Developing tangible measures for eco-efficiency: the case of the Finnish and Swedish pulp and paper industry
✍ Scribed by Riina-Riitta Helminen
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 156 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0964-4733
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✦ Synopsis
In this article, eco-efficiency -'sustainable development at the company level' or 'value added per environmental impact' -is operationalized at the production unit level. An eco-efficiency index is developed and tested with 31 Finnish and 37 Swedish pulp, paper and board mills in 1993-1996. In essence, gross value added without a change in inventories is divided by environmental impact aggregated with seven valuation methods.
The definition of eco-efficiency as sustainable development at the company level appears to be problematic.
[Eco] 2 -efficiency does not include the third, ethical dimension sustainable development, but only ecology and economy. Value added is a limited indicator of economic performance and very sensitive to changes in market prices, while environmental impact changes with valuation assumptions.
The Swedish mills were generally more eco-efficient, while the Finnish mills were more eco-efficient in integrated woodfree paper, solid bleached sulphate board and liquid packaging board.