Sustainable Manufacturing: Metrics, 

Standards, and Infrastructure - 

NIST Workshop Report

Edited by

Sudarsan Rachuri

Ram D. Sriram

Anantha Narayanan

Prabir Sarkar

Jae Hyun Lee

Kevin W. Lyons

Sharon J. Kemmerer

NISTIR 7683
NISTIR 7683

Sustainable Manufacturing: Metrics, 

Standards, and Infrastructure - 

NIST Workshop Report

Edited by

Sudarsan Rachuri

Ram D. Sriram

Anantha Narayanan

Prabir Sarkar

Jae Hyun Lee

Kevin W. Lyons

Sharon J. Kemmerer

Manufacturing Systems Integration Division

Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory

April 2010

U.S. Department of Commerce

Gary Locke, Secretary

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Patrick D. Gallagher, Director
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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................6

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................10

1.1 Background........................................................................................................................ 10

1.2 Overview of the workshop.................................................................................................. 11

1.3 Inaugural Session ............................................................................................................... 13

2. Keynote Presentations................................................................................................................. 14

3. Government Initiatives................................................................................................................ 17

4. Industry Perspectives .................................................................................................................. 19

5. University Research .................................................................................................................... 25

6. NGO Research............................................................................................................................29

7. Software Solutions...................................................................................................................... 33

8. Breakout Sessions....................................................................................................................... 34

9. Summary ....................................................................................................................................44

Appendix A. Panel on Industrial Perspective on Sustainable Manufacturing and Standards...47

Appendix B. Workshop Analysis by Vijay Srinivasan, NIST.................................................52

Appendix C. AGENDA.........................................................................................................55

Appendix D. LIST OF ACRONYMS ....................................................................................59

List of Figures

Figure 1: Sustainable Manufacturing - A closed loop view ........................................................12

Figure 2: Recommendation Template ........................................................................................36
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Sustainable Manufacturing: Metrics, Standards, and Infrastructure - NIST Workshop 

Report

Abstract

This report summarizes the presentations, discussions, and recommendations of the NIST 

Workshop “Sustainable Manufacturing: Metrics, Standards, and Infrastructure” held at NIST,

Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, October 13th through October 15th, 2009. The primary objective 

of this workshop was to bring together experts and various stakeholders to identify and discuss 

measurement and standards enablers that positively affect the social, economic, environmental, 

and technological aspects of designing sustainable production processes and products. The 

workshop was well attended and consisted of thirty presentations organized under five sessions: 

1) Government Initiatives; 2) Industry Perspectives; 3) University Research; 4) Non-Government 

Organizations (NGOs) research; and 5) Solution Provider’s Views. Two breakout sessions and an 

industry panel provided a set of recommendations for addressing critical issues in sustainable 

manufacturing. 

Keywords: Sustainable Manufacturing, Environmental impact, Life Cycle Assessment, Product

Life Cycle, RoHS, REACH, ISO, Standards, NIST workshop
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Workshop Organization

Steering Committee:

Sudarsan Rachuri

Ram D Sriram

Vijay Srinivasan

Technical Committee:

Prabir Sarkar

Jae Hyun Lee

Anantha Narayanan

Kevin Lyons
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Executive Summary

Background: Next generation product design and manufacturing will be strongly influenced by 

life cycle environmental impacts and resource depletion. Hence, sustainable manufacturing1

practices will play an important role in “meeting the needs of the present without compromising 

the ability of future generations to meet their own needs2

The five technical sessions consisted of thirty presentations, organized into five sessions: 1) 

.” Sustainable manufacturing is causing 

companies to implement new design and analysis procedures, energy reduction methods, 

material reduction efforts, and improved materials handling practices. Thus, minimizing 

environmental impact has become a critical manufacturing industry requirement throughout the 

product life cycle. To foster sustainable practices, there needs to be a measurement methodology

to assign the energy and environmental cost at each stage in that life cycle. Information must be 

available at the early design stage about the ultimate costs of each design decision for a new 

product, and the decisions themselves must be available at the end of product life to ascertain

how to properly dispose of or reclaim the components. 

Objective: The primary objective of this workshop was to bring together experts and various 

stakeholders to identify and discuss measurement and standards’ enablers that positively affect 

the social, economic, environmental, and technological aspects of designing sustainable 

production processes, products, and services.

Presentation Summaries: The workshop consisted of three keynote presentations, five technical 

sessions, two breakout discussions, and an industrial panel discussion that addressed important 

issues necessary for the production of sustainable systems. The keynote speakers included Mary 

Saunders, Assistant Secretary Manufacturing and Services, International Trade Administration 

(ITA), Department of Commerce; Mark Cohen, Vice President for Research at Resources for the 

Future; and Bob Bechtold, CEO of HARBEC Plastics Inc.. Mary Saunders described recent 

developments in the Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative of the Manufacturing and Services 

(MAS), while Mark Cohen gave an overview on sustainability reporting and the Global 

Reporting Initiative (GRI). Bob Bechtold presented a case study of small and medium-sized 

enterprises (SMEs) and lessons learned from implementing sustainability practices.

 1 Sustainable manufacturing is a systems approach for the creation and distribution (supply chain) of innovative 

products and services, that: minimizes resources (inputs such as materials, energy, water, and land); eliminates 

toxic substances; and produces zero waste that in effect reduces green house gases, e.g., carbon intensity, across 

the entire life cycle of products and services. 2 Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Oxford University 

Press, 1987.
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Government Initiatives; 2) Industry Perspectives; 3) University Research; 4) Non-Government 

Organizations (NGOs) Research; and 5) Solution Providers Views. Sustainable manufacturing 

initiatives at the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), were 

presented in the Government Initiatives session. The Industry Perspectives session involved 

participation from industry leaders, focusing on the costs, benefits, and challenges in 

incorporating sustainability in the industry. The session had presentations from various industries, 

including Ford, GM, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Automation, P&G, Xerox, URS,

and Masco Retail Cabinet Group. The University Research session provided workshop 

participants an opportunity to discuss academic research issues in sustainable manufacturing. 

This session included presentations from Rochester Institute of Technology, Purdue University, 

University of Kentucky, Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Portland State 

University, and Texas Tech University. The Non-Government Organizations (NGO) Research

session involved participation from various NGOs, Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), 

and industry consortia, focusing on various standards development efforts, harmonization of 

standards, and sustainability reporting mechanisms and standards. The American National 

Standards Institute (ANSI), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), World 

Resource Institute (WRI), National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), National 

Council For Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM), and Cadmus Group gave presentations in 

this session. The Solutions Providers session predominantly focused on the need for tool support 

for sustainable manufacturing, currently available tool support, and the standards compliance of 

the applications presented. Companies are becoming increasingly interested in adhering to 

standards such as RoHS, REACH, and WEEE to compete globally. Major software solution 

providers, such as Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), Digital Enterprise Lean 

Manufacturing Interactive Application (DELMIA), Siemens PLM Solutions, Siemens R&D, 

presented their suite of software tools and their current capabilities and future extensions. 

Breakout Sessions: The breakout sessions consisted of two groups: 1) Critical factors driving 

sustainable manufacturing, and 2) Decision support systems for sustainable manufacturing. 

Group 1 focused on the following themes: business case for sustainability, promoting ecoinnovation, standards and metrics, tool support, promoting reduced energy consumption, and 

positioning of standards, while the focus of Group 2 was on: standards harmonization, science of 

sustainability, greening the supply chain, data availability, and needs.

Challenges: The following major challenges faced by the manufacturing industry in its pursuit 

of sustainability goals were identified as a result of the workshop:
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1. Industry is unable to measure economic, social, and environmental impacts and costs of 

their products accurately during the entire life cycle and across their supply chain. The 

main reasons for this are the lack of data traceable to a neutral organization. Even if the 

data is available, industry is finding it difficult to aggregate and disaggregate data to 

compute sustainability metrics.

2. Full life cycle analysis or assessment (LCA) of products requires new methods to analyze, 

integrate, and aggregate information across hierarchical levels, organizational entities, 

and supply chain participants. Existing methods of aggregation do not take into account 

sustainability issues.

3. Industry lacks neutral and trusted standards and programs to demonstrate, deploy, and 

accredit new sustainable manufacturing practices, guidelines and methods. Information 

standards are necessary to enable interoperability collectively among engineering tools, 

business enterprise tools and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools. Focus on sustainability 

in the SDOs is relatively new terrain.

4. There are too many metrics; they need consolidation and harmonization. In addition, they 

need to be ‘monetized’ as appropriate. There is no single authority on evaluating or 

choosing from existing metrics, nor has there been an assessment of existing metrics to 

ensure the entire life cycle evaluation is addressed.

5. Regulations need to be supported by industry standards (e.g., RoHS and IPC-1752). 

These regulations/standards should be harmonized. Existing regulations were developed 

independent of ensuring industry standards were in place to support such regulations.

Action items: Key recommendations to address the above challenges are given below, in no 

particular order. Many of the opportunities can be addressed in the short term, and others the 

longer term if follow-on activities to the workshop are formalized and available resources are 

identified.

Metrics (or indicators): 

• Pursue a multi-level approach for metrics, with aggregated metrics at the highest level

• Consolidate and harmonize the diverse set of existing metrics, and identify the gaps 

where metrics are yet to exist. 

• Monetize metrics.

Standards: 

• Support regulations with industry standards (e.g., RoHS and IPC-1752).

• Develop a strategy for the harmonization of those standards and directives for 

sustainability that currently exist. 
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• Create brand values of sustainability standards for eco-labeling and maintain the brand 

values. Similar to ISO 9000 certification branding, manufacturers may use branding to 

get a market edge.

Infrastructure: 

• Create a software infrastructure for gathering, analyzing, exchanging, and aggregating 

information for sustainability, including support for global data repositories.

• Develop a simple and transparent methodology for life cycle assessment

• Develop a science of sustainability, including open source models that are generic, 

extensible, verifiable, and easy to build and share. 

Best Practices: 

• Create a new business model for companies to apply voluntarily the methodology 

developed for LCA, which maximizes profits while minimizing costs.

• Develop best practices for eco-innovation, i.e., design of products and processes that are 

sustainable or contribute to sustainable development.

• Create eco-labeling for manufacturing processes and machines.

• Develop sustainability reporting standards for suppliers, and provide education and 

training to suppliers in simple terms, stressing the importance of compliance.

• Develop traceable life cycle inventory data to enable life cycle analysis of products, 

processes, and services and to enable verification and validation of life cycle impact 

measurements, and benchmarking.
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1. Introduction

We are witnessing an increased interest in ensuring that future generations have adequate 

resources to maintain a high standard of living. The World Commission on Environment and 

Development defines sustainable development as, “development that meets the needs of the 

present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs.”3

According to the US National Research Council, it is “the level of human consumption and 

activity, which can continue into the foreseeable future, so that the system that provides goods 

and services to the humans persists indefinitely.”4 Others have argued that any definition of 

sustainability should include dynamic efficiency throughout the life cycle of a product, process,

and service; should consist of total welfare (accounting for intergenerational equity), and should 

represent consumption of market and non-market goods and services. It is important to 

understand that sustainability is a global issue. There are other definitions of sustainability, but 

we generally agree with the following observation by Daniel Sitarz5

1.1 Background

: “In the final analysis 

however, agreeing on a formal definition of the term is not as important as coming to agreement 

on a vision of a sustainable world.”

From the general notion of sustainability, an idea that is gaining traction in industry is the notion 

of a “sustainability index” for products, process, and services. It is clear that the world is moving 

forward aggressively to achieve sustainable design and manufacturing with life cycle

considerations. Design engineers of successful enterprises are confronted with the challenges of 

designing sustainable products, processes, and services. Achieving sustainability is no more an 

option during product development; it has become a part of the design requirement.

To achieve sustainability, products, processes, and services should meet the challenges not only 

related to their functions and performance but also to environment, economy, and social issues. 

Currently, researchers from different perspectives using various approaches are addressing these 

challenges. Companies interested in developing products with sustainability characteristics 

should be sensitive to sustainability related standards, design, and manufacturing techniques and 

tools used for assessing sustainability.

 3 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, http://www.undocuments.net/wced-ocf.htm 4 Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability, National Academy of Sciences, 

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9690 5 Sustainable America, America's environment, economy, and society in the 21st Century, Published in 1998, Earth 

Press.
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Ensuring a sustainable future requires an integrated system of systems approach. Interlinked 

pathways of interaction at various levels characterize such systems. These levels span technical, 

economic, ecological, and societal issues. The interactions within and across these levels are 

critical to the fundamental understanding of sustainable design and manufacturing, because 

tackling any one of the issues in isolation could result in unintended consequences.

