Sustainable manufacturing: trends and research challenges

Sustainability is and will be a crucial issue for the present and future generations. The current assumption that\nnatural resources are infinite and that the regenerative capacity of the environment is able to compensate for all\nhuman action is no longer acceptable. Hence, sustainability issues will influence all organisational aspects of the\nhuman life, from the economical, political, social and environmental points of view. The reason is simple: until\nnow, all human activities have been based on the paradigm of unlimited resources and unlimited world’s capacity\nfor regeneration; from now on, the awareness of the termination of this assumption means that all related\nbehavioural models must be changed.…