SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
DESCASE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Prevention of Pollution and Sustainable development
Environmental challenges increasingly affect the competitiveness of many industries, not only in terms of clean-up and pollution-control costs but also in the marketplace. Many companies are adopting business approaches that improve both their economic and environmental performance. They are doing so largely in response to increasing environmental pressures and the growing recognition that medium-and long-term business success is inextricably linked to resource and environmental constraints. The transformation to a knowledge-based economy - one in which information, new technologies and applications are the agents of growth - creates new opportunities for companies to improve their environmental and business performance.
Over the past two decades, business has made considerable progress in integrating environmental concerns at the operational and technical level. While this has been driven largely by efforts to reduce risks and cut costs associated with discrete environmental pressures and regulations, it also reflects an emerging and growing business environmental ethic. The achievements made in pollution prevention demonstrate a strong business commitment to environmental stewardship and have saved companies millions of dollars as well as contributed to the development of the environmental industry.
A related trend is emerging in which companies are shifting away from shorter-term, discrete, risk-reduction and cost-saving approaches to ones based on the longer-term strategic advantages that stem from continuously pursuing excellence in economic and environmental performance. More and more companies are realizing that the application of business and technology strategies to environmental pressures and sustainable development could in fact translate into profitability. In pushing beyond "greening" to the broader concept of sustainability, these firms are moving toward pollution prevention and product stewardship. Some are advancing even further through long-term strategic planning and investment in products, processes, technologies and approaches that are expected to generate revenue and increase market share.
DESCASE desiccant filters help control pollution and foster sustainable development. For plants, concern to follow environmental certification, DESCASE desiccant filters help to become model environmental citizens by managing beyond compliance. Leading companies are embracing the concept of "eco-efficiency" - that is, producing more valuable products or services using fewer material and energy inputs, and creating less pollution. It is for that reason that, for two decades, many Fortune 500 companies have chosen and standardize DESCASE desiccant filters.
Developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), eco-efficiency is a way of operationalizing sustainable development from a business perspective, and many WBCSD members pursue it as a key competitive strategy. Growing evidence suggests that good eco-efficiency performance contributes to stronger business performance. For example, the UNI Storebrand Scudder Stevens Environmental Value Fund has developed a sustainability index based on the WBCSD elements of eco-efficiency. Its analysis of the world's top 500 companies shows a significant positive correlation between good eco-efficiency performance and superior economic performance as measured by annual rate of return.
WBCSD's Seven Elements of Eco-efficiency
. Reduce the material intensity of goods and services
. Reduce the energy intensity of goods and services
. Reduce toxic dispersion
. Enhance material recyclability
. Maximize the sustainable use of renewable resources
. Extend product durability
. Increase the service intensity of goods and services
The WBCSD maintains that the business benefits associated with eco-efficiency are inherent in the concept itself - that is, by "producing more from less" companies not only minimize environment-related costs but improve overall productivity. Eco-efficiency may also help companies gain market share by compelling them to become more innovative in their business practices and in the goods and services they produce.
Eco-efficiency provides a management framework within which companies can set operational sustainable development goals and select the appropriate mix of tools to achieve them. These tools include science-based environmental risk assessments, pollution prevention, environmental management systems, "green" accounting practices and lifecycle analysis. For example, the emerging importance of climate change as both an environmental and trade issue highlights the need to develop and implement environmentally effective and profitable solutions.
DESCASE desiccant filter can enhance pollution prevention and establish a connection between pollution prevention and the concept of sustainable development. One of the principles of the Code of Environmental Stewardship is that plants shall seek cost-effective ways of reducing the input of raw materials, toxic substances, energy, water and other resources. The code also states that plants shall seek to reduce the generation of waste and noise associated with day today operations.
What is Pollution Prevention?
Pollution prevention is defined as "...the use of processes, practices, material, products or energy that avoid or minimize the creation of pollutants and waste and reduce overall risk to human health or the environment."
Pollution Prevention is achieved, for example, by process redesign or modification, in-process recycling; raw materials substitution, improved maintenance and operations.
Pollution prevention encompasses activities that minimize or eliminate the creation of pollutants and wastes at the source.