The systems approach of sustainability requires life cycle thinking. The life cycle of a product 

starts with raw material extraction and processing, continues with the pre-design and fabrication 

of the relevant semi-finished products, includes manufacturing and assembly of the final product 

as well as its transportation, use and maintenance, and concludes with the end-of-life operations. 

This last stage includes recycling of materials and, after adequate treatment, final disposal of 

waste. This cycle is repeated as shown in Figure 1. The figure shows two cycles. The first cycle 

depicts the extraction of material from the Earth and putting waste back into the Earth. We would 

like to minimize this cycle and in particular, achieve zero landfill. The second cycle includes predesign, production, use, and post-use stages of the product life cycle. The systems approach to 

sustainable manufacturing will enable the optimization of this second cycle. The thick green 

arrows represent material and information flow between these stages. The reverse arrow from 

use stage to production stage denotes the field data from product use into the design and 

manufacturing to improve the design. 

1.2 Overview of the workshop

The primary objective of this workshop was to bring together experts and various stakeholders to 

identify and discuss measurement and standards enablers that positively influence the social, 

economic, environmental, and technological aspects of designing sustainable production 

processes and products. 

The workshop consisted of technical sessions (which included three keynotes), breakout 

discussions, and industrial showcases that addressed important issues necessary for the 

production of sustainable systems.

The topics for the technical sessions included (subtopics are given as examples):

1. Develop General Notion of sustainable manufacturing 

• Including indicators, indices, metrics for sustainability, Sustainable Manufacturing 

Maturity Model, macro level and micro level sustainability, the notion of triple bottom line, 

corporate social responsibility.
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Figure 1: Sustainable Manufacturing - A closed loop view

2. Design of sustainable products, services, and manufacturing systems 

• Integrating environmental aspects into product design and development, design for process 

and product sustainability, product life cycle management and life cycle analysis, material 

science, advanced manufacturing technologies, nano-manufacturing, energy efficiency, 

conservation for production and use of products, reduce, reuse, and recycling, information 

infrastructure including advanced models and semantics for product and process, and 

manufacturing simulation.

3. Establish standards and industry best practices for sustainable systems 

• To include standards landscape for product, process representation, national and 

international standards and regulations for sustainability (e.g. ISO 14000, RoHS, REACH, 

and WEEE)

6

 

6 Acronyms are spelled out in the context of this document, and a reference list of those used can be found in 

Appendix D.

, risk analysis of policy instruments (cap and trade), regulations, and cost of 

compliance.
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4. Develop next generation information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable 

manufacturing 

• ICT for design, manufacturing and supply chain optimization for sustainable 

manufacturing

• Large scale data modeling and semantic technologies for sustainable manufacturing

• Tools, standards, and industry best practices for sustainable systems

• Interoperability among PLM (Product Life cycle Management) and LCA tools to 

support energy and material monitoring and saving

1.3 Inaugural Session

Dr. Howard Harary, Acting Director, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL), chaired the 

inaugural session, where he stressed the importance of sustainable manufacturing and the role of 

metrics and standards. He also gave a brief overview of some of the research and standard 

activities of MEL, in particular in the area of sustainable manufacturing. Dr. Howard Harary 

requested the participants to focus their attention on business perspectives of sustainable 

manufacturing, regulations and their local and global impacts, various academic initiatives; and 

encouraged the participants to explore and leverage various government initiatives on sustainable 

manufacturing. Dr. Patrick Gallagher, Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST), in his inaugural address underscored NIST’s commitment to realizing the Department of 

Commerce’s high-priority performance goal in sustainable manufacturing. He emphasized that 

the goal of NIST is to help U.S. industry to be the leader in the development and manufacture of 

innovative, sustainable products and related services. Dr. Patrick Gallagher also gave a brief 

overview of several ongoing sustainability programs at NIST, which address other sustainability 

issues such as energy efficient buildings, waste reduction in the semiconductor industry, 

measurement techniques for accurately determining greenhouse gas content, and innovative 

materials research. Vijay Srinivasan, Chief, Manufacturing System Integration Division (MSID), 

outlined how business and research communities are viewing sustainability in general and in 

particular sustainable manufacturing. Synthesizing various surveys and studies, he underscored 

the level of commitments shown by senior level business executives in implementing 

sustainability programs in their enterprises. Vijay drew a parallel between sustainability efforts 

with the quality movement, as noted in this quote, “We are in the sustainability movement where 

we were with the total quality management (TQM) nearly 30 years ago. It will be a long, but 

useful journey.” Appendix B contains a more detailed analysis of the workshop and its outcomes

by Dr. Vijay Srinivasan. Dr. Sudarsan Rachuri gave an overview of the workshop, its goal, and 
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the agenda. The rest of this report provides summaries of the keynote presentations, technical

session presentations, and breakout groups’ action items.

2. Keynote Presentations

There were three keynote presentations, one each from industry, government, and nongovernment organizations. 

Industry Keynote Presentation: Mr. Bob Bechtold, CEO of HARBEC Plastics, Inc., presented 

a case study of how SMEs are implementing sustainability practices. His company, which makes 

high quality injection-molded parts, has made a considerable commitment to being green. Bob 

mentioned how his company disproved a common misconception “Being Green is nice but we 

can’t afford it” through eco-economic factors implemented at HARBEC. He discussed the 

current progress and implemented systems, equipment, sustainable building elements, renewable

energy, manufacturing equipment choices, lighting system upgrade, vehicle fleet management, 

water management alternatives, and practices at HARBEC, namely, CHP (Combined Heat and 

Power). He pointed to the gains realized since July 9, 2001. For example, in the CHP project, the 

microturbines are capable of generating 100 % of HARBEC power requirements and have 

provided air conditioning and heat for an injection molding facility, while grid connection is 

maintained for back up. Apart from these results, he also mentioned the secondary results such as

air-conditioning provided by an absorption chiller, which turns exhaust gas waste heat into free 

air conditioning. 

In the area of renewable energy, HARBEC installed a 250 kW wind generator to accomplish 

wind/microturbine hybrid electricity generation. Bechtold mentioned that the projected energy 

production is 300,000 to 350,000 kWH per year, or about 20 % of the total HARBEC annual 

energy requirements.

HARBEC, over a seven-year time span, replaced all standard hydraulic type equipment with allelectric injection molding machines. The advantage of electric machines is that these machines 

do not use power when they are in a static state, which is a significant portion of the time; the 

machines are capable of doing the same or a better job than the hydraulic machines, using as 

much as 50 % less energy. Bechtold showed the results they got by improving the lighting 

systems. They replaced every fixture, ballast, and high bay sodium lamps with new T-8 type 

fluorescent bulbs and reflectors. These sustainable manufacturing practices allowed HARBEC to 

ensure that the lighting energy consumed was reduced by 48 % on average company-wide. He
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emphasized the overall lesson learned: “If you want to make an environmental impact, and save 

money, use energy efficiently.” HARBEC is a big proponent of LEED, although not LEED 

(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, HARBEC implemented LEED 

principles wherever it could.

HARBEC has significantly improved their water treatment system by installing a bi-metallic 

water treatment plant, which does not require any chemicals for water treatment. This enabled 

them to save thousands of dollars per year on chemicals, and eliminated the need for people to 

handle them. This new water treatment plant provided 3 217 600 liters (850,000 gallons) of fresh 

water input to their pond, which in turn provides water capacity sufficient for their sprinkler 

system, and also provides cooling. Bob Bechtold concluded his talk with the following statement,

“Sustainability can be a cost effective opportunity for business today which insures a viable and 

comparable world to live in for future generations.”

Government Keynote Presentation: Ms. Mary Saunders, Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing 

and Services, International Trade Administration (ITA), Department of Commerce, described the 

recent developments in the Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative (SMI) of the Manufacturing and 

Services (MAS) division. SMI is looking for new areas where MAS can strengthen U.S. 

industry’s global competitiveness. The main goal of SMI is to identify critical sustainability 

needs and challenges faced by the US industry and coordinate public and private sector efforts to 

address those challenges. As a first step, the MAS division held an industry stakeholders’ event 

in 2007 to identify the critical sustainability needs and challenges faced by the U.S. industry and 

what role DOC should play in the area of sustainable manufacturing. This initiative is broadly 

supported by other federal agencies like EPA, DOE, CEQ, and NIST. Saunders also discussed

some of the projects undertaken under SMI, namely,

• Creation of an Interagency Working Group on Sustainable Manufacturing 

This working group includes Department of Commerce (DOC), Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA), National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), Department of 

Energy (DOE), Department of Labor (DOL), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 

Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Department of the Treasury, Department of State, 

Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Defense (DOD),Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB),Department of Education, Small Business Administration (SBA), and 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

• Clearinghouse of Government Programs/Resources

This will be a central portal of U.S. government programs and 

resources: www.manufacturing.gov/sustainability
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• Sustainable Manufacturing American Regional Tours - “SMARTs”

The main goal is to increase awareness of the benefits of sustainable manufacturing and other 

business practices for U.S. industries. Commerce's SMART effort involves Assistant 

Secretary-led, regional manufacturing facility tours across the U.S., aimed at enhancing 

awareness of the benefits of sustainable manufacturing practices.

• Metrics for Sustainable Manufacturing

The United States, working with other countries through the Organization for Economic 

Cooperation and Development (OECD), has begun an effort to address critical information 

gaps in sustainable manufacturing. The OECD’s project on “Sustainable Manufacturing and 

Eco-Innovation” aims to accelerate sustainable manufacturing by transferring knowledge and 

providing industry with a means to benchmark their products and production processes. The 

first phase of the OECD project was concluded in April 2009. Short and long summaries of 

the project report are now available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/27/42944011.pdf.

NGO Keynote Presentation: Mark Cohen, Resources for the Future, Vice President for 

Research, gave an overview on sustainability reporting and the Global Reporting Initiative 

(GRI). The vision of GRI is “to ensure that the reporting on sustainability performance becomes 

as mainstream and as transparent as reporting on financial performance.” The framework is 

applicable to organizations of any size, type or location, and has been used already by hundreds 

of organizations around the world as the basis of their sustainability reporting.

The Reporting Framework 7 provides guidance on how organizations can disclose their 

sustainability performance. The Guidelines (“G3”) are the foundation of the framework. The G3 

are the “Third Generation” of the GRI’s 8

• Principles to define report content: materiality, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability 

context, and completeness

Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. They were 

launched in October 2006 at a large international conference that attracted thousands. As of 

January 2009, more than 1,500 organizations from 60 countries use the Guidelines to produce 

their sustainability reports.

The GRI framework consists of two parts:

Part 1 – Reporting Principles and Guidance

 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative 8 The GRI was formed by the United States based non-profits Ceres (formerly the Coalition for Environmentally 

Responsible Economies) and Tellus Institute, with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme 

(UNEP) in 1997.
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• Principles to define report quality: balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, reliability, 

and clarity

• Guidance on how to set the report boundary

Part 2 – Standard Disclosures9

• Strategy and Profile

o Disclosures that set the overall context for understanding organizational 

performance such as its strategy, profile, and governance

• Management Approach 

o Disclosures that cover how an organization addresses a given set of topics in order 

to provide context for understanding performance in a specific area

• Performance Indicators

o Indicators that elicit comparable information on the economic, environmental, and 

social performance of the organization

The complete details are available at GRI’s website www.globalreporting.org. 

3. Government Initiatives

The objective of this session was to get an overview of the sustainable manufacturing initiatives 

taken by the government, with some insights into ongoing work at various government 

organizations. Following Ms. Saunders keynote address, the other presenters in this session were 

George Hazelrigg from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Gordon Gillerman from the 

Standards Services Division (SSD), Ram Sriram from the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) and Kevin Watson from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA).

Before beginning his presentation (Thoughts on Manufacturing for Sustainability), Hazelrigg, 

NSF, pointed out that NSF seeks to fund fundamental research in education, but sustainability 

has not been specifically identified as a funding area within NSF. At the current consumption and 

population growth rates, George estimates that our energy reserves (fossil, nuclear, and solar) 

will last another 1000 years. On the other hand, we will soon run out of air, water, food, and 

space. Manufacturing must use less water, less energy, less scarce and toxic materials, and 

produce less waste. He introduced the concept of “Energy Manufacturing,” which considers 

energy as a manufactured commodity. Feedstocks, capital, and labor are inputs and energy is the 

output. George also talked about optimizing design for manufacturing. Knowing the type of 

 9 http://www.globalreporting.org/NR/rdonlyres/DDB9A2EA-7715-4E1A-9047-

FD2FA8032762/0/G3_QuickReferenceSheet.pdf
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facility that will be used for manufacturing at design time can help to optimize both the design 

and the manufacturing process. However, this calls for better modeling of the manufacturing 

processes, and better understanding of decision making under uncertainty. He noted that in the 

quest for a definition for sustainability, we must be mindful of Arrow’s impossibility theorem. 

