Selection Criteria for Suitable Indicators for Value Creation Starting with a Look at the Environmental Dimension

This paper presents a set of selection criteria for identifying indicators for sustainable production of the manufacturing industry. Starting from a condensed overview of over 500 general sustainability indicators, such focussing on sustainable production are discussed, including the three dimensions of sustainability and the indicator qualities. Based on the Collaborative Research Centres (CRC) 1026 Framework and with the understanding that manufacturing industries may differ, the authors suggest to use the ABC judgement method - a semi-quantitative systematic method to prioritize indicators based on expert judgement and supporting evidences - to select core and supplemental indicators. Concise questionnaires considering sustainability targets are used and combined with a scoring system to support the decision process. The method can use either top-down indicators (i.e. on the impact level e.g. acidification, climate change) or bottom-up indicators (i.e. on inventory level e.g. energy consumption, recycling rate, volume or weight of solid waste/hazardous waste). Proof of concept of the proposed approach in a life cycle based case study are presented by three demonstration cases focusing on manufacturing sector i.e. elevator, refrigerator and welding. Based on these cases result, we conclude that this is the first step in the right direction to use the ABC method to identify the suitable impact category sets for conducting LCA studies. The three simple questions that transfer selection criteria, i.e. robustness, relevance, effectiveness, practicality and clear and easy to measure, are found operational and appropriate.