bringing about a reduction in costs. The resources and their amounts are analyzed so to as to assess the waste discarded in the environment. This enables to understand the impacts of industrial methods on the environment. The levels of the impacts are measured and methods are designed for improvement.

Once the nature of ecological systems is analyzed and understood, the industries then need to work out a strategy to minimize the impact on the environment. The industrial ecology pattern carries out a detailed study of the relationships existing within nature and then decides on methods for improvement by adapting to the same system. One simple method is to use the waste products of one industry as the raw materials for the other. Reduction in wastage leads to lesser pollution levels. Use of solar energy for running industrial plants also reduces harmful emissions in the air and contributes to lesser pollution. Read the full story

We hear a lot about a person’s carbon footprint, and with the celebration of Earth Day in vogue, maybe we should take a look at what we mean by our carbon footprint.

A carbon footprint is defined as all the greenhouse gas emissions caused by any organization or person, as well as events and products consumed by those two entities. Greenhouse gases can be produced through many avenues, not just fuel emission from transportation, but also any activity that requires fuel. This includes consumption of food and daily living. I addition, as living beings we produce and exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide each minute while consuming even greater quantities of oxygen. It’s interesting to note that microbiology classifies humans as chemo synthetic heterotrophs (or at least that’s what I was told back in microbiology class), i.e. we require organic compounds of carbon and nitrogen for nourishment while creating other chemicals as byproducts. It should be noted that carbon dioxide isn’t the only greenhouse gas measured. There are others – methane and nitrous oxide being only two.

While many people may know about the subject of Carbon Footprint, fewer know it’s a subset of two larger subjects: Ecological Footprint and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA). An ecological footprint is our demand on the earth’s eco-system in total, and LCA is an assessment of a person or product’s impact on the environment from its beginning to end. It’s interesting to note that the gurus examining ecological footprints have determined that, at present, we require more than one earth to offset the effects of living on this planet. This means we’re living in the red, and the LCA people look at the effects our existence has on the different stages of products including: raw material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, maintenance and finally disposal (or recycling).

While most people think of a carbon footprint as the effect fossil fuels have on the environment, few people take the time to consider what effect one’s mere existence has on that same environment, specifically the atmosphere. Years ago, after doing a search on the Internet, it came up that the biggest contributor of methane to the atmosphere were cows. Can you believe it? Cows! CO2 is another by-product of existence. Now, I’m not suggesting we stop exhaling, but just for posterity let’s take a look at just how much CO2 is exhaled by humans every day. On average, each person exhales approximately 200 ml of CO2 each minute. That’s 12 liters each hour and 288 liters of CO2 each day. Multiply that times the 6.9 billion people on this planet and you have just under 2 trillion liters of CO2 exhaled into the atmosphere each day by humans, and that’s just humans. That doesn’t take into account all the other species. Read the full story