Hazelrigg identified that science and engineering can help to define the impact of manufacturing 

on the environment, estimate the consequences and present opportunities for change, and 

estimate their costs. Hazelrigg felt NIST could make crucial contributions in these areas.

Gordon, NIST, whose presentation was entitled “Standards Conformity and Assessment,”

opened by stating that delivery of services in a supply chain requires uniform understanding 

between the actors in the supply chain. We need standards for achieving this and NIST can

contribute in this area. We also need quality standards and product performance standards in 

many areas, such as body armor covering10

 10 http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/view_pub.cgi?pub_id=33027

, production management and supply chain. Gordon 

noted that globalization has turned standards into an international business, and NIST must play 

crucial roles in both policies and standards. Gordon suggested that we must look to 

industry/private consensus standards first, and government unique standards as the last resource. 

When the toy industry delivered unsafe goods to the retailers, Wal-Mart reacted by doing their 

own testing. However, it is very inefficient for retailers to test themselves. It is important for 

government organizations to take these initiatives forward by working closely with the industry. 

Gordon concluded by saying that green products need a lot of standards work, and expected 

NIST to deliver in this area.

Ram Sriram, NIST, gave an overview of the Sustainable and Life cycle Information-based 

Manufacturing (SLIM) program at NIST. Sriram felt that our personal destiny is our choice, and 

the same can be said about sustainability. When talking about sustainability, Ram felt that we 

must talk in terms of the whole life cycle of the product. The three dimensions of a product life 

cycle are business, process, and product. The SLIM program focuses on the information 

technology aspects associated with these dimensions. The historical view of products has 

centered around geometry – today, we need to focus on other semantic aspects as well, including 

form, function, behavior and constraints. Some of the challenges addressed in the SLIM work are: 

1) evolving STEP to be compliant with OMG and W3C standards; 2) a core product modeling 

framework that supports form, function, and features; 3) organization and harmonization of 

standards; 4) long term knowledge retention; 5) indicators for sustainable manufacturing and 6) 

simulation of manufacturing enterprises. 
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The final presentation of the session was by Kevin Watson from NASA, and entitled “NASA 

Manufacturing Supply Chain Sustainability Issues.” A new executive order released a week 

before this workshop requires NASA to report scope 3 emissions11

4. Industry Perspectives

, which include emissions 

from NASA’s supply chain. Kevin pointed out that DOE has given guidance on the definition of 

quantitative indicators to determine a baseline and measure of progress towards goals. The 

indicators must be meaningful, additive and must have readily available data or use existing data. 

There must be an allocation of goals into the supply chain and integration of supply chain 

contributions to the achievement of these goals. Kevin mentioned that the way forward is in the 

identification of mechanisms for encouraging the prime contractors to accept the defined goals 

and to flow them down through their supply chain, find mechanisms for collaboration with 

contractors, and other government agencies, and provide assistance in achieving the defined 

goals. Kevin concluded by describing some technologies developed at NASA, including a rapid 

metal fabrication process that requires a minimum amount of machining and a green 

manufacturing technology that makes efficient use of feedstock and energy, while producing 

minimal waste.

This session involved participation from industry leaders, focusing on the costs, benefits and 

challenges in incorporating sustainability in the industry. The objectives for this session were 

multifold: identify the major concerns in the industry regarding energy efficiency, waste etc.; get 

an insight into industry practices affecting sustainability factors such as environmental impact 

and social impact; gauge industry response to sustainability directives such as RoHS and 

REACH; and get industry feedback on regulatory directives and standards and the way forward. 

Following Bob Bechtold’s keynote address (described earlier) for this session, presentations were 

given by participants from various industries, including the automotive industry (Ford, GM), 

aerospace industry (GE Aviation), high-tech industry (Lockheed), engineering consulting 

(Rockwell Automation), consumer goods industry (P&G), office products (Xerox), process 

industry (URS Corporation) and home products (Masco Retail Cabinet Group).

 11 GHG (green house gas) Protocol identifies three potential "scopes" for a corporate GHG inventory. Scope 1 

encompasses a company's direct GHG emissions, whether from on-site energy production or other industrial 

activities. Scope 2 accounts for energy that is purchased from off-site (primarily electricity, but can also include 

energy like steam, compressed air). Scope 2 emissions physically occur at the facility where electricity is 

generated. Scope 3 is much broader and can include anything from employee commute, to "upstream" emissions 

embedded in products and processes, to “downstream” emissions associated with recycling, transporting and 

disposing of products. Scope 3 is an optional reporting category that allows for the treatment of all other indirect 

emissions. Scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company, but occur from sources not 

owned or controlled by the company.
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The presentations from the industry participants covered sustainability initiatives taken by the

respective companies, describing steps taken in reducing carbon emissions, improving energy 

efficiency, and reducing waste. Summaries of the individual presentations are described below.

One important observation, acknowledged by all the participants, is that NIST and other 

standards bodies should play a central role in addressing these concerns.

Margaret Lindeman, Lockheed Martin (LM), presented an overview of LM’s Go Green12

program. The main drivers for this program were reducing business risk by reducing dependency 

on natural resources and managing future regulatory expectations, while supporting customer 

objectives on environmental impact reduction, and being a good corporate citizen. Lockheed 

Martin’s objectives for 2012 are to reduce carbon emissions, waste to landfill, and water usage 

by 25 %. Internally developed survey tools are measuring LM’s performance, but the company 

plans to migrate to SAP Carbon Impact13

Korhan Sevenler, Xerox, in his presentation entitled “Environmental Printing and Compliance 

Management at Xerox” described a new printer developed at Xerox that uses cartridge-free solid 

ink to reduce waste by 90 %. Korhan Sevenler identified regulatory compliance pressure, such as 

RoHS and REACH, as the leading reason for companies to take action on material content 

restrictions. He pointed out that Xerox cannot sell their products in Europe without meeting 

regulations like REACH, and this requires coordination and oversight of their supply chain ---

over 2000 suppliers --- to ensure compliance. Xerox uses InSight

. LM’s energy efficiency projects have already yielded 

savings of 37.8 million kWh and $3.3 million in cost avoidance, and the company has reduced 

carbon emissions by over 4,800 metric tons, resulting in savings of more than $500,000. LM

saved 11 million kWh and $1.2 million in operating costs by consolidating 1,700 IT servers. By 

2008, the company had reduced carbon emissions by 3 % (by energy management and lighting 

upgrade), waste to landfill by 9 % (partnering with a vendor to recycle waste, which means that 

less than one percent of the site’s waste will be sent to landfills) and water consumption by 11 %

(by repairing leaks, improving efficiency, recycling process water and innovative landscaping 

projects).

14

 12 Lockheed Martin’s Go Green program: 

software for compliance 

management. Korhan also noted that there is some confusion about the directives coming from 

EU and other organizations, and that organization like NIST can play a significant role in 

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/aboutus/energy_environment/goinggreen.html 13 SAP CARBON IMPACT: Carbon Management Software to Measure & Offset Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 

http://www.sap.com/solutions/sustainability/offerings/carbon-impact/index.epx 14 InSight Environmental Compliance: http://www.ptc.com/products/insight/environmental-compliance
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coordinating and knowledge sharing.

Stephan Biller, General Motors, talked about the energy challenges in automotive 

manufacturing. About 36 % of the energy consumption in manufacturing is in painting. 

Transmission assembly accounts for 19 %, engine 13 %, stamping of sheet metal 12 %, and body 

structure and general assembly 10 % each. Painting is therefore a good candidate for energy 

reduction. Stephan proposed real-time control, better process design, and better equipment 

design as paths to energy savings. Part of the energy consumption in painting may be reduced if 

reentry time (for maintenance purposes) into the painting booth is reduced. GM found that the 

measured safe reentry time is much shorter than originally thought. To identify opportunities 

such as these, we need better data, better standards, and better measurement methods. Stephan

observed that NIST could make valuable contributions in this area. He identified research 

opportunities in creating information models for energy decision-making, determining the level 

of carbon generated in the production of a specific vehicle configuration and methods to 

optimally allocate credits when considering developing remanufacturing supply chains.

Mary Burgoon, Rockwell Automation, gave a presentation entitled “Sustainable Production 

and Supporting Standards.” Rockwell Automation is the leading global provider of industrial 

automation, power control and information solutions products which are used to control 

manufacturing processes. Mary observed that sustainability is a natural extension to Rockwell 

Automation’s business goals of improving cost, quality, and productivity. The company’s

sustainability portfolio addresses not only energy and environmental concerns, but also 

workplace and product safety. Rockwell Automation’s intelligent motor control portfolio 

(PowerFlex 15 and IntelliCENTER 16 ) and software for continuous emissions monitoring 

(Pavillion CEM17) help address energy efficiency and environmental safety needs. The company

also provides pre-engineered safety solutions and safety engineering services to address machine 

safety, process safety and worker protection. Mary pointed out that Rockwell Automation 

actively participates in standards activities for Smart Grid18

Robert Crawford, Proctor & Gamble (P&G), provided an overview of the sustainability 

, energy management, environmental 

standards, and social responsibility standards.

 15 Allen-Bradley PowerFlex family of drives from Rockwell Automation, http://www.ab.com/drives/ 16 IntelliCENTER Software from Allen-Bradley, http://www.ab.com/mvb/intellicenter.html 17 Pavilion8 Software CEM: Pavilion’s Predictive Emissions Monitoring System, 

http://www.pavtech.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=200&Itemid=117

18 Smart Grid: http://www.nist.gov/smartgrid/
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program at P&G. Robert noted that 75 % of their customers are interested in sustainability, but 

they are not willing to pay more for it. P&G’s cost reduction strategies for their products include 

condensed detergent, slimmer diapers, packaging reduction etc. The company created a resource 

conservation measures system. On average, 96 % of all materials are converted to a finished 

product. P&G uses the EPA transport distribution system to minimize traffic transport. 

Todd Rockstroh, GE, reflected on GE Aviation’s perspectives on sustainability. Todd described 

the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) 19

Kathi Futornick, URS Corporation, focused on industrial regulations and standards, in 

particular metrics for sustainable performance. Kathi Futornick noted that environmental 

regulations should go beyond the EU directives and should be the major driver for sustainable 

and global environmental compliance programs. The supply chain is the weakest link for 

compliance management. Most supply chain partners do not see a linkage between the 

environment and their operations, and do not use metric to measure sustainability. The reason 

cited by suppliers is that their contract does not mention sustainability. As an approach to 

compliance, Kathi suggested self-declaration by manufacturers, which can be enforced by 

market surveillance. URS Corporation looks at declarations, performs destructive and nondestructive tests, and develops fishbone diagrams showing what feeds into product quality. Kathi 

described Wal-Mart’s supported Sustainable Product Index (SPI)

as one affordable solution for measuring 

sustainability. This allows GE Aviation to find the most common and most expensive energy 

leaks. Intelligent manufacturing must use upstream information to reduce rework, scrap, and 

variation. Additive fabrication is a GE initiative that reduces raw material and machining 

required to make a part, and simplifying large components and combining multiple small 

components. Todd identified the main challenges for a regulated industry as the need for tools to 

assess carbon impact when changing manufacturing parameters, and tools to assess the risks and 

financial impacts of changing manufacturing processes. The value of information models cannot 

be realized without the capability to use them in real time, and identifying measurement touch 

points. Todd recommended that NIST should work with the industry and other partners in 

developing these information models.

20

 19 OEE: An effective benchmarking tool in making sound decisions, 

program, which has three 

phases: the first phase addresses its supply chain (15 Questions for Suppliers); the second phase 

is life cycle assessment, which involves a comprehensive assessment of raw material production, 

manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal including all transportation and environmental 

impacts; and in the third phase the SPI is displayed on products on the shelf for consumers to see 

http://wcm.nu/OEE/oee.html 20 Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Index: http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/9292.aspx
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and use in their buying decisions. Kathi also listed some other voluntary programs that address 

vendor/supplier requirements and related issues. Finally, Kathi stressed the need for a systems 

approach to sustainability, and widespread industry alignment with regulations as a catalyst for 

achieving sustainability. 

Gahl Berkooz, Ford Motor Company, spoke on the opportunities for information standards in 

sustainability and compliance. Gahl began by listing some of Ford’s achievements: Ford Fusion 

Hybrid, rated best mid-size hybrid sedan in America; and Ford Fiesta ECOnetic, rated UK’s 

greenest family car. The Ford Rouge Complex21

The final presentation of the session was by Denise Van Valkenburg, Masco Retail Cabinet 

Group (MRCG), which was entitled “Integrating Sustainability into Manufacturing Systems.”