Pollution prevention propagates the concept of environmental protection and pre-empts the need for control or remediation.
Pollution prevention is the preferred option because it results in the greatest improvements in environmental quality and resource efficiency over the long term. Industry's environmental thinking has shifted from a "react and cure" or "endofpipe" mode to an "anticipate and prevent" mode. Environmental protection strategies are now driven by a vision of environmentally sustainable economic development. This vision requires a clean, healthy environment and a strong, healthy economy. Preventing the creation of polluants and waste can protect the environment from harm and increase production efficiency. Increasing the efficiency of production, avoiding accidental and operational releases, and reducing the non-productive costs of treatment and disposal, can make plant's economy more efficient and competitive.
Some of the benefits to be realized by plants undertaking pollution prevention initiatives, in the field of lubricated systems, include:
1.Reduced operating costs and extending lubricant and equipment life (optimization for lubricants and mechanical components, reduce shut down and failures)
2. Better protection of the environment and public health (create less polluants, less filter waste, less oils disposal and components replacements)
3. Enhanced corporate image
4. Increased employee safety
5. Reduced risk of criminal and civil liability (protecting employee health by stopping harmful oil fumes generated by lubricated reservoirs)
Pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible. Alternatively, the polluants or wastes should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner.
Process Efficiency Improvements
1. Assess your facility's existing or proposed operations and identify polluants produced.
2. Examine where they are produced and why.
3. Analyze product or process design alternatives and make choices in favor of those that prevent pollution by more efficiently using natural resources and raw materials.
4. Address the changes to be made to reduce the volume and toxicity of wastes, air emissions, wastewater discharges,
Analyze on lubricated systems.
o Mechanical systems (include gearboxes, bearing boxes, hydraulic systems, etc.) need to be lubricated with oil. It uses oil as lubricant (petroleum bas) and energy (electricity).
o Plants will consume and dispose of petroleum products and metallic components.
o Lubricated systems generate oil fumes that contains hydrocarbons, classified as CMR (carcinogen, Mutagenic or with effect on birth). Employees will be exposed to oil fume and manipulate oil.
In the field of lubrication:
When lubricant lose it's technical properties, it is necessary to change it. It then becomes waste and must be treated as such by the user.
Extending lubricant life, therefore, is critically important in controlling the quantity of waste generated by a plant. Elements that may influence a lubricant's life are:
Technical criteria:
o If the lubricant is not well matched with the application, it will lose its efficiency, will increase operating temperature, and will drastically decrease the lubricant life. A bad lubricant choice may decrease its' life by 50 to 70%.
o Using high quality lubricant, in connection with the right mechanical application may reduce maintenance cost by 30 to 60% (depending on the installation type).
o One of the most damaging sources of lubricant contamination is water. Worldwide bearing manufacturers advice to maintain the presence of water in the lubricant of less than 200 PPM. Most customers target a level of no more than 0,1% or 1000 PPM; 5 times the amount prescribed by bearing manufacturers. This can result in a 50% reduction in bearing life.
Failures generated by the presence of water are:
Rust and corrosion are the most obvious effects of water contamination. However, water also lies at the root of vaporous cavitation, hydrogen-induced embrittlement and blistering and fatigue wear in rolling contacts.
Prices criteria:
o When you choose the lubricant just in consideration of the purchase price, frequently you will have premature oil changes and exponential consumption of oil and exponential creation of waste. Due to the cost of used oil treatment and disposal, the final total cost of the lubricant will be greater than the total cost of a high quality lubricant.
o Low cost lubricants generate decreased life in mechanical components and an increase of maintenance and replacement costs.
In the filed of energy consumption:
o Low cost lubricants can provide inadequate lubrication that creates an increase in the mechanical friction, loss in efficiency and an increase in energy consumption.
o High quality lubricants decrease mechanical friction and allows hydraulic pump to do the job with less energy. The energy consumption may decrease by 20%. That represents an emission decrease in carbon dioxide (C02) and in Nitrogen oxide (NOx).
In the field of mechanical components consumption:
Many lubricant reservoirs include a simple vent with no connection to the inline filtration used on the lubricant line. This can be compared to spending a large sum of money on a heating system and temperature control system, for your house, and leaving all of the doors and windows opened. Likewise, diabetes is a disease that can be controlled with insulin; however, it is, in many cases, preventable with proper diet and exercise. This kind of solution generate an over consumption of in line filters that must be replaced and treated as waste products impregnated by hydrocarbons.
