Page 86 - Solid Waste Analysis and Minimization a Systems Approach

64 BACKGROUND AND FUNDAMENTALS OF SOLID WASTE ANALYSIS AND MINIMIZATION

The research objectives were accomplished by

■ Collecting environmental and financial performance data for 280 European compa-
nies and 430 production sites in six industrial sectors.
■ Conducting a statistical analysis of the environmental performance of companies
and production sites.
■ Developing a benchmarking tool allowing companies to compare their environ-
mental performance to the performance of other European companies that operate
in the same sector.
■ Creating a ranking of European companies according to their performance on key
environmental indicators.

This research involved a regression analysis, which was conducted to identify a
set of core indices that could give a good representation of the overall environ-
mental performance of a firm. The core indices were the amounts of air emissions,
water emissions, waste generation, energy and resource input. Principal component
analysis (PCA), similar to factor analysis, was used to identify which variables sta-
tistically predicted the indices and therefore explain the most variability within
data sets. The variables examined to establish relationships with the indices were
management data such as sales, profits, employee turnover, and environmental cer-
tifications. These variables represented a simplified account of the environmental
performance of a company.
Contributions of the MEPI project were

■ Developed quantitative and standardized indices comparing and evaluating individ-
ual company environmental performance with similar companies.
■ Utilized mathematical modeling to statistically draw conclusions and develop
relationships.
■ Designed as a comprehensive evaluation tool including many factors to rate envi-
ronmental impact, initially including solid waste generation rates.

Drawbacks and limitations of the MEPI project were

■ Focused mostly on management data such as sales, profits, employee turnover, and
environmental certifications to predict rating outputs, not solid waste generation or
other waste outputs.
■ Examined only six, very specific industrial sectors.
■ Conducted only in the United Kingdom.
■ This study placed little emphasis on solid waste generation of companies. More
emphasis was placed on water and air emission of the companies to evaluate envi-
ronmental performance.
■ This study focused on identifying factors to evaluate environmental perform-
ance by establishing correlations. Limited mathematical modeling was applied,
only the variables that were significant were identified, not modeled or analyzed
in depth.