Denise pointed out that we need to get past the idea of using regulations as a catalyst. She 

described “Design for the Environment” (DfE) as a method of identifying major environmental 

concerns regarding product design, manufacturing process, direct productive materials, and 

indirect processing materials. The main drivers for this are environmental regulations, green 

product initiatives, and customer demand. DfE ensures continuous environmental improvement 

by a process of review of existing designs and environmental audits and improvement goals. The 

MRCG Manufacturing Management Operating System (MRCG MMOS) is a standardized 

process designed to align goals, drive performance, measure compliance, and stimulate 

continuous improvement from the shop floor up to and including the executive scorecard. The 

in Michigan has one of the world’s largest 

green roofs. Gahl identified the main information challenges to sustainability, namely, the cost of 

regulatory compliance and reporting, and the cost of assessment of the environmental footprint 

of products in transit. Gahl observed that standards could play a significant role in reducing these 

costs. He also noted that regulations were reactive in the past (pollution control), then became 

anticipatory (pollution prevention), and are moving towards high integration and transparency 

(eco-efficiency, environmental cost accounting systems). The challenge for IT is to develop

proactive frameworks that are flexible, decrease compliance costs, and help assess risks. 

Reactive IT frameworks are costly, have redundant information flow, and new systems must be 

built for new regulations. Gahl felt that standards organizations could help industries in

environmental reporting by mapping the regulations to available standards. Another significant 

problem is to build a bridge between information standards and legacy data, to avoid duplication 

and improve risk assessment. Gahl recommended that NIST play a significant role in the 

development of these standards.

 21 The Ford Rouge Complex: http://www.thehenryford.org/rouge/index.aspx
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primary categories it addresses are health and safety, environment, quality, performance, and 

schedule attainment. MRCG MMOS includes total employee involvement; uses structured 

reporting and integrates environmental metric scorecards. Lean Information Control System 

(LINCS)

22

Guidelines for regulations and reporting: While there was a feeling that the regulations 

themselves are not fully developed, there is an urgent need for guidelines on reporting and 

information management related to compliance. Korhan Sevenler highlighted the need for 

coordination and knowledge sharing to cope with the different directives coming from different 

organizations. Todd Rockstroh emphasized the importance of being able to use information 

models in real time to assess risks, while Gahl Berkooz added that we need proactive IT 

, a web based software tool, is used to support it, and the resulting improvements have 

led to substantial reductions in waste and earned awards for MRCG.

Summary of the Industry Perspectives

While each of the above presentations covered the activities of a particular company, many 

common issues were raised that swept across industrial sectors. The most important observations 

are summarized below.

Need for improved standards and regulations: Current sustainability related standards and 

directives are evolving, and more work is needed to produce mature standards. Much of this 

work is related to improving the science behind the standards, and balancing the scientific and 

metric aspects to the associated business aspects. The business impact of such a standard must be 

carefully addressed. For instance, Korhan Sevenler from Xerox noted that while RoHS mentions 

six substances, REACH covers thousands. Mary Burgoon from Rockwell Automation stressed

the importance of machine and electrical safety, and maintaining worker protection and 

productivity. The participants agreed that these directives must be carefully formulated to ensure 

compliance and be of value to the industry. Stephan Biller from General Motors argued for better 

standards that can drive the design and implementation of manufacturing processes. For example, 

well-developed standards and better measurement technologies could lead to reduced down 

times during production. In addition, Denise Van Valkenburg from Masco Retail Cabinet Group 

and Korhan Sevenler claimed that regulations are necessary to drive the industry towards 

sustainable practices. NIST could be one of the primary institutions that could play a leading role 

in developing and championing these standards.

 22 Lean Information Control System, LINCS , http://www.usccg.com/tech/lincs.php
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frameworks that are flexible and will result in reduced compliance costs. Kathi Futornick

illustrated some examples such as Wal-Mart’s Sustainable Product Index. It was observed that 

NIST and other government agencies should play a significant role in taking these initiatives 

forward, while ensuring that there is a fair and level playing field for all businesses.

Compliance management in the supply chain: One of the recurring themes in the presentations 

was compliance management in the supply chain. Korhan Sevenler noted that American 

companies face supply chain disruptions in Europe due to REACH restrictions. Kathi Futornick 

called the supply chain the “weakest link,” noting that most supply chain partners do not see a 

connection between environment and sustainability and their operations. There was a consensus 

on the challenge of managing the supply chain, and the need for standards and practices directly 

addressing compliance in the supply chain. Sevenler suggested that NIST could contribute 

towards the development of such a standard.

5. University Research

The university session provided workshop participants an opportunity to articulate various 

research issues in sustainable manufacturing. Most speakers agreed that sustainable 

manufacturing issues are challenging, and emphasized the necessity of a system approach that 

can synthesize the triple bottom line, life cycle views for metrics, and information systems. Since 

many of the speakers in this session have touched on breadth of research issues, we provide the 

summary according to the broad research topics. 

System approaches: Bert Bras, I.S. Jawahir, and John Sutherland collectively pointed out that 

closed-loop material flow should be considered in making a system more sustainable. A closedloop material flow could be expressed as a process consisting of extracting materials from nature, 

manufacturing, supply chain, and through the 3Rs (reuse, recover, and recycle processes). Closed

loop material flow encourages recovery, reuse, and recycling of materials. I.S. Jawahir expanded 

the closed-loop material flow to 6Rs, viz. redesign, reduce, remanufacture, reuse, recover, and 

recycle processes. 

Bert Bras also discussed the emphasis that industry places on various aspects of the closed loop 

product life cycle. The initial focus is on improving the manufacturing process. After 

manufacturing processes are optimized, the focus goes back to the design stage to improve 

product design. Then, industry efforts on sustainable manufacturing focus on material sourcing 

(extraction), supply chain, and eventually the 3Rs. The following issues were presented in the 
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workshop. 

Manufacturing process analysis: John Sutherland shared lessons from his analysis of a 

machining process. He mentioned that a characterization of a manufacturing process is required 

to measure the environmental impact of the process. For example, different processing 

conditions and alloy types affect the environmental impact of a machining process. In addition, 

he recommended that not only energy consumption but also air quality during production must 

be investigated for the health and safety of workers. 

Sustainable Design: Bert Bras, Karthik Ramani, and John Sutherland reiterated that sustainable 

design is critical because of its downstream impact on the environment. Karthik Ramani

proposed how engineers can use an LCA tool in the conceptual design phase. Engineers want to 

estimate the environmental impacts of their conceptual designs. However, most previous tools 

for sustainable design failed to estimate the environmental impacts of a conceptual design 

because conceptual design data are neither complete nor detailed. Therefore, he proposed a way 

to estimate the environmental impacts of a conceptual design. Karthik Ramani used the 

environmental impact data of existing products. He analyzed the environmental impacts of 

existing products for their functions. Then, he estimated the environmental impacts of a 

conceptual design using the function-impact matrix. The function-impact matrix provides 

estimated impacts of functions and enables engineers to distribute the impacts to components of 

a conceptual design. His research resulted in identifying up to 70 % of conceptual design 

accounts for 70 % of the environmental impacts. Bert Bras and John Sutherland pointed out that 

sustainable design requires creativity and a service-oriented approach. Previous design 

approaches focused on redesign of components to use less material. However, the serviceoriented approach, which involves selling services (e.g., printing services) rather than actual 

products, can be more sustainable than the previous approaches. Bert Bras showed the serviceoriented approach example in the camera industry. He used an LCA example to show that 

providing services (printing services in wholesale) instead of products (PC printers in houses) 

can be better. 

Supply chain analysis: John Sutherland pointed out that the growing priority of sustainability 

would have an impact on suppliers, facility location, size, and distribution. It requires 

determining the environmental impacts of a product by summing impacts of its components and 

materials across the supply chain. Then he raised issues such as modeling supply chain processes, 

information systems for data collection, interoperability, and the need for a compliance 

infrastructure for metrics, standards, and regulations.
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Kincho Law addressed various issues about supply chain process modeling and implementation. 

He recommended an open standards approach. He proposed GreenSCOR, which is a framework

for modeling supplying chain processes. In addition to performance metrics included in the 

Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) framework23, the GreenSCOR includes additional 

metrics for evaluating the environmental footprint. He also suggested using open standards such 

as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 24, Business Process Execution Language 

(BPEL)25, Web Service Definition Language (WSDL)26, and Simple Object Access Protocol 

(SOAP)27

Metrics: Research on sustainability metrics attracted considerable attention in the workshop. 

Most participants showed interest in the semantics of metrics

for supply chain process models and web services. Kincho demonstrated a prototype 

system -- called “SC Collaborator.” The system provides user-interfaces to collect the

environmental footprint of components from participants across the supply chain. Then, the 

system aggregates and calculates those data and reports the total environmental footprint of a 

product. 

Reuse, Recovery, and Recycle: Reuse, recovery, and recycle processes must get more attention

from researchers because these have considerable impacts on sustainability. According to Bert 

John Sutherland, recycling materials requires much less energy than refining raw materials. For 

example, while recycling aluminum requires 0.32 MJ/kg of energy, its refining process requires 

240 MJ/kg. Thus, Bert Bras and John Sutherland emphasized that de-materialization should be a 

very high priority from an energy point of view. 

28

Sustainability metrics described by speakers reflect the triple bottom line. Hong Zhang showed a 

list of ISO standards related to the triple bottom line, and briefly explained about the United 

, computation of metrics, and use 

of metrics for decision-making. Speakers in the university session addressed several of these 

issues. 

 23 Supply Chain Council, SCOR Frameworks, https://www.supply-chain.org, 2009 24 Object Management Group, Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), 

http://www.omg.org/spec/BPML/2.0, 2009 25 Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, Web services business process execution 

language version 2.0 primer, http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/primer/wsbpel-v2.0-primer.pdf, May 2007. 26 World Wide Web Consortium, Web services description language (WSDL) version 2.0, 

http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20-primer, June 2007 27 World Wide Web Consortium, SOAP version 1.2 part1: messaging framework, second edition, W3C 

recommendation, April 2007. 28 Metrics and indicators are used interchangeably here.
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Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Framework (CSD) 29

Sustainability index calculation methods and using metrics for decision support: I.S. Jawahir 

described a methodology for calculating a sustainability index. He used the weighted sum of 

scores between 0-10 for each influencing metrics. If a metric is measurable, and the minimum 

and the maximum of the metric are known, the metric can be converted into a score between 0-

10. If a metric is not measurable, it can be scored between 0-10 based on designers’ experience. 

Although sustainability metrics/indices for different materials/products/scenarios can be 

calculated, it may not be clear that one is better than other. For example, material ‘A’ may be

good for the environment, but it may not be good when assessing the social/economic impacts. 

Meanwhile, material ‘B’ may not be good for the environment, but it may be good for assessing 

the social/economic impacts. However, there is neither a guideline nor an evaluation method to 

make a trade-off between environmental impacts and social/economic impacts. David Ervin and 

Hong Zhang addressed this issue in the workshop. Ervin proposed a monetized approach to 

calculate sustainability indices. The approach monetizes all metrics of the triple bottom line 

using the genuine savings concept, so that it resolves the summation difficulty of different 

metrics and allows substitution between natural capital and other forms. The Genuine Metrics is 

based on Genuine Savings

.” The framework 

provides a classification of sustainability metrics or indicators. It classifies indicators into four 

sustainability aspects such as social, environment, economic, and institutional aspects and 

classifies indicators further into sub-categories for each aspect. 

Jawahir suggested that sustainability indicators should be classified according to the levels of 

measured objects such as product, process, enterprise, and supply chain. He applied the multilevel approach in classifying indicators developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 

30

Hong Zhang pointed out that current LCA techniques have limitations for making trade-offs 

, which focuses on analyzing the economic benefits and costs 

associated with development activities. Genuine Metrics is essentially a method for combining 

financial and environmental data.

 29 The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was established by the UN General 

Assembly in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of United Nations Conference on Environment and 

Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/index.shtml

30 J.Ram Pillarisetti, The World Bank's ‘genuine savings’ measure and sustainability, Ecological Economics, 

Volume 55, Issue 4, 1 December 2005, Pages 599-609
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between environmental protection and both social and economic concerns in the product life 

cycle. Since LCA traditionally does not take into account social and economic impacts, Hong 

Zhang proposed social and economic indicators for LCA. He presented a technique based on the 

principal component analysis (PCA) technique to aggregate sustainability indicators on a variety 

of scales. 

Information systems: Most issues for sustainability information systems are coupled to the 

aforementioned issues. Typical information system issues are data/service interoperability and 

process/information modeling issues across the supply chain. Kincho Law proposed an open 

standards approach for developing an information system, which can collect data across the 

supply chain and report environmental footprints. He used the EU LCA dataset31

6. NGO Research

to calculate 

footprints because it is open to the public and free. 