Analyse on electrical transformers:
o Many of electrical transformers use a refillable desiccant filters on oil reservoirs. This kind of refillable filter contains chemical substances (desiccant crystals). During normal and annual maintenance procedures, employees are exposed to dust while manipulating these chemical substances. Refillable desiccant filters may contain up to five times the quantity of chemical products contain in non refillable desiccant filters. So refillable desiccant filters may generate 5 time more waste than DES-CASE non refillable filters.
o On the safety data sheet (MSDS) you will read that many (frequently all) of the chemical substances included in this kind of filter (when it is necessary to change desiccant products) are wellknown as CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic or with effects on births). The use of this kind of refillable filters, independently of the kind of desiccant, expose employees to risk for their health.
Material Substitution
1. Use high quality lubricants and oils, they have longer life, consume less energy and reduce waste.
2. Store and manipulate lubricants in a way that protects and preserve them.
3. Replace simple vents or cap or filters with DESCASE desiccant filters. Doing so will protect your mechanical and hydraulic components and decrease costs due to failures, maintenance and shut downs.
4. Allow to your lubricant to do its job right, with the lowest mechanical friction and with the best efficiency that will generate less consumption in terms of in line filters, mechanical components, lubricants and energy.
5. Protect and prevent lubricant reservoirs against condensation and moisture. This will preserve the lubricant's additives and optimize your lubricant life.
6. Stop oil mist generated by lubricant reservoirs, this will protect employees from harmful oil mist exposure.
7. On electrical transformers, replace refillable desiccant filter with the closed and non refillable design of the DESCASE breathers. By this way :
o Employees will be not exposed to inhale dust or to manipulate dangerous chemical substances contain in used desiccant crystals.
o DESCASE desiccant filters contain between two and five time less dangerous chemical substance than a refillable desiccant filter. Therefore, the DESCASE product generate two to 5 time less waste products.
How do DESCASE desiccant filter help industry to reach targets in pollution prevention and sustainable development?
1.By increasing lubricant and mechanical components life:
By stopping solid particles from 0,5 micron and drying air, DESCASE desiccant filters optimize the lubricant and components life.
2. By Decreasing maintenance and failures costs:
Directly and indirectly, the DESCASE desiccant filters decrease replacement frequency for in line filters and lubricants and decrease the risk of failures (90% of failures are generated by a bad or polluted lubricant). In addition, because of the visual change indicator of the DESCASE desiccant filter, customers are immediately informed about a potential failure before having a shut down of the machine.
3. Through Improvement of energy consumption:
Because the DESCASE desiccant filters maintain and optimize the quality of the lubricant, efficiency of systems is optimized and that generate lower energy consumption. The energy consumption may be decreased by 20%.
4. By spending less money in waste treatment.
Because DESCASE desiccant filters customers will replace lubricants, in line filters and mechanical components less frequently they will spend less money in waste treatment. In addition of the financial profits generated for the plant it will help industry to protect environment.
In the field of desiccant filters for electrical transformers, you will generate 5 times less waste of chemical substances by replacing refillable desiccant filters with DES-CASE.
5. By protecting company managers.
DESCASE breathers are manufactured in accordance with European regulation including REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization of Chemical substances). By preventing exposure of employees to harmful chemical substances, DESCASE breathers help prevent risk of criminal and civil liability (by stopping oil fumes generated by lubricated reservoirs and protecting the health of employees).
If we estimate to more than 5 millions tons of oil are used every year, and that there are 120 millions lubricated systems in the world, DESCASE desiccant filters, where they are installed, help to decrease the greenhouse effect and preserve naturals energies.
References:
The WBCSD is a coalition of 120 multinational corporations from 33 countries, representing more than 20 major industrial sectors.
