Environment & Resources
Energy: Renewable
IntentFossil fuels have long been the primary source of energy for the industrialized world. Abundant oil, coal and natural gas reserves have fueled industrial and economic growth throughout the industrialized world. However, the global marketplace, the emergence of South East Asian manufacturing and the escalating per capita energy consumption of consumers across the globe threaten to consume known fossil fuel reserves in a few generations. Additional energy currently supplied through nuclear production can potentially result in catastrophic human and environmental harm, not to mention the generation of long-lived radioactive waste. Energy generated using mechanisms associated with nature such as energy derived from sun, wind, tides, low head hydro, or geothermal heat offer sustainable alternatives to energy from fossil fuels. This category evaluates and rewards products and product systems that utilize or produce energy through sustainable sources at each stage of the product life-cycle.
IdealEnergy consumed or produced throughout the extraction and processing of raw materials, the manufacture and use of the product and the ultimate disposal of the product at end-of-life is derived entirely from sustainable and/or renewable energy sources.
Key MetricsType and quantity of sustainable energy offsets, quantity of sustainably-produced energy produced locally (on-site).
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