Bert Bras shared his experiences about sustainability software development for manufacturing 

companies. He presented an extension to the activity-based costing (ABC) approach to assess 

environmental impacts, but he found that it was difficult to apply the ABC approach to the

manufacturing company he worked with because the company had incompatible financial 

systems. 

The Non-Government Organizations (NGO) Research section had participation from various 

NGOs and Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), and industry consortia, focusing on 

various standards development efforts, harmonization of standards, and sustainability reporting 

mechanisms and standards. The speakers were asked to give an update on various standards 

development efforts and progress in implementing these standards in terms of accounting and 

reporting, verification and validation, and product labeling. Currently there are three competing 

standards related to sustainability: 

1. PAS 205032

2. ISO 14000 series of standards, which are developed under ISO TC 207, apply to 

standardization in the field of environmental management systems and tools in support of 

sustainable development

, which is a specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas 

emissions of goods and services

 31 European commission’s joint research centre, ELCD core database version II, 

http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasetArea.vm, 2009. 32 The British Standards Institution, http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/Browse-by-Sector/Energy--Utilities/PAS-2050/
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3. GHG Protocol-Product and Supply Chain Standard developed jointly by World 

Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development 

(WBCSD) to support the public reporting of product level GHG emission inventories for 

all products and services in all market sectors

The above standards need to be harmonized so that industry can implement them in an effective 

manner. 

The session began with a keynote address by Dr. Mark Cohen, Vice President for Research, 

Resources for the Future, whose presentation was summarized in Section 2. This was followed 

by presentations by participants from various SDOs, NGOs, and industry consortia, including the 

American National Standards Institute (ANSI), American Society for Testing and Materials 

(ASTM), World Resource Institute (WRI), National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), 

National Council For Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM), and Cadmus Group. The 

presentations covered standards development efforts, an overview of US standards development 

process, sustainability metrics, and progress in implementing these standards in terms of 

accounting and reporting, verification and validation, and product labeling. 

Pankaj Bhatia, World Resources Institute (WRI), Director of GHG Protocol Initiative, gave 

an update on the product accounting and reporting standard and gave a brief overview on a new 

initiative called Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product and Supply Chain Initiative. The two 

published standards under this initiative are: 1) A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard 

(Corporate Standard), and 2) The GHG Protocol for Project Accounting. (These can be 

downloaded from the following URL: http://www.ghgprotocol.org/standards.) He also mentioned 

they are developing two new standards, namely, Scope 3 (Corporate Value Chain) Accounting 

and Reporting Standard and the Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard (product 

carbon foot printing). The main objectives of the Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting

Standard are to: 

• Support the public reporting of product level GHG emission inventories for all products 

and services in all market sectors

• Support other uses of product GHG information, e.g., internal product reduction 

decisions, and tracking of emissions for internal purposes

• Help users of the standard reduce emissions by making informed decisions about the 

products they manufacture, buy, use, and sell.

Pankaj also stressed that there is a growing demand to compare similar products based on their 
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life cycle GHG emissions. However, there are many technical challenges in ensuring that such 

comparisons are valid. To do so, there is a need for methodological consistency at the product 

category rules (PCR) level. PCRs provide a mechanism for agreeing on specific rules in 

relationship to individual product categories. PCRs are established under ISO 14025:200633

Manish Mehta, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), Executive Director, 

Industry Forums & Technologies Research Corporation, , gave an overview of collaborative 

initiatives for sustainable products manufacturing at NCMS. Specifically, he highlighted the

Sustainable Product Initiative (SPI), a six-year EPA sponsored program (2004-2010) for

developing “best practices,” design criteria, analytical tools, manufacturing capabilities and/or 

recovery techniques for future products, resulting in an enhanced level of environmental 

acceptability and sustainability than products that are currently available. The main target sectors 

are automotive, office furniture, and textiles. As part of this initiative, NCMS has developed a 

Sustainable Product Standards Guide, a collaboratively developed “How-to” document 

addressing multi-attribute standards development processes and pitfalls. NCMS has engaged 

leading organizations pursuing standards-related activities to confirm relevance and 

differentiation of the NCMS-led effort. NCMS is planning to release an advanced “draft” Guide 

with the aim of improving comparability. The environmental performance of products differs 

significantly according to the product categories (where a product category is defined as a group 

of products, which can fulfill equivalent user needs). Hence, it is critical to select a set of 

appropriate indicators and calculation rules. To achieve this objective, Product Category Rules 

(PCR), formerly called Product Specific Requirements (PSR), corresponding to the general EPD 

program requirements are defined. According to ISO 14025, PCR are a set of specific rules, 

requirements, and guidelines for developing Type III environmental declarations for one or more 

product categories. Three different types of environmental labels and declarations are currently 

in use. They include: Type I environmental labeling, Type II self-declared environmental claims, 

and Type III environmental declaration.

Further research work in product carbon foot printing is currently being undertaken. This 

underscores the widespread recognition of the limitations of the previous international standards 

and the need for consistency in the methods used. He also mentioned that the WRI/WBCSD 

announced in July 2008 that they would be collaborating on a product carbon foot-printing 

project, while the International Standards Organization voted in November 2008 to proceed with 

development of a new international standard on product carbon foot-printing (ISO 14067:2008).

 33 http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=38131
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by March 2010. A Wiki has been established to solicit broader input. 

(See http://spi.ncms.org/standards for details.) Manish also described some of the Life Cycle 

Assessment (LCA) projects at NCMS and showed details about Life Cycle Analysis of Volatile 

Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Paints & Coatings, called Coatings Counselor 2.0 LCA.

Gary Kushnier, American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Vice President of 

International Policy, gave an overview of the U.S. approach to standards and conformance, 

leading toward the goal of one standard, one test, one global acceptance and used the following 

notation (1:1:1) to emphasize this point. He pointed out that the main difference between the U.S. 

approach to standardization and that followed in other nations is that the U.S. uses the bottom-up 

approach where users drive standards and conformance activities. Whereas most nations follow 

a top-down approach, in which a centralized body drives standards and conformance activities. 

He also mentioned that the U.S. conformity assessment system, much like the standards system, 

evolved in a decentralized manner. Gray noted that the standards are just good ideas unless 

products, processes, systems, and personnel conform to them. Conformity assessment activities 

are not centrally organized and the approaches vary among sectors. He also gave a very brief 

overview of ANSI initiatives related to sustainability.

James D. Thayer, Cadmus Group, Senior Associate, and Professor, Portland State University,

presented an idea of genuine metrics based on genuine savings. Genuine savings uses a firm’s 

Property, Plant & Equipment (PP&E) as the baseline for its current sustainable base. 

Sustainability is calculated by adjusting this base for investments in, or depletion of, social 

capital and natural capital (resources). To translate the genuine savings model into an analytical 

framework for use at a corporate or operating level, the metrics are linked to the GRI 

sustainability indices. The last step adjusts the PP&E upwards and downwards by the 

appreciation and depreciation costs to find the net impact of sustainability activities. He 

explained the benefits of using genuine metrics. 

Jeffrey Mittelstadt, National Council for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM), Vice 

President, Sustainable Manufacturing, gave an overview of NACFAM’s Sustainability 

Framework Model. The main idea of this model is to develop and provide modeling for business 

decision-making with respect to sustainability. The model is based on existing financial and

environmental metrics and is continuously enhanced through project applications. He also 

mentioned that NACFAM has established a Sustainable Manufacturing Council to advance U.S. 

manufacturers toward sustainable manufacturing. 
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Stephen Mawn, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International E60 

Committee Staff Manager, gave an overview of ASTM and the current activities of E6034

7. Software Solutions

. Many 

ASTM International committees address sustainability, namely, infrastructure/built environment, 

water, agriculture, energy, products, waste, materials, and toxics. ASTM Committee E60 on 

sustainability was formed in 2008 and has more than 500 members. The technical subcommittees 

include the following: E60.01-Buildings and Construction, E60.02-Hospitality, and E60.80-

General Sustainability Standards. The administrative subcommittee consists of the following 

E60.90-Executive, E60.91-Strategic Planning, and E60.95 Student Liaison and Affairs. 

The E60 committee has so far published ten standards. Examples of these include ASTM E2432-

Standard Guide for General Principles of Sustainability Relative to Buildings, and E2114-

Terminology for Sustainability Relative to the Performance of Buildings Draft Standards. 

Stephen also mentioned that there are many sustainability standards under development: nine 

draft standards for sustainability in industry, and six draft standards related to sustainability in 

infrastructure/buildings are under preparation.

The Software Solutions session predominantly focused on the need for tool support for 

sustainable manufacturing, in particular currently available tool support, and the standards 

compliance of the software applications. Companies are becoming increasingly interested in 

adhering to standards/directives such as RoHS and WEEE to compete globally. This calls for a 

systematic approach towards enabling these and other international standards at the institutional 

level as well as at the product level. Currently, there are several initiatives by individual software 

developers working closely with CAD companies to develop software support for environmental 

impact assessment of products, processes, and services. The software tools not only help 

companies assess the impacts of their products but also help them to determine if a product is 

compliant to a particular standard or not. 

John Fox, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC),

35

 34 http://www.astm.org/COMMIT/COMMITTEE/E60.htm 35 http://www.ptc.com/

Director, Product and Market 

Strategy, spoke on “Software Tools and Information Exchange Standards.” He explained the 

importance of complying with sustainability-related product standards that will enable

companies to be competitive in the global markets. He also explained how software could help 

companies assess the compliance of products by analyzing the life cycle of products, and all the 
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components that go inside the product. John Fox described PTC’s ‘Insight’36

Michael J. Zepp, Dassault Systemes

software, which 

could help designers assess whether a particular product is compliant to a certain standard or not. 

The software can process various kinds of data forms to create a database from suppliers, 

material database and legacy databases.

37

Laurie Jansen, Siemens

, Director, Global Market Development Environmental 

Compliance and Sustainability, gave a presentation entitled “Innovation for Eco-Sustainability.”

He indicated that sustainable strategies create new usages and buying criteria for products and 

services. He also spoke about the importance of sustainable design using LCA and he expressed 

that software could be used to assess environmental impact and help designers design sustainable 

products. The importance of regulatory compliance and designing products for those compliant 

to various sustainability regulations could help us achieve eco- sustainability.

38

8. Breakout Sessions 

, focused on Siemens strategy for incorporating sustainability in 

Siemens’ PLM systems. She pointed out that developing sustainable products and processes 

require assessing the products to indicators that fall under environmental, social, and economical 

factors. Laurie called for an integrated approach towards LCA. According to her, sustainability 

could be achieved through the following tools and techniques: plan for sustainability, design for 

sustainability, practice sustainable manufacture, provide sustainable services, examine end of life, 

governance, compliance, and reporting.

Elena Arvanitis, Siemens, ended the session with her talk entitled “Sustainable Product Design 

and Manufacturing at Siemens: Sustainability Metrics and Environmentally Compatible Product 

Design.” (Although her talk should have been a part of the industry session, it was included here 

due to scheduling constraints.) Sustainability is commonly measured as performance along a 

triple bottom line: environmental, social, and economical. Elena spoke about environmental 

performance and internal reporting, corporate responsibility, a corporate environmental 

protection program, and product-related environmental protection. Using examples, she 

explained how, by analyzing the life cycle of products, we could save energy and resources 

during product use and manufacturing. 

The plan and agenda for the breakout sessions were based on a structured brainstorming and 

 36 http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/events/series.jsp?&im_dbkey=89520 37 http://www.3ds.com/ 38 http://www.usa.siemens.com/entry/en/
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team-oriented problem solving process that has been applied successfully in prior NIST-led 

workshops. This process consists of the following two steps: 1) Problem/Opportunity 

Identification, and 2) Analysis and Planning. The Analysis and Planning step can be further 

broken down into: 2.1) Root cause analysis, 2.2) Recommendation Generation and 2.3) Action 

Planning. 

A session facilitator helped to guide/mentor/facilitate the sessions --- but the content, ideas, 

analysis, and recommendations were the group’s responsibility. Each session had a scribe to take 

notes and to prepare the material for the group report. The participants were separated into two 

breakout groups. On the first day (13 October, 2009) of the breakout session, all workshop 

participants contributed to identifying and grouping the “top attributes” pertaining to the 

workshop objectives, to be discussed at length by the breakout groups. On 14 October, 2009, the 

two groups spent most of the time dealing with the identified “top attributes,” followed by 

recommendations. The identified breakout groups 

1. Critical factors driving sustainable manufacturing: The themes discussed in this group were

business case for sustainability, promoting eco-innovation, standards and metrics, tool 

support, promoting reduced energy consumption, and positioning of standards. 

2. Decision support system for sustainable manufacturing: The themes discussed in this group 

were standards harmonization, science of sustainability, greening the supply chain, data 

availability, and needs.

