Industrial Environmental Management

7Economics of Manufacturing Pollution Prevention: Toward an Environmentally Sustainable Industrial Economy

7.1 Introduction

The failure of many pollution‐prevention programs can be traced to the inability of the engineers and scientists to convince business leadership to change manufacturing processes unfavorable to the environment. Often, this reluctance to change is not because the recommended process improvements were technically unsound, but because the engineering team failed to speak the language of business, that is dollars and cents. The role of economics in pollution prevention is very important, even as important as the ability to identify technologies changes to the process, new and emerging technologies, process and/or product modification, Zero Discharge technologies, technologies for biobased engineered chemicals, products, renewable energy sources, and its associated costs.

Market acceptance of new technologies, products, processes, and services depend upon the complex interplay of cost, physical properties, environmental performance, public policy, cultural prejudices, and other factors. Accurate forecasting is a difficult and time‐consuming activities best left to the experts. However, cost estimating is a valuable skill that allows an engineer to obtain “ballpark” approximation of project costs. The goal is to obtain an estimate that is within ±30% of the actual cost if the enterprise were pursued. Such estimates are relatively easy to develop. Engineers ...