Environmental Protection BranchOntario Region ENVIRONMENT Canada : www.on.ec.gc.ca/epb/fpd
European commission :
europa.eu.int/comm/environnment/chemicals/index.htm
europe.eu.int/comm/enterprise/chemicals/index.htm
Environmental challenges increasingly affect the competitiveness of many industries, not only in terms of clean-up and pollution-control costs but also in the marketplace. Many companies are adopting business approaches that improve both their economic and environmental performance. They are doing so largely in response to increasing environmental pressures and the growing recognition that medium-and long-term business success is inextricably linked to resource and environmental constraints. The transformation to a knowledge-based economy - one in which information, new technologies and applications are the agents of growth - creates new opportunities for companies to improve their environmental and business performance.
Over the past two decades, business has made considerable progress in integrating environmental concerns at the operational and technical level. While this has been driven largely by efforts to reduce risks and cut costs associated with discrete environmental pressures and regulations, it also reflects an emerging and growing business environmental ethic. The achievements made in pollution prevention demonstrate a strong business commitment to environmental stewardship and have saved companies millions of dollars as well as contributed to the development of the environmental industry.
A related trend is emerging in which companies are shifting away from shorter-term, discrete, risk-reduction and cost-saving approaches to ones based on the longer-term strategic advantages that stem from continuously pursuing excellence in economic and environmental performance. More and more companies are realizing that the application of business and technology strategies to environmental pressures and sustainable development could in fact translate into profitability. In pushing beyond "greening" to the broader concept of sustainability, these firms are moving toward pollution prevention and product stewardship. Some are advancing even further through long-term strategic planning and investment in products, processes, technologies and approaches that are expected to generate revenue and increase market share.
DESCASE desiccant filters help control pollution and foster sustainable development. For plants, concern to follow environmental certification, DESCASE desiccant filters help to become model environmental citizens by managing beyond compliance. Leading companies are embracing the concept of "eco-efficiency" - that is, producing more valuable products or services using fewer material and energy inputs, and creating less pollution. It is for that reason that, for two decades, many Fortune 500 companies have chosen and standardize DESCASE desiccant filters.
Developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), eco-efficiency is a way of operationalizing sustainable development from a business perspective, and many WBCSD members pursue it as a key competitive strategy. Growing evidence suggests that good eco-efficiency performance contributes to stronger business performance. For example, the UNI Storebrand Scudder Stevens Environmental Value Fund has developed a sustainability index based on the WBCSD elements of eco-efficiency. Its analysis of the world's top 500 companies shows a significant positive correlation between good eco-efficiency performance and superior economic performance as measured by annual rate of return.
WBCSD's Seven Elements of Eco-efficiency
. Reduce the material intensity of goods and services
. Reduce the energy intensity of goods and services
. Reduce toxic dispersion
. Enhance material recyclability
. Maximize the sustainable use of renewable resources
. Extend product durability
. Increase the service intensity of goods and services
The WBCSD maintains that the business benefits associated with eco-efficiency are inherent in the concept itself - that is, by "producing more from less" companies not only minimize environment-related costs but improve overall productivity. Eco-efficiency may also help companies gain market share by compelling them to become more innovative in their business practices and in the goods and services they produce.
Eco-efficiency provides a management framework within which companies can set operational sustainable development goals and select the appropriate mix of tools to achieve them. These tools include science-based environmental risk assessments, pollution prevention, environmental management systems, "green" accounting practices and lifecycle analysis. For example, the emerging importance of climate change as both an environmental and trade issue highlights the need to develop and implement environmentally effective and profitable solutions.
DESCASE desiccant filter can enhance pollution prevention and establish a connection between pollution prevention and the concept of sustainable development. One of the principles of the Code of Environmental Stewardship is that plants shall seek cost-effective ways of reducing the input of raw materials, toxic substances, energy, water and other resources. The code also states that plants shall seek to reduce the generation of waste and noise associated with day today operations.
What is Pollution Prevention?
Pollution prevention is defined as "...the use of processes, practices, material, products or energy that avoid or minimize the creation of pollutants and waste and reduce overall risk to human health or the environment."
Pollution Prevention is achieved, for example, by process redesign or modification, in-process recycling; raw materials substitution, improved maintenance and operations.
Pollution prevention encompasses activities that minimize or eliminate the creation of pollutants and wastes at the source.
Pollution prevention propagates the concept of environmental protection and pre-empts the need for control or remediation.