The participants generated recommendations or conclusions by selecting the best ideas or 

combining ideas for the “top attributes” identified. The group completed one form (see below) 

for each recommendation. The group covered as many of the “top attributes” as possible. 
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Figure 2: Recommendation Template

• The Problem or Issue is a statement of what is wrong. 

• The Root Cause is a statement of why the problem exists. Every “why” becomes another 

problem statement. Sometimes you have to ask “why” a number of times to try to get to the 

root cause. The root cause restates the observed problem in a way that lends itself more 

readily to “corrective action planning.” This is like trying to get from the symptoms to a 

disease diagnosis.

• The Recommendation is a high-level plan or strategy to address the root cause of the problem. 

One form is completed for each recommendation. There may be more than one 

recommendation for the same problem, or a team may have time to consider more than one 

problem.

• The Action plan is a specific set of tasks with an identified set of “roles” and (if possible) 

time frame, to implement the recommendation. 

Software

NGO

Academia

Industry

Breakout Team ID

Problem or Issue:

Root Cause:

Recommendation:

Action Plan: Possible steps towards the goal Roles

Government

Software

NGO

Academia

Industry

Breakout Team ID

Problem or Issue:

Root Cause:

Recommendation:

Action Plan: Possible steps towards the goal Roles

Government

NIST Workshop on Sustainable Manufacturing: Metrics, Standards, and Infrastructure, October 13-15 2009, NIST
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Group 1: Critical factors driving sustainable manufacturing 

Group 1 took up the following set of key issues and subtopics for further elaboration, starting 

with this set and identifying the most common themes.

1. Business: how do the following diverse factors affect the business case: compliance, 

economic models, profit, case studies, and new sustainable products?

2. Eco-innovation: How to promote eco-innovation?

3. Metrics: How to develop metrics based on solid models, cases, and good data for model 

validation?

4. Tools: What are the gaps and problems with a methodology such as LCA? What is the 

business case for tools?

5. Energy: How to reduce energy consumption for sustainable growth? 

6. Standards: How should standards be posed so that the positive incentive side drives them?

Multiple factors affecting sustainable products: Businesses need to make decisions based on a 

diverse range of factors when it comes to sustainable manufacturing. To make sound decisions, 

they must consider compliance, economic models, profit, and case studies. 

Problem or issue: 

• How to make sound business decisions when confronted with a variety of sustainability 

factors? 

Root cause:

• Businesses are mainly concerned with profit, sales, and market share. It is difficult to 

compare these factors among different diverse companies and industries.

Recommendation: 

• Develop a better understanding of the drivers and relationships among these factors.

Action plans:

• Reduce costs by analyzing the life cycle of products, establishing a link between 

sustainability and financial performance.

• Develop measurable indices, which can be represented in monetary terms. This must 

assist decision making by comparing profits with cost of being sustainable. Much of the 

responsibility to investigate the science behind these indices and establish a methodology 

for their measurement lies with academia.

• Anticipate regulations and clearly identify the minimum requirements that satisfy 

compliance. NGOs have the responsibility to educate the industry and society at large 

about standards and publish business cases illustrating them.
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• Towards this end, we expect the industry to be transparent and encourage sharing and cooperation. Governments must provide a level playing field for all businesses. 

Promoting eco-innovation: Eco-innovation is the innovative design of products and processes 

that are sustainable or contribute to sustainable development. The quest for sustainable products 

has provided an opportunity to come up with innovative designs for the future. However, such 

designs have so far been risky and under-funded.

Problem or issue: 

• How to promote eco-innovation? 

Root cause: 

• There is a lack of funding for fundamental research in the design of sustainable products. 

Research in this area requires a high amount of resources, and has a high uncertainty.

Recommendation: 

• Be open minded, and learn from previous experiences in Europe.

Action plans:

• Learn a lot about eco-innovation from Europe, where a number of innovative designs 

have been developed in recent years for green and sustainable products.

• Encourage open-mindedness. Develop new business cases for innovative designs, and 

facilitate their acceptance. 

• Increase industry-academia interaction and find avenues for funding for eco-innovation.

Metrics, data models, and validation: There is a need for simple and high level metrics, and 

these need to be supported by good data models. Previous attempts have led to metrics that are 

difficult to estimate, and for which data is not readily available.

Problem or issue: 

• How to develop metrics based on well-defined data models, and where can we get good 

data to validate them? 

Root Cause:

• There is no standard single unit for comparing metrics, making them difficult to compare 

and analyze.

Recommendation: 

• Develop simple high-level metrics.

Action plans:

• We must have a multi-level approach, leading to simple metrics at the highest level. 
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• Ensure that it is easy to compare the metrics to standards.

• Metrics must be normalized with respect to production.

Methodologies in practical use: The focus here is on the use of methodologies such as LCA

(life cycle assessment) when applied to the supply chain. The typical problem is that not all the 

companies in the supply chain can afford to apply the methodologies to their products. For 

example, LCA requires substantial product and process information across the supply chain, and 

small companies in the supply chain may not have enough information or an efficient way to 

access the information. They may not have enough power to control their original equipment 

manufacturers or sub-tier suppliers to get information. 

Problem or issue: 

• What are gaps and problems with a methodology such as LCA? 

Root Cause:

• Not all the companies, especially small companies, in the supply chain can apply the 

methodologies to their products. 

o They may not have enough information.

o They may not have an efficient way to access information. 

o They may not have enough power to control their sub-tier suppliers to get information. 

Recommendation: 

• Develop a simple and transparent methodology for small companies to go through it in a 

short time and less cost. 

• Create a new business model for companies to conduct the methodology voluntarily in 

pursuit of their profits.

Action plans:

For Academia

• Develop transparent methodologies which:

o Can compute sustainability without exposing critical technology of the companies.

o Can build different levels of information and process models in supply chain.

o Includes a role of auditing and validating.

• Develop clear metrics for the methodology. 

For industry

• Create a new business model.

Necessities for reducing energy consumption: Companies hesitate to invest money for 

improved energy efficiency of their manufacturing process (e.g., investment on energy-efficient 
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facilities for replacing legacy facilities). The government needs to have a proper carrot and stick 

approach that encourages companies’ investment. Current methods to evaluate energy 

consumption and the lack of decision-support tools for this were addressed. The evaluation 

methods and decision-support tools are critical for companies to decide their investment. The 

evaluation methods should be able to calculate the environmental impacts, and these evaluation 

methods should consider the energy life cycle and source types. Additionally, there is a need for 

developing energy simulation models and analysis tools for a trade-off analysis between 

investment and environmental impacts. 

Problem or issue:

• How to recognize and promote reducing energy consumption for sustainable growth?

• Why do companies struggle to make a decision to invest money to reduce energy 

consumption?

Root Cause: 

• Current evaluation methods for energy consumption are not sufficient to measure 

environmental impacts. 

• Decision-support tools are necessary for companies to make their decision to invest 

money to reduce energy consumption. 

Recommendation: 

• Develop a carrot and stick approach, which encourages a company to invest money to

reduce the amount of energy consumed.

39

• Create eco-labeling for manufacturing machines.

Action plans:

• Develop evaluation methods for energy consumption which consider:

o Source types of energy.

o Life cycle of energy.

o Depreciation of assets over time with respect to energy spent.

o Develop decision-support tools that can simulate systems that use energy.

o Evaluate the trade-off between investment and environmental impacts.

• Develop best-practices in industry to

o Reduce resource consumption.

o Recycle energy.

Standards: Simple and credible metrics are essential for sustainability standards to hold a strong 

 39 Added by editors
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market position. If a standard includes simple and representative metrics, it will be used by more 

companies (refer to the metrics category in this breakout session summary). In addition to the 

simple metrics issue, sustainability standards need to have brands of conformity associated with 

them. The brand quality of the standards should be maintained. A branded sustainability standard 

can be a positive driver of the market. If the brand is well known in the market, companies will 

invest money to get a certification or award of the standard. 

Problem or issue:

• How should standards be posed in the market so that the positive incentive side drives 

them?

Root Cause:

• Metrics in the standards are too complex for companies to use. 

• Current sustainability standards may not have strong effects on market share. 

Recommendation: 

• (See the recommendation about metrics.)

• Create brand values of sustainability standards.

Action plans:

• (See the action plans in the metrics category.)

• Create brand values of sustainability standards

o Associate awards or certifications of the standards to sustainable products.

• Maintain the brand values of sustainability standards.

A summary of the group deliberations was presented by Karthik Ramani and are provided below 

(the slides can be found on the workshop website given below)

http://www.nist.gov/mel/msid/sustainable_workshop.cfm).

Group 2: Decision support system for sustainable manufacturing

Group 2 considered the following areas: Alignment of sustainability initiatives between 

US/EU/World, at local, state, and federal levels; sustainability product labeling and grading; 

standards, metrics, indicators, and standards’ landscape for the enterprise; greening the supply 

chain; information modeling, semantic technologies, tools to support a systems approach; data 

availability and needs; education and outreach; cost of compliance and reporting; mathematical 

models and science of sustainability; and making a business case for sustainability. In the final 

deliberations, Group 2 focused on the following themes: 1. Harmonization of standards, 2. 

Mathematical models and science of sustainability, 3. Greening the supply chain, and 4. Data 
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availability and needs. 

Harmonization of standards: The current state of the art in sustainability standards is that there 

are too many standards out there, and there is no proper organization or association between 

them. It is difficult for businesses to make sense of the large number of standards, identifying 

which ones are relevant to them, or handle overlapping concerns between different standards. 

Some guidance is needed in choosing the right standards that are of common concern to the 

industry. 

Problem or issue:

• How can we harmonize different standards? How can we identify the most important 

standards?

Root Cause:

• There are too many standards, metrics, and definitions for sustainability. 

Recommendation: 

• Several recommendations were made, including the following:

o Allow the market to decide – let businesses choose what standards they follow.

o The government could choose a set of standards that all businesses must follow.

o The original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) might follow the strictest 

standards. In most cases, this would entail conformance to less demanding 

standards.

Action Plans: 

• The participants of Group 2 agreed that this is a difficult issue to address, and there can 

be no definitive action plan at this stage. Some recommendations were made, and various 

market factors will affect the outcome.

Mathematical models and science of sustainability: Strong mathematical models must support 

decision support systems for sustainable development. The science behind sustainability metrics 

and recommendations must be strongly grounded. 

Problem or issue:

• How can we develop strong mathematical models and scientific studies for sustainability?

Root Cause:

• Need for strong mathematical models for sustainability.

Recommendation: 

• Develop open source models that are generic, extensible, and easy to build and share.
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Action plans:

• Stimulate open source models from research institutions. Industries can play a 

collaborative role by providing test cases.

• Recognize data exchange problems and create exchange protocols. NIST could play the 

role of a central repository for data exchange protocols, and the definition of a data 

exchange specification.

• Separate modeling into various levels of detail.

Data availability and needs: One of the main hindrances to activities such as LCA is the lack 

of readily available data. Several methodologies related to sustainability suffer from a shortage 

of data. It is difficult to conduct research and develop new methodologies without access to data. 

Problem or issue:

• What are the data needs and how can they be satisfied?

Root Cause:

• It is hard to get data due to companies’ privacy policies, and the available data is usually 

inaccurate and error prone. 

Recommendation:

• Create global data repositories.

• Address aggregation and disaggregation of data.

Action plans:

• Identify the stakeholders to address data aggregation and disaggregation problems.

• Address data needs for conformance assessment.

• Collect activity based data (such as water, energy).

• Collect data globally and use global repositories.

Greening the supply chain: A commonly faced problem throughout the industry is 

sustainability analysis and compliance management in the supply chain. Most OEMs find that 

their supply chains are unaware of sustainability standards or do not have any data for 

compliance management. Often, their contracts mention nothing related to sustainability and 

require no action by the supplier to be compliant. This is changing slowly with initiatives by 

businesses such as Wal-Mart. 

Problem or issue:

• How can we ensure that the supply chain is compliant?

Root Cause:
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• Supply chains have no sustainability concerns. 

• Small and medium companies lack supplier information.

Recommendation: 

• Develop reporting standards for suppliers.

• Industry must drive suppliers to be compliant.

Action plans:

• Provide education and training to suppliers in simple terms, stressing on the importance 

of compliance.

• Develop standards for suppliers to report data to OEMs. OEMs can prioritize the scope of 

the data in conformance with standards.

• Industry must drive the suppliers to be conformant with sustainability standards.

• Develop a database of commonly available information on material content, processes etc.

A summary of the group deliberations was presented by Sudarsan Rachuri. The slides can be 

found on the workshop website40

9. Summary

. The following section summarizes the overall outcomes and 

recommendations from the workshop participants.

