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Explore Material Efficiency and Sustainability with Green Chemistry Metrics

Explore Material Efficiency and Sustainability with Green Chemistry Metrics
Contributors
Julian Silverman
Assistant Professor | Fashion Institute of Technology
A process flow diagram relating feedstocks, products, and wastes in a circular fashion
Summary
This short communication explores using simple sustainability metrics to explore data from mass balances (e.g. amount of products, feedstocks, and wastes). It explores how educators and researchers can easily calculate three metrics (process mass intensity, recycled content, and e-factor) to discuss efficiency and circularity together.

Within the article, there is also a case study exploring how these metrics are applied to papermaking to select the greenest process.

These metrics can be used to explore both production and consumption addressing UN SDG#12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

The article was co-authored by Julian SIlverman (Contributor to GCTLC), Andie Zion and Austin Marshalek.

Citation: Austin Marshalek, Andie Zion, Julian R. Silverman. Relating Sustainability Metrics to Evaluate Circularity and Material Efficiency. Sustainability & Circularity NOW 2025; 02: a25297214.
DOI: 10.1055/a-2529-7214
Keywords
Renewable Feedstocks
Circular Economy

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Moderation state
Published
Object Type
Case studies
Journal articles
Audience
Introductory Undergraduate
Upper/Advanced Undergraduate
Graduate or Professional Training (e.g., Postdoctoral Fellows, Early-Career Professionals)
Published on
Green Chemistry Principles
Waste Prevention
Use of Renewable Feedstocks
U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Responsible Consumption and Production
NGSS Standards, if applicable
These may be adapted to address HS-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity
Learning Goals/Student Objectives
-Calculate sustainability metrics for chemical and material transformations
-Compare and contrast chemical transformations
-Suggest which process is more circular or efficient
Common pedagogies covered
Problem-based learning
Time required (if applicable)
N/A

Submitted by

Julian Silverman
Safety Precautions, Hazards, and Risk Assessment
N/A
Teacher Recommendations or Piloting Data (if available)
To adapt this work, educators should identify at least two reactions or transformations and calculate the metrics to compare the two. It is common that neither will be clearly the best, but rather that one can identify areas of improvement in one or the other for next steps.
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Link to external
Rapid Communication: Relating Sustainability Metrics to Evaluate Circularity an…
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.