A Few Useful "Lean Green" Terms

As a quick follow up to my immediately previous posting, here is a very short glossary of terms.

Carbon Footprint: The total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event, or product, measured using this formula: carbon footprint = CO2e (GHG released x potency) x volume.

Carbon Dioxide Equivalent: CO2e is a common measure of greenhouse gases which takes into account each gas’ potency relative to carbon dioxide. Methane, for example, is 25 times more potent, nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent, and hydro fluorocarbons are several thousand times more potent than CO2.

The Daly Rules: Three rules of sustainability attributed to Herman E. Daly, former Chief Economist for the World Bank: 1. that renewable resources must not be used at a rate faster than they can regenerate; 2. that non-renewable resources must be used no faster than renewable substitutes can be put into place; 3. pollution and wastes must be emitted no faster than natural systems can absorb them, recycle them, or render them harmless.

Enterprise Carbon Accounting (ECA): A life cycle assessment focused on carbon emissions. A product’s or process’ carbon footprint is aggregated throughout the supply chain.

Greenhouse Gases: The most impactful GHG’s include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and the group which includes hydro chlorofluorocarbon, hydro fluorocarbon, and per fluorocarbon.
                                                       
Kaizen: The Japanese term for improvement; continuing improvement involving everyone from managers to front-line workers. In manufacturing, kaizen relates to finding and eliminating waste in labour, machinery, materials and production methods.

Lean Manufacturing: A philosophy of production emphasizing the minimization of the amount of all resources used in various activities in an enterprise. Costs are reduced through relentless removal of waste and through simplification of all manufacturing and support processes.

Muda: Muda is waste. In lean manufacturing, there are seven categories of waste: overproduction, waiting, transportation, processing, motion, inventory, and scrap.     

Waste Hierarchy: The ranking of various waste management options from most favourable to least favourable vis-à-vis sustainability. The ranked options are as follows: prevention, minimization, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, and disposal.