The primary objective of the workshop was to bring together experts and various stakeholders to 

identify and discuss measurement and standards enablers that positively affect the social, 

economic, environmental, and technological aspects of designing sustainable production 

processes and products. The workshop was well attended with thirty presentations organized into 

five sessions: 1) Government Initiatives; 2) Industry Perspectives; 3) University Research; 4) 

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) research; and 5) Solution Providers’ Views.

The workshop participants identified several challenges faced by the manufacturing industry in 

its pursuit of sustainability goals and provided a set of key recommendations. The major 

challenges identified were as follows:

1. Industry is unable to measure economic, social, and environmental consequences of their 

activities and products accurately during the entire life cycle and across their supply 

chain. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of data traceable to a neutral 

organization. Even if the data were available, industry is finding it difficult to aggregate 

and disaggregate data to compute sustainability metrics.

 40 http://www.mel.nist.gov/msid/conferences/Agenda_SMW.htm
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2. Full life cycle analysis or assessment of products requires new methods to analyze, 

integrate, and aggregate information across hierarchical levels, organizational entities, 

and supply chain participants.

3. Industry lacks neutral and trusted standards and programs to demonstrate, deploy, and 

accredit new sustainable manufacturing practices, guidelines, and methods.

4. There are too many metrics; they need consolidation and harmonization. Also, they need 

to be ‘monetized’ as appropriate.

5. Regulations need to be supported by industry standards (e.g., RoHS and IPC-1752). 

These regulations and standards should be harmonized.

6. Information standards are necessary to enable interoperability among engineering tools, 

business enterprise tools and Life Cycle Assessment tools for an integrated systems 

approach.

Key recommendations from the workshop participants follow, in no particular order. 

Metrics (or indicators): 

• Pursue a multi-level approach for metrics, with simple metrics at the highest level.

• Consolidate and harmonize the diverse set of existing metrics. 

• Monetize metrics as appropriate.

Standards: 

• Support regulations (e.g., RoHS) with industry standards (such as IPC-1752).

• Develop a strategy for the harmonization of many standards and directives that currently 

exist for sustainability. 

• Create brand values for sustainability standards and maintain the brand values. 

Infrastructure: 

• Create a software infrastructure for gathering, analyzing, exchanging, and aggregating 

information for sustainability, including support for global data repositories.

• Develop a simple and transparent methodology for life cycle assessment calculation.

• Develop a science of sustainability, including open source models that are generic, 

extensible, verifiable, and easy to build and share. 

Best Practices: 

• Create a new business model for companies to apply the methodology developed for 

LCA voluntarily, which maximizes profits while minimizing costs.

• Develop best practices for eco-innovation, i.e., design of products and processes that are 

sustainable or contribute to sustainable development.

• Create eco-labeling for manufacturing processes and machines.
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• Develop sustainability reporting standards for suppliers, and provide education and 

training to suppliers in simple terms, stressing the importance of compliance.

• Develop traceable life cycle inventory data to enable life cycle analysis of products, 

processes, and services and to enable verification and validation of life cycle impact

measurements and benchmarking.

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to thank all the presenters, participants, and note takers for their contributions. 

We wish to thank Conrad Bock for providing us with very useful and insightful notes. We also 

thank Dr. Patrick Gallagher, Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Dr. 

Howard Harary, Acting Director, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL/NIST), and Dr.

Belinda L. Collins, Director, Technology Services (TS/NIST) for their support and guidance.

Disclaimer

No approval or endorsement by NIST of any commercial product or service is intended or 

implied. Certain commercial companies, software tools, and services are identified in this report 

to facilitate better understanding. Such identification does not imply recommendation or 

endorsement by NIST nor does it imply those identified are necessarily the best available for the 

purpose.
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Appendix A. Panel on Industrial Perspective on Sustainable Manufacturing and 

Standards41

Gahl Berkooz, Moderator

Panelists: Robert Bechtold (HARBEC Plastics), Korhan Sevenler (Xerox), Kathi Futornick

(URS), Jeff Mittelstadt (NACFAM), Margaret Lindeman (Lockheed Martin), Stephan Biller

(GM), Denise Van Valkenburg (MASCO Retail Group), John Sutherland (Purdue University)

Berkooz: Vijay Srinivasan of NIST said sustainability is where quality was 25 years ago. We 

addressed quality at Ford with change in culture, training, etc, more than a business driver. How 

is it in your company?

Bechtold: People are becoming more receptive, it is getting into the culture. Originally, it was 

my pipe dream, but now it is companywide as we are getting more and more suggestions and 

ideas from my employees and our customers are asking.

Sutherland: We need the leaders to start, and then everyone else will follow eventually.

Lindeman: Agree culture is important and takes a lot of time. Initially we were led by the 

Environmental Health and Safety, but still have a long way to go to think about design and its 

influence, so we have a long way to go. It is a journey.

Mittelstadt: Motivated employees will come up with very creative things. If you empower the 

employees at every single level, and empower them to come up with solutions on their own, they 

will wow you. I believe there is room for a cultural shift to broaden the employee’s ability to 

provide information on a broader level.

Futornick: A lot of potential for cultural shift, but siloed, including my terminology, e.g., lean is 

different from green, etc.

 

 41 The panel discussion is presented in a narrative style to capture all the discussions that happened during the panel 

session. The panel discussion session was not recorded. This report of the panel discussion is a transcription from 

the note takers and hence may not fully reflect the actual statements by the participants completely; however, 

those referenced in the Appendix reviewed and approved the content.
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Berkooz: Question to Lockheed: How do you see training for proposal writing for sustainability?

How do you train your contract writers to write on something like carbon footprint?

Lindeman: Contracts did not ask for sustainability. We (our quality engineers) are starting to 

have discussions with customers and suppliers. We are training our quality engineers them on 

how to write contracts. Initially the drive came internally, but now the reporting and need for 

information from customers is coming outside in.

Van Valkenburg: We need to get away from the silos and make decisions to all the information 

we have. We must take cultural issues with everyone involved rather than separately

Berkooz: Question to Xerox. How are you responding to regulations, and how did standards fit 

in? How much was business pull? In addition, how much was regulation push? To what extent do 

you employ standards to integrate, the opportunities?

Sevenler: Almost 100 % restrictions are coming from regulations. We do have some standards, 

but no real benchmark, and no real way of assessing. I can share details on standards later. 

Answering to a previous question, to make sustainability a priority we need to make 

consequences clear, to facilitate cultural shift. 

Audience (Rachuri): How much was the alignment between engineering and regulations at 

Xerox Corporation?

Sevenler: We were not very aligned, taken somewhat by surprise, given engineering schedule, to 

comply with RoHS. Japanese colleagues, e.g., at Fujitsu, were much more prepared. 

Berkooz: My next question is to GM. You present a compelling vision for activity-based 

allocation. That is a lot of work, what is the incentive? 

Biller: The real question is who is going to pay for this? However, even GM does not have that 

much leverage over suppliers. Our experience with giving requirements to PLM providers is not 

very good. We do not have enough muscle to influence our requirements into their products. 

They will not do it if the rest of the market is not asking. R&D needs to build the prototypes and

give IP to vendors. That is the only thing that worked with UGS.

Audience (Rachuri): Is it not the right time to standardize the protocol for sustainability related 
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information from CAD/PLM systems? Perhaps it should be projected as enabling middleware 

solutions and creating a new market for the solution providers. End users need to ask for 

standards. 

Biller: Totally agree. 

Lindeman: We have always had to customize our tools.

Thayer: Companies are extremely interested in good branding, e.g., in European market. It is 

possible to motivate with branding as well as regulation. 

Lindeman: That works for commercial products, what about others? 

Thayer: Intel Inside is branding, even though it is not direct consumable.

Jansen: Trying to sort out priorities and understand needs of the market place. Better 

sustainability support needs better PLM support. We will present this tomorrow.

Fox: I agree that better sustainability support needs better PLM support and it is number one 

priority for us. From work with Motorola, we found it is hard to modify the big package systems 

to aggregate data. Our strategy is to integrate with those systems to pull data together. Currently 

focused on materials and restricted substances. Regulatory cost is in duplication, and we need 

standards to address this problem.

Brown: Most capability needed already available in PLM systems, but can only deliver the last 

10-15 % with demand. 

Audience (Srini): It is important to note that only PLM vendors are here. ERP systems are 

accounting-oriented, and are equally important in sustainability reporting, but are not represented 

here.

Berkooz: Question to URS. How does the complexity of sustainability regulations compare to 

previous ones? You presented a lot of complexity within your company to get your hands around 

compliance and reporting. How do you think it will take a medium-sized company to comply, 

particularly with the supply chain?
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Futornick: Twenty years ago, companies were just barely complying. It is hard to get them to

consider these issues in the product design. Today many of those companies are still struggling. 

An example of an SME providing to a Northern European car manufacturer, the SME was not 

aware of other than US requirements. They were not aware of any of the EU or Chinese 

requirements. We introduced an Environment Management System (EMS) on steroids rather

rapidly. Unlike in the past, the client had no alternative due to competition. They are beginning to 

see the opportunities of designing and selling new products. It has become a highly competitive 

market for SMEs, and some are now realizing the competitive advantage to know and work with 

the regulations and compliance. They are introducing new product lines, changes to 

manufacturing, and seeing the opportunity.

Van Valkenburg: We do not really have a choice in turning it into an opportunity.

 

Berkooz: Question to Masco. You mentioned coming into an audit deadline. How did you handle 

this? 

Van Valkenburg: The key was focusing attention on integrating regulation into their existing

system, not force fitting regulation. With Environment Management System (EMS), we have just 

added some additional goals, modified functions, but did not completely overhaul it. For 

example, they already had a red cross visual symbol for safety indicators; we just added a green 

globe for sustainability indicators.

 

Audience (Law): How to we work with China, India, etc, on compliance? 

Futornick: No answer yet, but we handhold suppliers through whole process, and with Chinese 

government through consortia. We must make it simple. We take the global requirement and 

synthesize it. We have been working with China for four years, and have not rolled anything out 

yet.

Bechtold: We are advocating the idea of new opportunities, e.g., bringing technology 

geographically closer to consumption. As a small company, we believe true sustainability will 

regain our US manufacturing competitiveness. Merely the transportation costs associated with 

global suppliers is not sustainable

Berkooz: The requirement is that all the Ford's suppliers need to be ISO 14000 compliant.

 
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Sutherland: We require plants to adhere to local rules, but this does not necessarily achieve 

sustainability.

Lindeman: We are drafting global requirements currently.

Mittelstadt: Dow has found that bringing overseas plants to US standards makes them more 

efficient. There is a book written about it recently. 

Audience (Rachuri): NIST wants to know how government, academics, and industry can 

interact, and what you want from government. 

Biller: Government could play a huge role, e.g., identifying regulations and subsidies and their 

timelines to reduce the large cost to companies in tracking all of it. The government can provide 

mechanisms for translating a regulation into an ontology or standardized form. We are currently 

driven more by not knowing what we do not know. We apply the most restrictive rules we could 

find globally. Government could also provide data. Government could help provide better data 

sources, make the data available, and increase collaboration across the agencies. 

Mittelstadt: DOC has information about the subsidies, state-by-state, and see

http://www.dsireusa.org/. 

Lindeman: NIST closely work with academia, which is an important resource for addressing 

difficult problems. 

Sevenler: This workshop has helped me a lot and it will increase the motivation at Xerox. There 

are many focus areas and I suggest trying even smaller breakouts. For example, one might be 

validation of academic models.

Audience (Zhang): If US data were available, would industry use it? 

Biller: Depends on industry. Our commercial customers only care about the fuel consumption, 

whereas military cares about tonnage capacity.

Berkooz: Government can look at incentives for industry if they utilize alternative energy 

sources.
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Appendix B. Workshop Analysis by Vijay Srinivasan, NIST

After surveying thirty large corporations, a recent article in the Harvard Business Review 

declared, “there is no alternative to sustainable development”42. A parallel, more extensive study 

by MIT found that “there is a strong consensus that sustainability is having – and will continue to 

have – a material impact on how companies think and act”43

As the U.S. manufacturing sector sells globally, it also sources globally. It manages a global 

supply chain in all four major phases of a typical product’s life cycle: raw material selection, 

. These dramatic developments owe 

to the fact that the manufacturing sector, represented by these companies, has a significant 

impact on the economy, society, and the environment around the world. Close to home, the U.S. 

manufacturing sector contributes 11 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provides 10 %

of the nation’s workforce with high-paying jobs. It is also the largest consumer of energy (45 %), 

the second largest consumer of mined materials (21 %), a major producer of solid waste (10 

trillion kg per year), and a significant user of hazardous materials – all of which are implicated in 

a growing number of environmental problems. These facts are not lost on the U.S. government. 

