so there is a lot of innovation going on in the world of cars, computers, and such that consume less power, are manufactured in more environmentally-friendly ways, etc. so people are buying a lot of new products, and when a lot of us are using these new products there is a positive impact on our environmental footprint or whatever you want to call it.
but what about the waste? and even the manufacturing cost of the new products? every time someone buys a new hybrid car, a new computer, a new phone, there is an environmental cost in the form of the materials and resources required to manufacture and sell it.
I want to write some mathematical equations to summarize this issue. in essence, if the reduction in environmental impact created by the use of a new product is outweighed by the environmental impact of the manufacture of the new product and the disposal of the old product, the purchase of the new product is not worth it! and vice-versa, of course.
the question I want to ultimately answer is, is it worth it? there are a lot of factors involved in calculating these things, which I am not interested in getting into quite yet. I just want a framework with which to talk about the question.
these are the factors I see:
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USAGE OF OLD PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF DISPOSAL OF OLD PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USAGE NEW PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF MANUFACTURE OF NEW PRODUCT
what type of math would be good to represent this? I was thinking graphs or something, showing the environmental impact of the usage of the old vs. new products over time. but then how to take into consideration the immediate impact at the time of purchase of the new product and disposal of the old? (I know this isn't so cut and dry, and demand plays a role, and someone letting an old product lay around at their house plays a role, but I'm not interested in getting that nuanced yet.) math people: any ideas?
related and interesting but not worth getting into in this thread: offices (or anywhere else for that matter) going paperless and the environmental impact of the purchase and energy usage of computers vs. that of paper.
but what about the waste? and even the manufacturing cost of the new products? every time someone buys a new hybrid car, a new computer, a new phone, there is an environmental cost in the form of the materials and resources required to manufacture and sell it.
I want to write some mathematical equations to summarize this issue. in essence, if the reduction in environmental impact created by the use of a new product is outweighed by the environmental impact of the manufacture of the new product and the disposal of the old product, the purchase of the new product is not worth it! and vice-versa, of course.
the question I want to ultimately answer is, is it worth it? there are a lot of factors involved in calculating these things, which I am not interested in getting into quite yet. I just want a framework with which to talk about the question.
these are the factors I see:
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USAGE OF OLD PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF DISPOSAL OF OLD PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USAGE NEW PRODUCT
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF MANUFACTURE OF NEW PRODUCT
what type of math would be good to represent this? I was thinking graphs or something, showing the environmental impact of the usage of the old vs. new products over time. but then how to take into consideration the immediate impact at the time of purchase of the new product and disposal of the old? (I know this isn't so cut and dry, and demand plays a role, and someone letting an old product lay around at their house plays a role, but I'm not interested in getting that nuanced yet.) math people: any ideas?
related and interesting but not worth getting into in this thread: offices (or anywhere else for that matter) going paperless and the environmental impact of the purchase and energy usage of computers vs. that of paper.
if you find a good way to measure environmental impact, the rest is simple arithmetic
sure, I just want a way of generalizing it in the form of an equation with variables and such.
the environmental impact of usage could be a function of time and the environmental impact of disposal and manufacture could perhaps be something else. this is where I am unsure.
the environmental impact of usage could be a function of time and the environmental impact of disposal and manufacture could perhaps be something else. this is where I am unsure.
this is a field in economics--it's the intersection of environmental economics and benefit cost analysis.
i tried looking for a good survey paper, but i couldn't find one easily.
i tried looking for a good survey paper, but i couldn't find one easily.
take a look at this
A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services
RS De Groot, MA Wilson, RMJ Boumans - Ecological Economics, 2002
A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services
RS De Groot, MA Wilson, RMJ Boumans - Ecological Economics, 2002
this looks awesome. just downloaded it and read the abstract. will read more later.
PS - thanks.
When I was at a bio-diesel conference a few weeks ago someone had a way of tracking standard diesel's impact through it's carbon footprint. By determining what it would cost to clean the item's carbon footprint, it's impact can be assigned a value for each of the factors. Like for cement that uses standard compositions rather than fly ash. The difference in the pre-consumer recycled material and the standard is the distance associated with the fly ash to the cement production versus the standard cement which has transportation and mixing of the composition to ready it for cement production. Or even compared to on site remixing.
Another example is the carbon footprint of on site remixing:
It requires much more equipment and also has many disadvantages for production causing more waste, but since it is using on site post consumer materials from the wasted building it is considered to have less of a footprint.
Standard mixing has a transportation footprint for all materials and also a factory production footprint.
Gotta run I will be back to add more later.
Another example is the carbon footprint of on site remixing:
It requires much more equipment and also has many disadvantages for production causing more waste, but since it is using on site post consumer materials from the wasted building it is considered to have less of a footprint.
Standard mixing has a transportation footprint for all materials and also a factory production footprint.
Gotta run I will be back to add more later.