Lecture

Circularity & Sustainability in Industry 4.0

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture explores methods and tools for advancing the circularity and sustainability of production systems in the context of Industry 4.0. Dr. Michael Saidani discusses topics such as industrial ecology, sustainable design, life cycle assessment, and digital technologies like machine learning. Through case studies on circular economy practices, the lecture delves into measuring, improving, and monitoring circularity and sustainability performance in production systems.

This video is available exclusively on Mediaspace for a restricted audience. Please log in to MediaSpace to access it if you have the necessary permissions.

Watch on Mediaspace

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Economics

Macroeconomics: Ecological economics

Related concepts (32)

Sustainable design

Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability and also aimed at improving the health and comfort of occupants in a building. Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and well-being of building occupants, thereby improving building performance.

Industrial ecology

Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into products and services which can be bought and sold to meet the needs of humanity. Industrial ecology seeks to quantify the material flows and document the industrial processes that make modern society function.

Life-cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufactured product, environmental impacts are assessed from raw material extraction and processing (cradle), through the product's manufacture, distribution and use, to the recycling or final disposal of the materials composing it (grave).

Deep ecology

Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas. Deep ecology argues that the natural world is a complex of relationships in which the existence of organisms is dependent on the existence of others within ecosystems. It argues that non-vital human interference with or destruction of the natural world poses a threat therefore not only to humans but to all organisms constituting the natural order.

Circular economy

A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. CE aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model.

Related lectures (64)

Sustainable Materials: Lifecycle, Properties, and Design

Explores material lifecycle, properties, sustainability, and design, emphasizing the importance of auditing products for sustainability and discussing the evaluation of consumer products like LEGO.

Circular Economy for Sustainable Composites

Delves into sustainability strategies, the circular economy, and challenges in the composites industry, addressing climate change effects and the role of composites.

Environmental Impact of Building Technologies: Key Insights

Discusses the environmental impact of construction, focusing on lifecycle emissions and sustainable building practices.

Urban Metabolism: Sustainable Resource Management

Delves into urban metabolism, industrial ecology, and sustainable resource management within cities.

Material and Energy Flow Analysis for Resource Management