Ecological loss function: basis for preliminary environmental evaluation and design of techniques

There is a recognition that one of the best ways to reduce waste and pollution towards zero is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. This can be done by focusing on the early aspects of designing products and processes. Ecological loss function which is adapted from Taguchi's quality loss function is developed in this paper to aid in the environmental assessment and design of techniques. Ecological loss function relates the expected monetary losses and the environmental quality (emission) attributes of a system. Based on the calculated expected losses, techniques are ranked to determine the best available one. The proposed function is applied in three fictitious techniques in the primary aluminum industry and provides suggestions as to which of the techniques can be benchmarked for continuous environmental performance improvement. Additionally, this paper reports which emitted substances have to be addressed first during the design improvement phase in the primary aluminum industry.