Pollution prevention is the preferred option because it results in the greatest improvements in environmental quality and resource efficiency over the long term. Industry's environmental thinking has shifted from a "react and cure" or "endofpipe" mode to an "anticipate and prevent" mode. Environmental protection strategies are now driven by a vision of environmentally sustainable economic development. This vision requires a clean, healthy environment and a strong, healthy economy. Preventing the creation of polluants and waste can protect the environment from harm and increase production efficiency. Increasing the efficiency of production, avoiding accidental and operational releases, and reducing the non-productive costs of treatment and disposal, can make plant's economy more efficient and competitive.
Some of the benefits to be realized by plants undertaking pollution prevention initiatives, in the field of lubricated systems, include:
1.Reduced operating costs and extending lubricant and equipment life (optimization for lubricants and mechanical components, reduce shut down and failures)
2. Better protection of the environment and public health (create less polluants, less filter waste, less oils disposal and components replacements)
3. Enhanced corporate image
4. Increased employee safety
5. Reduced risk of criminal and civil liability (protecting employee health by stopping harmful oil fumes generated by lubricated reservoirs)
Pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible. Alternatively, the polluants or wastes should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner.
Process Efficiency Improvements
1. Assess your facility's existing or proposed operations and identify polluants produced.
2. Examine where they are produced and why.
3. Analyze product or process design alternatives and make choices in favor of those that prevent pollution by more efficiently using natural resources and raw materials.
4. Address the changes to be made to reduce the volume and toxicity of wastes, air emissions, wastewater discharges,
Analyze on lubricated systems.
o Mechanical systems (include gearboxes, bearing boxes, hydraulic systems, etc.) need to be lubricated with oil. It uses oil as lubricant (petroleum bas) and energy (electricity).
o Plants will consume and dispose of petroleum products and metallic components.
o Lubricated systems generate oil fumes that contains hydrocarbons, classified as CMR (carcinogen, Mutagenic or with effect on birth). Employees will be exposed to oil fume and manipulate oil.
In the field of lubrication:
When lubricant lose it's technical properties, it is necessary to change it. It then becomes waste and must be treated as such by the user.
Extending lubricant life, therefore, is critically important in controlling the quantity of waste generated by a plant. Elements that may influence a lubricant's life are:
Technical criteria:
o If the lubricant is not well matched with the application, it will lose its efficiency, will increase operating temperature, and will drastically decrease the lubricant life. A bad lubricant choice may decrease its' life by 50 to 70%.
o Using high quality lubricant, in connection with the right mechanical application may reduce maintenance cost by 30 to 60% (depending on the installation type).
o One of the most damaging sources of lubricant contamination is water. Worldwide bearing manufacturers advice to maintain the presence of water in the lubricant of less than 200 PPM. Most customers target a level of no more than 0,1% or 1000 PPM; 5 times the amount prescribed by bearing manufacturers. This can result in a 50% reduction in bearing life.
Failures generated by the presence of water are:
Rust and corrosion are the most obvious effects of water contamination. However, water also lies at the root of vaporous cavitation, hydrogen-induced embrittlement and blistering and fatigue wear in rolling contacts.
Prices criteria:
o When you choose the lubricant just in consideration of the purchase price, frequently you will have premature oil changes and exponential consumption of oil and exponential creation of waste. Due to the cost of used oil treatment and disposal, the final total cost of the lubricant will be greater than the total cost of a high quality lubricant.
o Low cost lubricants generate decreased life in mechanical components and an increase of maintenance and replacement costs.
In the filed of energy consumption:
o Low cost lubricants can provide inadequate lubrication that creates an increase in the mechanical friction, loss in efficiency and an increase in energy consumption.
o High quality lubricants decrease mechanical friction and allows hydraulic pump to do the job with less energy. The energy consumption may decrease by 20%. That represents an emission decrease in carbon dioxide (C02) and in Nitrogen oxide (NOx).
In the field of mechanical components consumption:
Many lubricant reservoirs include a simple vent with no connection to the inline filtration used on the lubricant line. This can be compared to spending a large sum of money on a heating system and temperature control system, for your house, and leaving all of the doors and windows opened. Likewise, diabetes is a disease that can be controlled with insulin; however, it is, in many cases, preventable with proper diet and exercise. This kind of solution generate an over consumption of in line filters that must be replaced and treated as waste products impregnated by hydrocarbons.
