SUSTAINABILITY ASSESMENT IN NATURAL RUBBER INDUSTRY: CASE OF A SRI LANAKAN CREPE RUBBER FACTORY

Abstract

Based on a case study in a Sri Lankan crepe rubber mill, this study performs a comprehensive sustainability assessment to uncover the underlying potential of improving the performance of the NR processing sector. This sustainability assessment consists of three steps: 1. quantification of mill`s resource use, economic loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and the impact on workers using material flow analysis (MFA), material flow cost accounting (MFCA), environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), and social life cycle assessment (SLCA). 2. Selection and proposal of improvement options with the help of Pareto and What-if analyses, field interviews, and literature; and 3. Validation of the suggested improvement options via the re-execution of MFA, MFCA, LCA, and SLCA. With the support of this methodical hierarchy, the underlying economic, environmental, and social hotspots in the current manufacturing process can be identified, and moreover, the degree of improvement potential can also be assessed.

Keywords: natural rubber processing, material flow analysis (MFA), material flow cost accounting (MFCA), environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA), social life cycle assessment (SLCA)