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) recently named sustainable manufacturing as one of 

its key performance goals and called upon NIST to provide national assistance to realize this goal.

Recognizing the environmental impact of manufacturing and the products they produce, many 

countries and regions have introduced regulations such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous 

Substances), REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) and 

WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) that restrict the sale of products containing 

hazardous or prohibited substances. Additionally, many companies have introduced consumeroriented labeling to indicate various aspects of sustainability in their products, including Energy 

Star and labels for recycled content and recyclability of products. Some of these labeling are 

mandated by governmental regulations. Even if many of these regulations are local, their 

implications on the manufacturing sector are global – for example, the U.S. manufacturers are 

scrambling to comply with the European regulations because they do not want to be locked out 

of that lucrative market.

 42“Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation,” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2009, pp. 56-64 43 The business of sustainability, MIT Sloan Management Review Special Report, 2009
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product realization, customer use, and material recovery. As the U.S. manufacturers and their 

global suppliers struggle with sustainability issues in the product life cycle, they are discovering 

that they need to measure, control, and manage sustainability in a complex mix of temporal (life 

cycle) and spatial (global supply chain) dimensions. Additionally, they have to respond to the 

impact of their actions on economical, social, and environmental issues in this complex spacetime domain. Business executives often bemoan, “You are only as green as your supply chain”44, 

and compare the global sustainability challenges of today to the ‘total quality management’ 

(TQM) challenges they faced nearly a quarter century ago45

• Sustainability should start with leaders at the top. In addition, bottom-up solutions are 

very useful and powerful (because people want to be part of the solution to an important 

problem).

. They are also concerned about the 

dwindling supply of raw materials and resources (e.g., energy, water), and the sometime 

unfriendly sources of material supply. 

At a recent summit organized by the DOC Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative, representatives 

from a broad spectrum of U.S. industries expressed their frustration over a vast number of 

inadequately defined measures of sustainability, the difficulties with collecting and exchanging 

sustainability information, and difficulties with working across enterprise supply chains to ensure 

meaningful improvements in sustainability and conformance to regulations. 

These concerns were echoed with greater technical depth and clarity in a Sustainable 

Manufacturing workshop hosted by NIST soon afterwards. The NIST workshop attracted 

participants from large and small companies in the U.S. manufacturing sector (GM, Ford, GE, 

Xerox, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Automation, P&G, Siemens, Harbec Plastics, Masco, URS), 

software vendors (Dassault Systems, Siemens PLM, PTC), government (DOC, NIST, NASA, 

NSF), non-governmental organizations (WRI, NCMS, CAMDUS, ANSI, NACFAM, ASTM), 

and academia (Stanford, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Rochester Institute of Technology, University 

of Kentucky, Portland State University, Texas Tech University).

Most of the industrial concerns and lessons learned were summarized in the industrial panel 

convened by the NIST Sustainable Manufacturing Workshop. Some of the messages were:

• Educating suppliers on sustainability is important and is a challenge.

• Regulations drive a lot of engineering action – often non-compliance is the fear that 

drives these actions.

 44 http://www.hbrgreen.org/ 45 “The green conversation”, Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2008, pp: 58-62
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• Branding46

• Is sustainability an opportunity or cost? There was a general agreement that there is no 

choice but to treat it as an opportunity.

is very important for business. Many companies are positioning themselves at 

the forefront of sustainability movement to protect and/or enhance their brands.

In the NIST Sustainable Manufacturing Workshop we found evidence that the more experienced 

manufacturing firms see opportunities in sustainability beyond mere compliance with regulations 

– in fact, they view this as a driver of innovation. They find that by adopting lean manufacturing 

practices they can reduce waste (a sustainability goal) while saving associated costs. They also 

see new market opportunities if they can introduce innovative materials, processes, and products 

to meet the global economic, societal, and environmental sustainability needs.

In the meantime, several non-governmental and standards development organizations are 

actively engaged in proposing and issuing guidelines, standards, and regulations. It was clear at 

the NIST workshop that they need some urgent coordination. Several academics have studied 

these problems and are trying to bring some order and understanding to various sustainability 

practices. It is encouraging to see that the academic community that studies these problems 

includes economists, who are proposing methods to monetize many of the sustainability metrics.

Based on the NIST Sustainable Manufacturing Workshop, the major lessons we learned from the 

U.S. manufacturing industry in their pursuit of sustainability goals can be summarized as follows: 

• Metrics: There are too many metrics; they need consolidation and harmonization. In 

addition, they need to be ‘monetized’ as appropriate.

• Standards: Regulations need to be supported by industry standards (e.g., RoHS and IPC1752). 

• Infrastructure: Software infrastructure is critically needed – and is just emerging – for

gathering, analyzing, exchanging, and aggregating information for sustainability.

 46 The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a 

combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to 

differentiate them from those of other sellers". Branding also means that a particular entity or organization is the 

only one that provides an effective solution to a particular problem.
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Appendix C. AGENDA

(The web links to the available presentations are underlined)

DAY Title Name Affiliation

OCTOBER 13 2009 Conf. Registration

Session Coordinator: 

Howard Harary

Welcome Remarks Howard Harary

Acting Director, 

Manufacturing Engineering 

Laboratory (MEL/NIST) 

Opening Remarks Patrick Gallagher

Director, National Institute 

of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) 

Introductory Remarks Vijay Srinivasan

Chief, Manufacturing 

Systems Integration 

Division (MSID/NIST) 

Workshop Introduction Sudarsan Rachuri Workshop Chair

Break for Tea/Coffee Break for Tea/Coffee Break for Tea/Coffee

Government 

Initiatives:

Session Chair: Vijay 

Srinivasan

Keynote talk 1: The International Trade 

Administration’s Sustainable Manufacturing 

Initiative

Mary Saunders

Assistant Secretary 

Manufacturing and 

Services, International 

Trade Administration 

(ITA)

Thoughts on Manufacturing for Sustainability George Hazelrigg

National Science 

Foundation (NSF)

Standards and Conformity Assessment Gordon Gillerman

Chief of the Standards 

Services Division

Sustainable and Life cycle Information-based 

Manufacturing (SLIM)

Ram Sriram

Group (DPG/NIST) Leader 

Design Process Group

NASA Manufacturing Supply Chain 

Sustainability Issues

Kevin Watson

National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration 

(NASA)

General Discussion

LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH
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Industry Perspectives:

Session Chair: Al 

Jones

Keynote talk 2: The Economic Opportunities 

of Sustainable Manufacturing

Robert Bechtold Harbec Plastics

Lockheed Martin Go Green Program Overview Margaret Lindeman Lockheed Martin

Compliance Management in Xerox Korhan Sevenler Xerox

Energy Challenges in Automotive Manufacturing Stephan Biller General Motors R&D

Sustainable Production at Rockwell Automation Mary Burgoon Rockwell Automation

Overview of the Procter & Gamble Sustainability 

Program (PDF file not available for public 

release) 

Robert Crawford Procter and Gamble (P&G)

GE Aviation Perspectives on Sustainability Todd Rockstroh

General Electric (GE) 

Aviation

Industrial Regulations and Standards - Metrics 

for Sustainable Performance

Kathi Futornick URS Corporation

Standards Opportunity in Sustainable Product 

Development and Manufacturing

Gahl Berkooz Ford Motor Company

Integrating Sustainability into Manufacturing 

Systems 

Denise Van 

Valkenburg

Masco Retail Cabinet 

Group

Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee

Breakout Session Planning Sudarsan Rachuri

OCTOBER 14 2009

University Research:

Session Chair: Nabil 

Nasr

Sustainable Production (PDF pending) Nabil Nasr

Rochester Institute of 

Technology

Sustainability: Challenges for the Manufacturing 

Enterprise

John Sutherland Purdue University

Assessment of Product and Process 

Sustainability: Towards Developing Metrics for 

Sustainable Manufacturing

Ibrahim S Jawahir University of Kentucky

Adapting Open Standards for Sustainable 

Engineering Supply Chain

Kincho Law Stanford University

Sustainable Design and Manufacturing Research 

at Multiple Levels

Bert Brass

Georgia Institute of 

Technology
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Sustainable Manufacturing Metrics and 

Standards: Guiding Theory

David Ervin Portland State University

Sustainable Early Design Methods Karthik Ramani Purdue University

Why Measure Sustainability? -A Comprehensive 

Review and Future Applications

Hong C. Zhang

Texas Tech University

Panel 1: Industrial Perspective on Sustainable 

Manufacturing and Standards

Gahl Berkooz 

(Panel Moderator)

LUNCH LUNCH LUNCH

NGO Research:

Session Chair (s): Jeff 

Mittelstadt, Jae Lee

Keynote talk 3: The Global Standard for 

Sustainability Reporting

Mark Cohen 

Resources for the Future 

(RSFRF)

Developing International Standard on Product 

Life Cycle and Scope 3 Carbon Footprint 

Management - An Overview of the GHG 

Protocol Product and Supply Chain Standards

Pankaj Bhatia

World Resource Institute 

(WRI)

Collaborative Initiatives for Sustainable Products 

Manufacturing

Manish Mehta

National Center for 

Manufacturing Sciences 

(NCMS)

Overview of the United States Standards System Gary W. Kushnier

American National 

Standards Institute (ANSI)

Genuine Metrics Jim Thayer Cadmus Group 

NACFAM Sustainability Framework Model: 

Making Business Decisions for Sustainable 

Manufacturing (PDF pending) 

Jeff Mittelstadt

National Council For 

Advanced Manufacturing 

(NACFAM) 

ASTM Committee E60 on Sustainability Steve Mawn

American Society for 

Testing and Materials 

(ASTM)

Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee

Break-out Discussion David, Shaw Sudarsan, Anantha

OCTOBER 15 2009
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Software Solutions:

Session Chair (s): 

Kevin Lyons, Prabir 

Sarkar

Software Tools and Information Exchange 

Standards

John Fox 

Parametric Technology 

Corporation (PTC)

Innovation for Eco-Sustainability Michael Zepp

Digital Enterprise Lean 

Manufacturing Interactive 

Application (DELMIA) 

Design for Sustainability in Product Life Cycle 

Management

Laurie Jansen Siemens PLM Solutions 

Sustainability Metrics and Environmentally 

Compatible Product Design

Candemir Toklu, 

Elena Arvanitis

Siemens R&D 

Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee Tea/Coffee

Summary from Breakout Sessions

Sudarsan Rachuri Closing Discussion

Ram Sriram Valedictory sessions
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Appendix D. LIST OF ACRONYMS

ANSI American National Standards Institute 

ASTM American Society for Testing and Materials

BPEL Business Process Execution Language

BPMN Business Process Modeling Notation

CAD Computer Aided Design

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CEQ Council on Environmental Quality

CHP Combined Heat and Power

DELMIA Digital Enterprise Lean Manufacturing Interactive Application

DfE Design for the Environment

DOC Department of Commerce

DOD Department of Defense

DOE Department of Energy 

DOJ Department of Justice

DOL Department of Labor 

EMS Environment Management System

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

EU European Union

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GE General Electric 

GM General Motors

GHG Green House Gas

GRI Global Reporting Initiative

ICT Information and Communication Technologies

IPC Institute for Printed Circuits

ISO International Organization for Standardization

ITA International Trade Administration 

IT Information Technology

LCA Life Cycle Assessment 

LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

LM Lockheed Martin

MAS Manufacturing and Services

MEL Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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MRCG Masco Retail Cabinet Group

MSID Manufacturing System Integration Division

NACFAM National Council For Advanced Manufacturing 

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NCMS National Center for Manufacturing Sciences 

NGO Non-Government Organization

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NSB National Science Board

NSF National Science Foundation 

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OEE Overall Equipment Efficiency 

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OMG Object Management Group

P&G Procter & Gamble

PCR Product Category Rules

PLM Product Life cycle Management

PP&E Property, Plant And Equipment

PTC Parametric Technology Corporation 

REACH Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals

RoHS Restriction of Hazardous Substances 

RFF Resources for the Future

SBA Small Business Administration

SCOR Supply Chain Operations Reference

SDO Standards Developing Organizations 

SLIM Sustainable and Life cycle Information-based Manufacturing

SMARTs Sustainable Manufacturing American Regional Tours

SMEs Small and Medium-sized Enterprises 

SMI Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative

SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol

SPI Sustainable Product Initiative

SSD Standards Services Division 

STEP STandard for the Exchange of Product model data

TC (ISO) Technical Committee

TQM Total Quality Management

VA Department of Veterans Affairs

VOC Voice Of Customers
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W3C World Wide Web Consortium

WBCSD World Business Council for Sustainable Development

WEEE Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

WRI World Resources Institute

WSDL Web Service Definition Language