Evaluating Environmental Performance of Pulp and Paper Manufacturing Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Life-Cycle Assessment |
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Authors: | Ruby Pineda‐Henson Alvin B Culaba Guillermo A Mendoza |
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Abstract: | This article addresses the need for a structured and compre-hensive methodology for assessing the environmental perfor-mance of manufacturing processes. The analytic hierarchy pro-cess (AHP) is used as the basic framework for analyzing environmental impacts and improvement options following a streamlined life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach that is fo-cused on the manufacturing operation. The multicriteria de-cision analysis approach of the AHP is consistent with the LCA concept because the environmental factors can be hierarchi-cally structured into impacts and improvement options. Its po-tential as a valuation tool for impact and improvement assess-ment addresses both qualitative and quantitative issues in environmental decision making. Through application to a pulp and paper manufacturing case study, the viability of the AHP for evaluating environmen-tal impacts and prioritizing process improvement options rela-tive to these impacts is demonstrated. AHP was used to pro-vide a quantitative tool for the design of a set of weighting factors for impact and improvement analyses. |
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Keywords: | analytic hierarchy process (AHP) design for environment (DfE) environmental decision making pulp and paper manufacturing valuation weighting |
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