Analyse on electrical transformers:
o Many of electrical transformers use a refillable desiccant filters on oil reservoirs. This kind of refillable filter contains chemical substances (desiccant crystals). During normal and annual maintenance procedures, employees are exposed to dust while manipulating these chemical substances. Refillable desiccant filters may contain up to five times the quantity of chemical products contain in non refillable desiccant filters. So refillable desiccant filters may generate 5 time more waste than DES-CASE non refillable filters.
o On the safety data sheet (MSDS) you will read that many (frequently all) of the chemical substances included in this kind of filter (when it is necessary to change desiccant products) are wellknown as CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic or with effects on births). The use of this kind of refillable filters, independently of the kind of desiccant, expose employees to risk for their health.
Material Substitution
1. Use high quality lubricants and oils, they have longer life, consume less energy and reduce waste.
2. Store and manipulate lubricants in a way that protects and preserve them.
3. Replace simple vents or cap or filters with DESCASE desiccant filters. Doing so will protect your mechanical and hydraulic components and decrease costs due to failures, maintenance and shut downs.
4. Allow to your lubricant to do its job right, with the lowest mechanical friction and with the best efficiency that will generate less consumption in terms of in line filters, mechanical components, lubricants and energy.
5. Protect and prevent lubricant reservoirs against condensation and moisture. This will preserve the lubricant's additives and optimize your lubricant life.
6. Stop oil mist generated by lubricant reservoirs, this will protect employees from harmful oil mist exposure.
7. On electrical transformers, replace refillable desiccant filter with the closed and non refillable design of the DESCASE breathers. By this way :
o Employees will be not exposed to inhale dust or to manipulate dangerous chemical substances contain in used desiccant crystals.
o DESCASE desiccant filters contain between two and five time less dangerous chemical substance than a refillable desiccant filter. Therefore, the DESCASE product generate two to 5 time less waste products.
How do DESCASE desiccant filter help industry to reach targets in pollution prevention and sustainable development?
1.By increasing lubricant and mechanical components life:
By stopping solid particles from 0,5 micron and drying air, DESCASE desiccant filters optimize the lubricant and components life.
2. By Decreasing maintenance and failures costs:
Directly and indirectly, the DESCASE desiccant filters decrease replacement frequency for in line filters and lubricants and decrease the risk of failures (90% of failures are generated by a bad or polluted lubricant). In addition, because of the visual change indicator of the DESCASE desiccant filter, customers are immediately informed about a potential failure before having a shut down of the machine.
3. Through Improvement of energy consumption:
Because the DESCASE desiccant filters maintain and optimize the quality of the lubricant, efficiency of systems is optimized and that generate lower energy consumption. The energy consumption may be decreased by 20%.
4. By spending less money in waste treatment.
Because DESCASE desiccant filters customers will replace lubricants, in line filters and mechanical components less frequently they will spend less money in waste treatment. In addition of the financial profits generated for the plant it will help industry to protect environment.
In the field of desiccant filters for electrical transformers, you will generate 5 times less waste of chemical substances by replacing refillable desiccant filters with DES-CASE.
5. By protecting company managers.
DESCASE breathers are manufactured in accordance with European regulation including REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization of Chemical substances). By preventing exposure of employees to harmful chemical substances, DESCASE breathers help prevent risk of criminal and civil liability (by stopping oil fumes generated by lubricated reservoirs and protecting the health of employees).
If we estimate to more than 5 millions tons of oil are used every year, and that there are 120 millions lubricated systems in the world, DESCASE desiccant filters, where they are installed, help to decrease the greenhouse effect and preserve naturals energies.
References:
The WBCSD is a coalition of 120 multinational corporations from 33 countries, representing more than 20 major industrial sectors.
Environmental Protection BranchOntario Region ENVIRONMENT Canada : www.on.ec.gc.ca/epb/fpd
European commission :
europa.eu.int/comm/environnment/chemicals/index.htm
europe.eu.int/comm/enterprise/chemicals/index.htm
