Industrial Energy Management and Sustainability

Book excerpt: Growing environmental concerns caused by increasing consumption of natural resources and pollution need to be addressed. Manufacturing dictates the efficiency with which resource inputs are transformed into economically valuable outputs in the form of products and services. Consequently, it is also responsible for the resulting waste and pollution generated from this transformation process. As a matter of fact, about one-third of the global total energy consumption is associated withmanufacturing activities; thus, achieving higher energy efficiency in this sector has been the focus of research as well as of policy and industrial programmes in recent years. In particular, being able to effectively manage energy and energy-related activities has proved to be a fundamental capability for companies willing to improve their sustainability, as it constitutes the first, critical step to understanding their processes and to identifying and correctly evaluating improvement opportunities. This Special Issue focuses on energy management and sustainability of both manufacturing processes and systems, including methods, practices, tools, applications and experiences.